ABSTRACT

In the early 1950s, Western powers attempted to establish a regional alliance system with the participation of regional states to secure their interests. The Middle East Command (MEC) was the first project designed and imposed by the West. However, all actors in the region had different positions and policies towards such organizations. In this paper, the global and regional dynamics and developments affecting the creation of the MEC will be analysed from different perspectives using primary and secondary sources. The MEC project remained in the shadow of its successor, the well-known Baghdad Pact, and has received significantly less scholarly attention. By the same token, there is little literature on the MEC project and the existing literature is limited to the Western powers and Turkey. New studies reflecting the policies and positions of both global and regional actors are vital for the analysis of the Cold War in the Middle East. This paper mainly argues that global and local actors existed in two different worlds preventing their interests and priorities from overlapping. Therefore, under these circumstances, the MEC project and other alliances in the region failed and caused a tension shaping regional politics.

摘要

在1950年代初期，西方大国试图建立区域联盟制度，并由区域国家参加以确保其利益。中东司令部（MEC）是西方设计和实施的第一个项目。但是，该地区的所有行为者对这类组织的立场和政策都不同。在本文中，将使用主要和次要来源从不同的角度分析影响MEC创建的全球和区域动态和发展。MEC项目仍在其后继者著名的巴格达条约的阴影下，受到的学术关注大大减少。同样，关于MEC项目的文献很少，现有文献仅限于西方列强和土耳其。反映全球和区域参与者的政策和立场的新研究对于分析中东冷战至关重要。本文主要指出，全球和地方行为者存在于两个不同的世界中，从而阻止了他们的利益和优先事项重叠。因此，在这种情况下，MEC项目和该地区的其他联盟失败了，并造成了形成地区政治的紧张气氛。