United Arab Republic Research Articles

The fate of the United Arab Republic project: long-awaited emergence and natural destruction of the pan-arab state

The unification betweenEgypt andSyria (1958–1961) not only played an important role in the history of these countries, but also had a significant impact on the development of theArab world in the second half of the twentieth century.Despite its historical relevance, there are almost no detailed studies inRussian historiography that are devoted to the fate of theUnitedArabRepublic (UAR) project.The purpose of this article is to identify the prerequisites for the formation and collapse of theUAR.The main objectives of the study are to reveal the major trends that influenced the course of the historical process inSyria during the period of unification, and to identify the key reasons for the failure of theUARproject.Detailed analysis ofEnglish,Russian andArabic sources allows to draw the following conclusions.The core reasons for the creation of theUARwereNasser’s will to consolidate his leadership position in theArab world and the attempt of theBa’athParty and a number of higherSyrian officers to prevent the brewing civil conflict inSyria and avoid the establishment of communist power there.While implementing political centralization in theUARNasser took several steps to limit the influence of the army, political parties, commercial elite, tribal leaders and trade unions.As a result, former members of theBa’athParty who initiated the unification turned their backs on theEgyptian leader.Finally,Nasser had neither social institutions nor political figures inSyria to rely upon, resulting in the military coup and the collapse of theUAR.

The caged bird sings of freedom: Maya Angelou’s anti-colonial journalism in the United Arab Republic and Ghana, 1961–1965

Abstract At the height of the ‘global 1960s’, hundreds of African Americans moved to Africa in search of a refuge from racism and the opportunity to participate in anti-colonial politics. One of the most prominent figures in this movement was Maya Angelou. Nine years before the publication of her first book, Angelou lived in Egypt, then known as the United Arab Republic, where she worked as a writer, editor, and broadcaster at state-directed media institutions. She continued this work in Ghana, where her journalism and political writing situated the civil rights struggle in the United States within wider campaigns against racism and imperialism. Using previously unexamined documents from Angelou’s personal archive and surviving records of her political writing, this article sheds light on the role of African American activists in global anti-colonial networks and the challenges faced by radical journalists across the decolonizing world.

Resurrezione o rivoluzione? Le reciproche influenze linguistiche e terminologiche tra nasserismo e baathismo alla vigilia della Repubblica Araba Unita (1952-1958)

This paper aims to study the Baathist-Nasserist dialogue occurred in the years preceding the establishment of the United Arab Republic (1952-1958). After providing a historical overview of the evolution of Arab nationalism, this study tries to understand the mutual ideological influences and differences between Baʿathist and Nasserite terminology. In addition, it discusses the effects of such dialogue within the ideological and political context. The research relies on a thorough analysis of Arabic primary sources, from the writings of Baʿath founders to ʿAbd al-Nāṣir’s speeches and writings. Keywords such as “revolution”, “struggle”, “socialism” and “Arabism” will be analyzed and compared. By examining the most relevant conceptual issues from a linguistic and historical perspective, this paper aims to enrich the already existing field of studies about the historical and ideological reassessment of the UAR and, more broadly, of the so called “secular” pan-Arab movements.

Turkish-Israeli relations: ‘the golden years’, 1991–2000

ABSTRACT In 1949, Turkey became the first Muslim country to formally recognize Israel. Initially, relations were limited to trade and transportation; a partnership to counter the United Arab Republic’s pan-Arab influence in the region. Diplomatic relations would cool however, following Israel’s reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. By 1994, Turkey no longer had any illusion that the post-Gulf War Middle East would be a peaceful region. By early 1996, the alliance between Israel and Turkey had reached an all-time high with the signing of an agreement on military cooperation and training, followed by a second one in defence, research and development, and technology transfer. Throughout the second half of the 1990s, the Turkish military continued to oversee foreign and defence policy, which remained firmly tied to the West. The Israeli-Turkish alliance was also viewed as a critical buffer against Syria and Iran, sponsors of terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, with Syria also backing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The strategic connection with Israel was so valued that when former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan mulled rapprochement with Iran, the military forced him to resign, resulting in a more pro-western government.

Why Has Somaliland Not Been Recognised as A Sovereign State?

