The research subject is the models of interstate cooperation in the Middle East region. The purpose of the research is to define the models of interstate cooperation in the Middle east and the peculiarities of their formation. The article considers the security issues including energy and economic security of the Middle East states. The authors give special attention to the problem of Israel’s involvement in the mechanisms of interstate cooperation in the Middle East. In order to conduct a detailed analysis of the models of interstate cooperation in the Middle East, the authors use the systems approach. Its application is conditioned by the fact that the formation of the mechanisms of cooperation in the Middle East was influenced by a range of socio-economic, political, religious and ethnic factors. The authors also use empirical and theoretical methods including synthesis and analysis. The research methods include content-analysis aimed at analyzing text content. This method is actively used by the authors for the analysis of the works of foreign and Russian scholars studying the topic under consideration. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the subject and the topic of the research, and consists in the formulation of particular models of interstate cooperation in the Middle East. The authors formulate the directions of cooperation and, based on this information, define the mechanisms of their formation. The consideration of the key models of interstate cooperation in the Middle East allows defining the key obstacles hampering the formation of effective mechanisms of cooperation which would be able to solve various regional problems. The authors arrive at the conclusion that the mechanism of creation of effective models of interstate cooperation in the Middle east is significantly aggravated by severe regional problems including ethnic and religious conflicts, the lack of a regional leader, the weakness of regional organizations, the involvement of extraregional actors, and the presence of a large number of terrorist organizations.   

This article reviews the regional peculiarities of political processes associated with the struggle for regional leadership that is a mainstream in the modern post-bipolar international relations. The authors give particular attention to the historical and theoretical principles of studying the concept of leadership in international relations, namely: provide various approaches towards determination of the status of a regional power, criteria for regional leadership, and specificities of interaction between the regional and global powers. Emphasis is placed on examination of the aforementioned phenomena and processes in the context of comprehensive impact of such global trends, as globalization and glocalization, decentralization of the system of international relations, and formation of the multipolar world order. The novelty of this work lies in the comparative analysis of regional peculiarities of the struggle for leadership in the European and Middle Eastern regions. The relevance of selecting Europe and Middle East is defined by their fundamentally different nature of the regional international relations. The authors reveal the common features and regional specificity of the struggle for leadership in these regions. The common features include: the significance of non-state actors (of different types), ethnic and cultural diversity, complexity of delineation of political boundaries. The regional specificities include: different tools, nature and goals of the struggle for leadership, unequal presence of global powers in the regions, etc. The conclusion is drawn on the need for further examination of the matter to improve the international political forecasting.