Political and Economic Factors of Competition between Russia and the United States in the Middle East

This thesis will explore Russian-US factors of competition in Greater Middle East. Its focus is narrowed down on the political and economic factors of competition. It argues that different Russian-US political interests and opposite economic goals in the Middle East region, as well as methods of achieving them make competition between countries unavoidable despite the common aim– preservation of security and stability in the region. To analyze the factors of political competition, the cases of Iraq and Syria were used. The former helps to understand the origins of the emergence of ideological differences in modern relations between countries. The latter highlights the particularities of the political struggle between countries, when their foreign policy approaches reached their climax with the outbreak of the civil war in Syria. Country examples in the analysis of peculiarities of economic competition were selected based on the volume of weapons supplied by America and Russia. In this way, as the largest consumers of weapons in the region, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were chosen.