This report explores maritime security conditions in the Mediterranean and the evolving US engagement in the region. As critical infrastructure becomes increasingly vulnerable to sabotage, freedom of navigation is undermined by conflict, and energy disputes generate tension, US policy focus on the region has become fragmented and disengaged. The authors call for a sustained American role to strengthen maritime domain awareness, allied coordination, infrastructure protection, and the capacity to respond when Mediterranean crises affect US and transatlantic interests.
The Multiple Costs of the US–Iran War – From Hormuz to Europe and South Asia: The Widening Economic and Political Geography of the Conflict
Wars are decided by those who hold military power, but their costs are increasingly borne by those who have little or no voice in the decisions that start them. The US–Iran war shows this imbalance very clearly. Its economic consequences have gone far beyond the battlefield and have disrupted energy markets, trade routes, food supplies, public finances and investment in the Gulf, Europe, Africa and Asia. The most striking feature of the conflict, however, is not only the size of the damage but its very unequal distribution.
In less than two decades, a string of offshore discoveries has turned the Eastern Mediterranean into a significant gas-producing region, making Israel an exporter, twice lifting Egypt into the ranks of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, and giving Cyprus finds it has yet to bring to market. This backgrounder explores the potential and challenges of exploiting and managing LNG resources in the region.
Egypt needs a more inclusive approach to subsidy reform
Speaking at a public event earlier this month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi made the surprise announcement that the next step in the country’s economic reform agenda will include the removal of bread subsidies. He becomes the latest in a long line of presidents to target the bread subsidies that provide cheap sustenance to a country of (now) over 100 million people at a huge cost to the state, although none of his predecessors ever successfully managed to remove or significantly reduce them.
إسرائيل ومصر تتصدران توقعات النمو في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا: قصة استراتيجيتين متباينتين
الدولتان في الشرق الأوسط اللتان تتمتعان بأعلى توقعات نمو لعام 2022 هما إسرائيل ومصر. وتقدر مؤسسة فيتش سوليوشنز أن الناتج المحلي الإجمالي على مستوى منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا سينمو بنسبة 3.6% في عام 2021، بعد انكماش بنسبة 4% في عام 2020. هنا نجد أن مصر وإسرائيل هما الدولتان الوحيدتان في المنطقة اللتان يُتوقع نمو اقتصادهما بما يتجاوز حجم مستويات ما قبل كوفيد-19.
Consistency and change: Morocco under King Mohammed VI
In July, Morocco marked the 22nd year of King Mohammed VI’s rule and 10 years under the new constitution ushered in by a popular referendum in the aftermath of the 2011 protests. The past 22 years have transformed Morocco, the region, and the world in fundamental ways, yet the country’s politics have continually snapped back to a familiar equilibrium. During these past 22 years Morocco has gone through three distinct phases in managing these internal and external dynamics.
On Sept. 15, 2020, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between the two Gulf Arab states and Israel. Morocco followed suit several months later, signing a similar agreement with Israel on Dec. 22, and a week and a half after that, on Jan. 6, 2021, Sudan and Israel also agreed to normalize relations. A year on, these accords have had a significant, if not yet fully realized, impact on the Middle East, affecting everything from geopolitics and economics to tourism and people-to-people (P2P) ties, and they also reflect the changing dynamics in the region and beyond, particularly with the U.S. and China.
One of the most consequential changes in the Middle East’s geopolitical map is happening at the water’s edge. Along the entire eastern rim of the Mediterranean basin, global and regional actors are engaging in a spate of port capacity expansions, new private port construction, and the sell-off of major state-owned ports that will determine who sits atop the region’s global trade flows for decades to come. The international competition to rebuild Beirut’s port is one key puzzle piece in this larger process that is reconfiguring the Levant’s maritime commercial architecture and, as a consequence, the geopolitical contours of the Middle East.
The possibility that the Lebanese government could opt for China to reconstruct Beirut’s port has raised alarm in Washington and European capitals given China’s already outsized commercial port presence in Egypt, Israel, and Greece. Increased Chinese involvement in Lebanon’s port operations could consolidate Beijing’s hold over the commercial connectivity architecture of the Levant. Re-orienting global commercial flows between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia according to Beijing’s priorities would make China’s Belt and Road Initiative a dominant organizing principle in the international relations of the Middle East. The most effective way to offset China’s ambition may be to facilitate Mediterranean rivals France and Turkey to jointly rebuild Beirut’s port.
Israel and Egypt top growth expectations in MENA: A tale of two divergent strategies
The two countries in the Middle East with the highest growth expectations for 2022 are Israel and Egypt. Fitch Solutions estimates that MENA-wide GDP will grow by 3.6% in 2021, after a contraction of 4% in 2020. Egypt and Israel are the only countries within the region expected to grow their economies beyond the size of their pre-COVID-19 levels for 2021.
Testimony | "Briefing on Human Rights and Freedom of Expression in Morocco"
The following testimony was presented to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission “Briefing on Human Rights and Freedom of Expression in Morocco” on August 12, 2021.
Since late June, Russia has expanded its diplomatic involvement in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. While Russia has offered technical assistance to the GERD’s conflicting parties, it has refrained from inserting itself into the Nile dam dispute as a mediator and instead balanced the views of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in multilateral fora. Russia’s balancing strategy has been positively received in Sudan and Ethiopia but has created latent frictions with Egypt. Russia has persisted with this non-interference policy, as it has largely prevented a spillover of tensions over the GERD to other areas of cooperation with Egypt and believes that its position will help consolidate its partnership with Ethiopia.
يبدو أن قرارات الرئيس قيس سعيّد في 25 يوليو/تموز بتعليق عمل البرلمان والحكومة كانت تحظى بشعبية كبيرة، على الرغم من الانتقادات الحادة من أولئك الذين استنكروا هذه القرارات باعتبارها انقلابًا أو غير دستورية أو تجاوزًا خطيرًا لسلطته. لكن الاحتفالات الجماهيرية في الشوارع التي اندلعت فور إعلانه المتلفز – على الرغم من حظر التجول ليلًا – مثّلت دليلًا على شعبية تحركاته.
The Tunisian president’s political capital is finite
President Kais Saied’s July 25 decisions to suspend parliament and the government appear to have been largely popular, despite sharp criticism from those denouncing them as a coup, unconstitutional, or a dangerous overstep of his authority. The mass celebrations in the streets that broke out immediately after his televised announcement — in spite of a nighttime curfew — are evidence of the popularity of his moves. Some polling since then, which although unclear in their methodology, also seem to indicate that large majorities approve of Saied’s measures — for now.
تُعد المجلة الرئيسية لمعهد الشرق الأوسط أقدم مطبوعة محكّمة مكرّسة لدراسة الشرق الأوسط الحديث، وتغطي المجلة الرئيسية في المعهد السياسة والمجتمع والثقافة في المنطقة.