After the collapse of the Somali state, civil war followed, leading people to turn to their ancestral homeland. Consequently, rudimental local administrations were formed with a provision of becoming part of a decentralised governance system in Somalia. However, one region stood differently by declaring itself a separate state, Somaliland, within the boundaries of the former British Somaliland Protectorate. To overcome the objections of African countries about the session, Somaliland claimed that its declaration of independence in 1991 was supposed to be a dissolution of the union rather than a declaration of separation. This idea follows in the footsteps of other failed federations, such as the United Arab Republic, which included Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961, or the Senegambia Confederation, which existed between Senegal and the Gambia from 1981 to 1989. These failed political unions symbolized the breakup of that union and the restoration of the protectorate's original, pre-1960 borders. (Gordon, 2023) Britain granted Somaliland independence on June 26 1960, and after four days, it joined with the former UN Italian Somaliland Trusteeship Territory to form the Republic of Somalia. Thus, Somaliland's case differed markedly from the other regions as it wanted to stand as a separate nation-state within Africa. Yet, over thirty years have passed, and Somaliland has not been recognised as a sovereign entity. To answer why it happened, we have to look at the historical factors on state formation in Africa and how newly independent countries treated colonially inherited boundaries.

The Social Construction of a ‘Pan-Arabist Hero’: Gamal Abdel Nasser

This article investigates the social construction of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arab identity from a social constructivist theoretical approach. In this sense, it scrutinizes how Nasser came to be constructed as a pan-Arab hero by cleverly manipulating the symbolic politics and establishing socially and politically binding pan-Arab norms and eventually made himself constrained by them. This study also examines social constructivism’s explanatory power as a theoretical model in understanding and explaining Nasser’s political motives and moves by comparing it with that of rationalism. It is argued that Nasser’s power did not come from the economic or military capabilities, as rationalism fails to explain, but his power came from his ability to frame the events within a historical narrative in such a rhetorical way to establish new Arab norms. He was the leading figure in the establishment of United Arab Republic, North Yemen Civil War and The Six-Day War of 1967, despite all were against his and Egypt’s absolute material national interests. This article analyzes the path to nationalist ascent and descent of Nasser’s Arabism by chronologically scrutinizing on the discourses and events in order to examine the power of the given theories in explaining each period.

Cyprus’s relations with Egypt and Israel during the Makarios era: influence of regional disputes, economy, socio-cultural interactions and UN debates

The Makarios era (1960–1977) corresponded with two major regional disputes, with wide implications on international peace and regional politics: the Cyprus issue and the Arab–Israeli conflict. Given that these disputes are still ongoing, this study utilises diverse primary and secondary sources to analyse Cyprus’s relations with Egypt (United Arab Republic) and Israel in the Makarios period, using both political and economic perspectives. The study demonstrates that Cyprus and Egypt’s diplomatic cooperation was built on reciprocal support extended by Nasser towards the Greek Cypriots and Makarios towards Egypt in the Arab–Israeli dispute, especially in international forums such as UN debates. Although Israeli foreign policy did not threaten Cyprus directly, both Cyprus and Egypt considered Turkey a common threat. However, despite the Cypriot government’s pro-Arab stance in the Arab–Israeli conflict, Cyprus had strong relations with both Israel and Egypt concerning the economy, culture, archaeology, medicine, and telecommunications.

Recasting the Global South

Recasting the Global South

THE POSITION OF THE SOVIET UNION ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF KUWAIT IN 1961

Since the end of World War II, the Soviet Union has sought to find a foothold in the Middle East, as it was waiting for the opportunity to penetrate the Middle East, especially the Arab Gulf, which is of international strategic importance. The British were in the region, and at the same time, it did not want to disturb his relations with the United Arab Republic, which supported the independence of Kuwait and rejected Abdul Karim Qasim's position on Kuwait's annexation of Iraq. This research attempts to study the Soviet policy towards the independence of Kuwait and how the Soviet Union reconciled its good relationship with Iraq and Egypt, and its rejection of Kuwait's distinguished relations with Britain. Key words: Kuwait, The Soviet Union, Kuwait and Iraq, The Independence of Kuwait.

Mahathir Mohamad. The leader of Malaysia, who did not betray the people for the sake of enrichment

The breakthrough from the third world to the first, made by Malaysia, is associated with the name of Mohathir Mohamad (born in 1925). In the same way as behind the powerful economic growth and modernization of South Korea stood Pak Chung Hee, Singapore - Lee Kuan Yew, the United Arab Republic - Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the People's Republic of China - Deng Xiaoping. These countries were brought to prosperity and prosperity not by puppets of the West (USA), but by national leaders.

