Various external state-level actors have contributed to the dynamics of the Arab uprisings. Western states have been active participants in these unfolding dramas, notably France in the case of Tunisia; the United States in the case of Egypt, and the United Kingdom, France and the United States in the Libyan and Syrian cases. In addition, Western supra-national bodies have also been actively involved, if in different ways and varying degrees, specifically NATO in the Libyan case and the European Union in the Egyptian case, and to these can be added the influential role of the International Monetary Fund. Non-Western state actors from outside the MENA region that have exerted influence include, above all, Russia but also, if more discreetly, China. At the same time, important external state actors in the MENA region have also had major interests - and been deeply implicated - in most of these events, notably Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. As a result, the unfolding of the Arab uprisings has been shaped not only by strictly internal political dynamics but also by the assertion from outside of important ideological influences (the Western discourse of democracy promotion and neo-liberal economic doctrines, Qatar’s support for the current of Islamism identified with the Muslim Brothers, Russia’s opposition to contemporary doctrines justifying humanitarian intervention, Saudi Arabia’s promotion of Salafi movements, etc.) and by active political interventions by these various external state actors in defence or promotion of their own particular interests in each case. This paper represents a preliminary attempt to theorize the resulting complexity of these external influences on the Arab uprisings, to identify the logics of these various interventions and to evaluate their cumulative impacts on particular cases. Specifically, it will put forward the thesis that external actors have played a crucial role in determining the outcomes to date of the Arab uprisings and consider the theoretical implications of this conclusion. In doing so, it will draw on wide-ranging research, including intensive study of documentary sources and Western (American, British and French), Russian, Middle Eastern and North African media coverage; fieldwork conducted in Egypt in 2011, 2012 and 2014; and interviews conducted by the author since early 2011 with officials and policy advisers in London, Paris and Washington and with Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian and Tunisian actors in these events.