1/The Middle East is now a big mess of proxy wars, so here's a random thread about that.

With the U.S. having withdrawn, the Syrian Civil War is pretty much a proxy war between Turkey and Russia/Iran:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war

2/The Libyan Civil War is a proxy war between Turkey and Syria on one side, and Egypt, UAE, Sudan, and Russia on the other side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Civil_War_(2014%E2%80%93present)

The Yemeni Civil War is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with a bunch of other random countries declaring their support for one side or another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_(2014%E2%80%93present)

The Armenia-Azerbaijan War has Turkey backing Azerbaijan, but Russia and Iran (who generally support Armenia more) might jump in on Armenia's side at some point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict

5/Those are the main wars, but there are some other lower-level conflicts. There's still an insurgency in Iraq, for example. A ton of countries, including both the U.S. and Iran, support the Iraqi government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency_(2017%E2%80%93present)

6/Anyway, it sort of looks like the main regional powers are Turkey, Iran, and Russia, while Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Qatar are involved to a more minor degree. The U.S. seems to have mostly withdrawn, while Israel doesn't seem to be doing much.

7/Anyway, this seems like a preview of what happens when hegemony disintegrates. The end of Pax Americana (which, in the case of the Middle East, was ended intentionally by America when it invaded Iraq) seems likely to lead to a bunch of jostling, squabbling regional powers.

8/Also, if you're into facile, mostly-wrong historical analogies, it looks like the Middle East's "Wars of Religion" are trailing off, replaced by an era of limited conflict between regional powers, a little like late 1600s/1700s Europe.

https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-middle-eastern-thirty-years-war.html

9/At any rate, I hope the Middle East ends its era of war soon, and turns into a stable region focused on prosperity and cooperation! But if that's going to happen, it looks like it's going to have to happen without U.S. help.

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I should mention that one hopeful factor is falling fertility. Total fertility rates have dropped substantially in most Middle Eastern countries, which will mean fewer and fewer surplus young men to fight wars going forward.