Sign-In
Cart
Syria and Lebanon: Regional Powder Keg
Paperback
Series: Geopolitics
General Middle Eastern HistoryInternational RelationsOther Wars
Publisher: Global East-West Ltd
Published: Aug 19 2025
Pages: 338
Weight: 0.86
Height: 0.76 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Syria and Lebanon: Regional Powder Keg
Syria and Lebanon share deeply intertwined histories shaped by alliances, conflicts, and a common cultural heritage. Today, they stand at the epicentre of one of the Middle East's most volatile landscapes, where fragile political orders threaten to ignite far wider regional crises.
This essay explores how instability in these two nations acts as a microcosm of the broader Middle Eastern struggle, revealing the interplay of geopolitical rivalries, sectarian divides, and historical grievances. Syria's brutal civil war-beginning in 2011-has drawn in Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, Israel, and Gulf states, turning the country into a dangerous arena for great power competition. The Assad regime's survival, reliant on foreign backing, has cemented new regional fault lines.
Lebanon's fragile sectarian power-sharing system faces unprecedented strain from economic meltdown, governance collapse, and the aftermath of the 2020 Beirut port explosion. Non-state actors, particularly Hezbollah, have filled the vacuum-blending political influence with armed capabilities. Hezbollah's alignment with Iran and tense rivalry with Israel creates one of the region's most dangerous flashpoints, with even limited clashes risking escalation into multi-front war involving external powers.
Refugee pressures-Lebanon hosts the world's highest per capita refugee population-fuel social and political instability. Shared water resources with neighbours such as Turkey, Israel, and Jordan add further stress, with climate change worsening scarcity and competition. Economic breakdowns in both countries ripple across the Eastern Mediterranean, while Sunni-Shia divides threaten to spread conflict to Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, and beyond.
By analysing the internal, regional, and international dynamics at play, this work provides critical insight into why Syria and Lebanon remain a regional powder keg-and offers scenarios for the future, from escalation to potential paths toward stability through diplomacy, reconstruction, and governance reform.
Also from
Team, Gew Reports &. Analyses
Water Security In The Middle East: Scarcity, Conflict, And Cooperation
Team, Gew Reports &. Analyses
Paperback
The Maritime Security Dilemma In The Gulf: Balancing Strait of Hormuz Protection with Regional Autonomy
Team, Gew Reports &. Analyses
Paperback
The Sabotage: How the USA Planned to Undermine China's Belt and Road Project
Team, Gew Reports &. Analyses
Paperback
La résistance française contre l'occupation nazie
Gew, Equipe Rapports Et Analyses Du
Team, Gew Reports &. Analyses
(Editor), Hichem Karoui
Paperback
Also in
General Middle Eastern History
The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace
Moses, Paul
Hardcover
The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East
Ghattas, Kim
Hardcover
The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
Crist, David
Paperback
A Moon Will Rise from the Darkness: Reports on Israel's Genocide in Palestine
Albanese, Francesca
Paperback
Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World
Marozzi, Justin
Hardcover
Shallow Blue Empire: A History of Pearl Diving in the Indian Ocean, 1850-1930
Fernando, Tamara Surani
Hardcover
The Sun of Knowledge (Shams al-Ma'arif): An Arabic Grimoire in Selected Translation
Al-Buni, Ahmad Ibn 'Ali
Paperback
Embargo: The 1973 Oil Crisis That Changed the World (and What We Can Learn from It Now)
Delves Broughton, Philip
Hardcover
The Great Introduction to the Science of the Judgments of the Stars
Abu-Ma Shar Jafar Ibn-Muhammad, David
Paperback
The End of Empire in the Gulf: From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates
Bradshaw, Tancred
Paperback
Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Anderson, Scott
Paperback
Subverting Syria: How CIA Contra Gangs and NGO's Manufacture, Mislabel and Market Mass Murder
Bowie, Nile
Cartalucci, Tony
Paperback
The Book of Hadith: Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad from the Mishkat Al Masabih
Eaton, Charles Le Gai
Paperback
The Battle of Yarmuk: An Assessment of the Immediate Factors behind the Islamic Conquests
Ibrahim, Raymond
Paperback
Rock Art and Its Legacy in Myth and Art: Petroglyphs from Eurasia, Arabia and Northern Africa
Weber, Therese
Baumer, Christoph
Hardcover
In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
Holland, Tom
Paperback
Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East
Khalidi, Rashid
Paperback
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah's War Against America
Burton, Fred
Katz, Samuel M.
Paperback
The Middle East Fault Lines: Iran, Gaza, the Gulf, and the Rewriting of the Regional Order
Bustamam Ahmad, Kamaruzzaman
Paperback
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World
Said, Edward W.
Paperback
The Astrology of Sahl b. Bishr: Volume I: Principles, Elections, Questions, Nativities
Ibn Bishr, Sahl
Paperback
The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance
Al-Khalili, Jim
Paperback
Anunnaki Revelation: Hidden History, Altered States, and the Mystery of Humanity
Lynn, Heather
Paperback
Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians: The Complete Text
Iamblichus
Paperback
Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA's Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government
Van Wagenen, William
Paperback
Transformed by the People: Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham's Road to Power in Syria
Haenni, Patrick
Drevon, Jerome
Hardcover
The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein: My Six Months Inside the Mind of a Tyrant
Piro, George
Hardcover
The Sacred Gathas of Zarathushtra & the Old Avestan Canon: A Modern Translation of Ancient Wisdom
Vazquez, Pablo
Paperback
The Books Of The Kings Of Judah And Israel: A Harmony Of The Books Of Samuel, Kings, And Chronicles In The Text Of The Version Of 1884
Crockett, William Day
Paperback
Coming of Age: How Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing the Face of MENA
Sweid, Noor
Hardcover
The Center of the World: A Global History of the Persian Gulf from the Stone Age to the Present
Fromherz, Allen James
Hardcover
The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
Hamilton, Bernard
Paperback
The State of Lebanon: Popular Politics and Institution Building in the Wake of Independence
Abu-Rish, Ziad
Paperback
The Prophet of Mercy: How Muhammad (Pbuh) Rose Above Enmity Insult
Suleiman, Omar
Elshinawy, Mohammad
Hardcover
Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World
Makdisi, Ussama
Paperback
The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East
Cooper, Andrew Scott
Paperback
Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire
Romm, James
Paperback
Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos
Zadeh, Travis
Paperback
Islamic Apocalypticism in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: Society, Politics and Technology in a Century of Change
Rikab, Waleed
Hardcover
The History of the Coptic Church After Chalcedon (451-1300) (Large Print Edition)
Youanis, Bishop
Paperback
Belonging on Both Shores: Mobility, Migration, and the Bordering of the Persian Gulf
Stephenson, Lindsey R.
Hardcover
Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work, and the Syrian American Working Class
Fahrenthold, Stacy
Paperback
The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War
Minoui, Delphine
Paperback
Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness
Pollack, Kenneth M.
Paperback
Travels with a Tangerine: From Morocco to Turkey in the Footsteps of Islam's Greatest Traveler
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim
Paperback
The Papyrus Ebers: Ancient Egyptian Medicine by Cyril P Bryan and G Elliot Smith
Bryan, Cyril P.
Smith, G. Elliot
Paperback
Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyār Al-Warrāq's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook
Nasrallah, Nawal
Paperback
Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period, with Accompanying Texts
Tenney, Jonathan S.
Hardcover
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East
Russell, Gerard
Paperback
The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades: Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi
Gibb, H. A. R.
Ibn Al-Qalanisi, Abu YA'la Hamzah Ib
Paperback