The article summarizes the experience of methodological expert seminars and case studies of international conflict of the Department of Theory and History of International Relations of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. The background and the main stages of elaboration of PFUR’s integrated multidisciplinary methodology of situation analysis of international conflicts are described. The evolution of methodological approaches to conflict analysis used in the expert community, from classical methods, including the method of analytic hierarchy by T. Saati to the nonlinear dynamics of the processes of regional development and the perception of the international system as a non-equilibrium system are shown, as well as possibilities of use of approaches of the natural sciences (theory of complex systems) in the modeling of international relations. Particular attention is paid to the results of PFUR's situational analysis 2015 “Greater Middle East: twenty years later (1994-2014)”. The authors show us the methodology of situation analysis in details, including the matrix approach to the distribution of research topics and the method of ranking research tasks by difficulty level between different categories of participants (students, masters, postgraduate students, teachers). A special focus is made on proceedings of leading orientalists from Russia (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Science) and foreign countries (Austria, UK). The directions of further improvement of PFUR's methods of situational analysis are provided.

international relations, situation analysis, methodology, the Middle East, conflicts, inter-disciplinary approach, computer simulations, database, controlled chaos, social and political tensions