Non-state actors have the fate of the world in their hands

The crisis in the Middle East is already disrupting shipping and the oil trade. Do the region's traditional players have the power to stop it?

via Unsplash

A version of this article was featured in Founding Fuel.

By Vivek Y. Kelkar

The crisis unfolding in the Middle East is getting extremely serious. An escalation could upset a fragile global economy, which is already suffering the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war and the US-China-Taiwan crisis. The powder keg could explode with just one small miscalculation by any of the players—Israel, the US, Hamas, Iran, or the Iran-backed militias, including the Houthis and Hezbollah.

Relationships among the players are extremely convoluted. All of the key global powers—the US, China and Russia—are entangled in complex ways, and these entanglements make it very difficult to find a solution. The US portrays China, Iran, and Russia as a rogue axis, but at least within the Middle East, all three countries are apt to be aligned on significant points. Regional powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are likewise tied in complex knots to Beijing or Washington.