The Washington Institute Launches New Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East

The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Supports Enhanced Focus on Chinese, Russian Challenges to U.S. in the Region

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is launching a new research program devoted to the policy challenges of Great Power competition and the Middle East, the organization announced. Funded by a generous, multi-year grant from the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation of Los Angeles, the initiative is the Institute’s first expansion of its research agenda in more than a decade.

“Multiple dynamics are at work that demand attention — China and Russia both have their sights on the Middle East as a setting for enhanced competition with the United States and the region’s politics often reflect events and developments in competition among the Great Powers elsewhere in the world.” said Institute Executive Director Robert Satloff, the Howard P. Berkowitz Chair in U.S. Middle East Policy. "Thanks to the far-sighted support of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, The Washington Institute will now focus substantial analytical resources to assessing the impact of this emerging set of challenges for U.S. and allied interests and to providing actionable recommendations for U.S. policymakers.”

“Following in the tradition of our founders, who blazed new trails in their support of cutting-edge research on critical public policy issues to advance security and peace in the Middle East, we are delighted to support this important new line of inquiry by The Washington Institute,” said John Fishel, a member of the Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation board of directors.

Michael Singh, former senior director on the National Security Council and the Institute's Managing Director and Lane-Swig Senior Fellow, will serve as interim director of the new program. From its start, other senior fellows who will play key roles include former Pentagon official Grant Rumley and Russia expert Anna Borshchevskaya, author of the just-published Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absence.

This new initiative, the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, becomes the Institute’s ninth program area, joining the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations, the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy, the Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy, the Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Project Fikra: Defeating Extremism Through the Power of Ideas, the Program on Arab Politics, the Military and Security Studies Program, and the Turkish Research Program.

About the Washington Institute: The Washington Institute is an independent, nonpartisan research institution funded exclusively by U.S. citizens that seeks to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of American interests in the Middle East and to promote the policies that secure them. Drawing on the research of its fellows and the experience of its policy practitioners, the Institute promotes informed debate and scholarly research on U.S. policy in the region.

Media Contact: Anna Brown, 202-452-0650, email.