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ROLES Common Room Talk #04
Book Launch: West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East

RCAST Open Laboratory for Emergence Strategies (ROLES) of the University of Tokyo cordially invite you to a book launch seminar by Mr. Mohammed Soliman, the author of West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East.

The Middle East is Asian, shaped by the continent, and now shaping it in ways Washington has been too slow to reckon with. In West Asia, Mohammed Soliman argues that the region is decoupling from its Euro-Atlantic frame and integrating into a new Asian order stretching from the Indo-Pacific to the Mediterranean Sea.

Building on the strategic vision of Shinzo Abe, Soliman extends the Free and Open Indo-Pacific logic westward, drawing out what that shift means for American grand strategy, post-Ukraine Europe, the Gulf's new global centrality, and the U.S.–China competition.

In this seminar, Mr. Soliman will discuss the book's core argument and its implications for Japan and the broader Indo-Pacific.

His previous appearance in the campus of RCAST was RCAST Security Seminar "American Grand Strategy after the U.S. Presidential Elections: the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific and Asia" held on September 20, 2024 and we ROLES rejoice to announce his seminar to pemiere the newly published book in Japan. 

Date and Time: May 14, 2026, 10:30–12:00 (JST)

Venue: RCAST Building 3, M2F floor, Seminar Room-1

Format: In Person

Language: English

Participation: Please register from here

Speaker: Mr. Mohammed Soliman, Director at McLarty Associates, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, and Author of West Asia

Moderator: Prof. Satoshi IKEUCHI, Professor of Religion and Global Security at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of the University of Tokyo and founding Chair of RCAST Open Laboratory for Emergence Strategies (ROLES)

Speaker Profile
Mohammed Soliman is a Director at McLarty Associates, a global advisory firm, and a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Visiting Fellow with the National Security Program at Third Way. Mr. Soliman serves on the board of advisors for Ideas Beyond Borders, the Advisory Council of the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ISAIL), and the Expert Advisory Group of the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (GC REAIM). He is a David Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission. His new book, West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East, is published by Polity Press (2026).