1961~1963년 군사정부의 중립국 외교의 전개와 성격

This research is a study on the diplomacy of South Korea towards ‘neutral countries’ from 1961 to 1963. The military government, established as a result of the 5.16 military coup, advocated active neutral diplomacy. The military government strongly suppressed domestic neutralism, while externally, it took a strategy of separation at home and abroad to improve relations with neutral countries. In addition, as a strategy of diplomacy for neutral countries, the military government has promoted an anti-communist victory based on economic development.<BR>Such active diplomacy toward netural countries caused diplomatic competition with North Korea. The United Arab Republic, which had established consular relations at the same time, first advanced into ambassadorial relations with North Korea. As a result, the military government had to suffer a humiliation of maintaining consular relations without coming up with any other countermeasures.<BR>Now, 60 years after the outbreak of the 5·16 military coup, it is time to reflect on the historical legacy of developmentalism and the hostility and violence left by the military government.

United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and the Intervention in the Yemeni Civil War (1963-1964)

"The tumultuous 1960s brought a multitude of inter- and intrastatal conflicts in international relations. Some of them derived from extinguished disputes as a subsequent effect of the decolonisation, while others were motivated by the aggressive intentions of states to conquer other states. An example was the Yemeni Civil War (1962–1970) which came in the spotlight of the international community because two neighbours countries, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Republic involved in the internal fight. The external involvement motivated and set the scene for the United Nations Organization to intervene and mobilise a peacekeeping operation which had to observe the withdrawal of the third parties and eventually facilitate the peace process. The study aims to analyze the UN peacekeeping mechanism, which is seen as a compromise created by the bipolarization of the international system that prevented the organization from fulfilling its task of keeping the international peace. Through the case study on the Yemeni peacekeeping operation which operated from 1963 to 1964, one could learn about how UN functioned during the Cold War years, what were the underlining processes supporting the authorization process of such an operation, about the contribution of the Secretary General to the functioning of the peacekeeping mechanism and lastly how the events in Yemen underlined the impact that the interests of involved actors had on the fulfillment of the given mandate of the UN operations."

The Death of Colonel ʿAdnān al-Mālkī in 1955 and the Intra-Sunni Balance of Power in Syria

ABSTRACT This article reconsiders the simple minority-majority dichotomy that surrounded the death of Colonel ʿAdnān al-Mālkī who was a Sunni killed by an ʿAlawi in 1955. Nevertheless, it was not the ʿAlawi minority, or other non-Sunni minorities that drove the subsequent power struggle that arose in Syria. Rather what occurred was a battle for control of the identity, direction, and economic organization of the young state contested by two alternative networks of Sunni elites, namely ʿulemaʾ (religious-scholarly) families, and ʿaskerī (military-administrative) families, both of whose social origins can be found in Ottoman history. This study argues that al-Mālkī’s assassination temporarily weakened the Syrian ʿulemaʾ families’ position in the civil-military balance that undergirded Syrian society and allowed the ʿaskerī class to gain the initiative. Such a change is evidenced by Damascus’s turn toward the Soviet Union for arms as well as other state-building materials. The inability of these two competing internal networks to resolve their differences throughout the Cold War resulted in political dysfunction throughout the Cold War era. The ascent of Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasser to power with the creation of the United Arab Republic in 1958 proved a temporary abeyance in this struggle, but a final resolution came only much later when Hafez al-Assad became leader in 1970.

Building a Model While Debunking Another: The Rivalry of Arab Nationalism between ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim and Gamal Abdel Nasser

The decade of 1950–60 was unique in terms of the establishment of a supranational Arab union, known as the United Arab Republic. However, this union was ill born due to certain frictions between Arab states in the Middle East. There were divergences between the visions of Arab Nationalism for each state and this caused a troubling process for this supranational initiative. This study considers these frictions as the main reasons behind why the UAR was an unsuccessful attempt and further why the Arab Nationalism dissolved afterwards. The divergence between two competing visions of Arab Nationalism is symbolized through the competition between Iraqi prime minister Abd al-Karim Qasim and Egyptian president Gamal Nasser. The domestic, regional and global circumstances for these two countries and their leaders are analyzed in order to illustrate how these frictions became a reality and divided the Arab stance.

Arab Nationalist Constitutions of 1958 in the Context of the Cold War: the cases of the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic, the Iraqi-Jordanian Arab Union, and the Republic of Iraq

Unlike many works on constitutions, this article focuses on non-legal aspects of the framing of Arab constitutions. This emphasis on the social and political in lieu of purely legal aspects of constitution-making allows us to place constitutions in a wider regional and not merely national context, and interpret them from a not strictly legal perspective. By adopting such an approach, historians can explain the extent to which the turbulence in the Arab world in the 1950s as a result of Arab nationalism, the creation of the state of Israel, the rivalry between revolutionary and monarchic Arab regimes, and the Cold War affected three Arab organic laws in the revolutionary year of 1958. This focus on contemporary social and political developments enables scholars to explain why the three different fundamental laws examined here reflect three different interpretations of Arab nationalism.

