The Arab Uprisings and the P5 Powers

Abstract

The wave of Arab revolts in the Middle East and North Africa since December 2010 is the most significant outbreaks of inter-related uprisings at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Popularly known as the Arab Spring, the Arab Uprisings as it should be more appropriately called, have engulfed the wider international community in the most intense diplomatic wars in the modern era. Global concerns over the outbreak of atrocities and the destabilising effects of the revolts have led to high-level realpolitik pitting two major camps—those who are pushing for international intervention to protect civilian populations led largely by the West and industrialised North versus those who are resisting this push in the name of state sovereignty and the principle of non-interference led mainly by Russia, China and the developing South. For the first time, the Arab world has been openly split, as Arab brethrens are forced to take sides against Arab brethrens, even advocating intervention in Libya and Syria and finding themselves as bedfellows with the Western powers. The revolt of the masses in the Middle East—or West Asia as some would prefer to call the region—is yet to come to an end. But the intense power politics in the UN suggest that the future of the Middle East will be defined more by the Permanent Five than the Arab world itself.