The US humanitarian policy in the Middle East in promoting “rules-based” world order

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the evolution, current state and prospects for the development of US humanitarian policy in the Middle East in accordance with US regional priorities. It notes that humanitarian policy is a key tool for advancing US foreign policy and economic priorities. While it appears to be a value orientation for external audiences, in fact it relies on intertwined political and military-strategic aspects to advance the American concept of world order. The paper outlines the growing importance of humanitarian policy: from a narrow understanding as a crisis response to defining it as one of the main foreign policy instruments. The interrelation of political and military-strategic factors influencing the development of the US humanitarian policy in the Middle East is revealed. Based on the analysis of the essence and content of the concept of humanitarian policy, the trends in the development of the regional humanitarian policy of the United States for the future are presented. It is concluded that the American economic system and high technologies are attractive to the Middle Eastern audience, but the “rules-based world order” promoted by the United States through the created crises is not so positively perceived by it. The US humanitarian policy in the region is able to adapt to the changing imperatives of the time, but at the moment it is not capable of rethinking the changing international status of the United States in the emerging polycentric system of the world order. The methodological basis of the research is the method of system analysis, as well as the synthesis of information contained in official documents, scientific, reference and periodical literature on the topic under study and their generalization based on personal experience of theoretical and practical work in the field of humanitarian cooperation.