The CMEA and the Third World in the Second Half of the 1950s. Based on Documents from the Archive of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

For the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the second half of the 1950s was the time of gradual transition to specialization of production, harmonization of economic development plans, complication of the structure of the organization. At the same time, the active penetration of the people's democracies into the market of third world states began. The article, based on documents from the archive of the French Foreign Ministry, shows the view of Western Europe at the beginning of the external expansion of the CMEA. The figures given in the article on cooperation between Moscow and its allies with several dozen developing states allow us to draw a conclusion about the real scale of the CMEA assistance to the third world. The issuance of loans at very low interest rates, assistance in the construction of large industrial facilities, the dispatch of highly qualified personnel — all these played an important role in the industrialization of a number of third world countries. Compared to the United States, the countries of the socialist camp spent less funds and provided support to a smaller number of states, but even with more limited capabilities, the CMEA was able to win competition with the West in some countries, primarily in the United Arab Republic and India. Moreover, the French documents show that the CMEA acted like a real bloc, in which not only Moscow, but also its allies in the socialist camp actively participated in the development of cooperation with developing countries (for example, Eastern Europe countries granted 40 % of the CMEA loans to third world countries). On the whole, even despite the lack of an integrated approach in the CMEA to the development of cooperation with third world countries, France took the external expansion of the CMEA very seriously and believed that real rivalry between East and West would unfold exactly in the third world.

Eutogenes frater Volgin (Acari, Cheyletidae): A New Member of the Acarofauna in Turkey

Three female mite (Acari) specimens collected from&#x0D; litter and soil under silverberry (Elaeagnus&#x0D; angustifolia) in Elazığ province, Turkey were identified as Eutogenes frater Volgin (Cheyletidae). This species shows distinct differences&#x0D; from other species in the genus, namely dorsal idiosoma covered by two shields,&#x0D; surface of the shields with papilliform granules, all dorsal setae fan-like,&#x0D; propodosomal shield bearing 10 pairs of setae, hysterosoma with 12 pairs of&#x0D; dorsal body setae. Eutogenes frater has been given before&#x0D; from the type locality, Bulgaria, and was later recorded from Algeria, Hungary&#x0D; and Iran. This species has also been known from Giza, the north of&#x0D; the Nile Delta (Egypt) and Burg Al Arab (United Arab Republic). Description of this species with its&#x0D; phase contrast and differential interference contrast (DIC) micrographs&#x0D; are provided here. This is the first reported occurrence of the genus Eutogenes Baker from&#x0D; Turkey.

Two Days of the “Six Day War”

The article is based on the information of the author, who as officer of the 10th Main Directorate of the Soviet General Staff spent two days in Egypt during the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab states. It briefly analyzes the history of Moscow’s relations with Cairo after the 1952 revolution, particularly in the military field, and notes that the Soviet military leadership overestimated the combat capability of the Armed Forces of the United Arab Republic, as the Arab Republic of Egypt was then called. Although by June 1967 the situation in the Middle East was rather tense, the war was not expected by Moscow on the day Israel attacked Egypt, and its quick success, especially the defeat of the Egyptian Air Force, was a shock to Cairo and Moscow. The article describes the situation in Cairo on June 9 and 10, the Egyptians’ reaction to the resignation of President Gamal Abdel Nasser; speaks of the negative attitude of the “Arab street” to the Russians, which arose in those days, primarily because of the false information of the Egyptian authorities, who argued that unlike the USSR, the United States and Great Britain took part in the war by bombing objects in Egypt.

Domestic Politics as an Explanation for Voluntary Union: The Missing Case of the United Arab Republic

What are the causes of voluntary union in world politics? In other words, why would two states decide to freely surrender their individual autonomy and merge into one state? In a sweeping new study that emanates from the realist tradition, Joseph Parent claims to have examined all the relevant historical cases and found that the unmistakable cause of voluntary union between two states is “optimally intense, indefinite, and symmetrically shared” external security threats. However, this paper will demonstrate that Parent has mistakenly omitted valid historical cases of voluntary unions from his sample and, in the process, biased his findings. By examining one of these wrongly excluded cases in-depth, that of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria, this paper will demonstrate that internal security threats and personal political incentives can also be causes of voluntary union.

Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962–68

Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962–68