Research & Commentary Results

Hoping to avoid a foreign takeover of their country, a growing number of Libyans seem to have finally recognized that progress in Libya required Libyans to take charge of their own future. Accordingly, they are now taking active steps to see if they can forge a political deal to create a new, short-term transitional government to succeed the current GNA created by the Libyan Political Agreement of December 2015, following growing momentum that has already transformed Libya’s security situation with remarkable speed.

The U.N.’s approach to achieving a political solution to Libya’s conflict is now highly vulnerable to falling apart.

The War for Tripoli, launched by Gen. Khalifa Hifter in April 2019, came to an abrupt end in June 2020 after extensive Turkish military capabilities were introduced to the theater at the beginning of the year. This research paper seeks to drill down into the military, logistical, and technological aspects of the war, highlighting the unique role of drones, soft-kill and hard-kill air defense technologies, private military contractors, and extraterritorial military professionals in determining its final outcome. 

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Paul Salem, Jonathan M. Winer, Gonul Tol, Mohammed Soliman, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Elizabeth Dent, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Robert S. Ford.

Algeria is at a critical stage in its energy sector development. The nation has both the potential and the incentive to maximize its natural resources and become a renewable energy leader. In addition to its status as the second-most-populous country in North Africa, Algeria is noteworthy for its relative size, wealth, location, gas reserves, renewable energy potential, and greenhouse gas emissions. Recent oil and gas price volatility and increasing domestic electricity demand provide impetus for Algeria to prioritize clean energy investment.

In recent years Turkey has launched three incursions into Syria and become increasingly involved abroad.

Egypt is not alone in having been knocked into a pit by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will have to dig itself out on its own. However, if Egypt is going to do so, it needs to rethink its approach to development, starting with looking for the silver lining to the pandemic. Is it possible to address existing issues that have been brought home by the exceptional circumstances? In this report, contributors dissect the weaknesses that make Egypt particularly vulnerable to external threats and examine ways in which to address these vulnerabilities and shore up the economy and the business and developmental environment.

With its successful turnaround, strategic location, and extensive infrastructure, Egypt is repositioning itself as a regional energy hub for not only Europe and the Middle East, but also for Africa. It is useful to reflect on the successful transformation of Egypt’s energy sector while also evaluating where the sector stands today and how it will react to the twin challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the oil price shock.

Over the past decade, Egypt and China — the former a traditional US partner and the latter America’s strategic competitor — have forged ever-deeper ties. During that time, Beijing has sought to leverage its relationship with Egypt to advance the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while Cairo has looked to China as a critical partner in the revitalization of the Egyptian economy. Entering 2020, Egypt was one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, and the Sino-Egyptian economic relationship was thriving. However, the fallout from the pandemic could undermine Egypt’s recent success in restoring growth and regaining investor confidence. It could also test the resilience and delay the further expansion of Sino-Egyptian economic ties.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Robert S. Ford, Gonul Tol, Paul Salem, Dr. Marwa Maziad, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.

Essentially what we are witnessing is a struggle by two sets of international coalitions to control the mediation process.

For the last five years, the international community has tried a range of different approaches to mediating the Libyan civil war. All have failed. Most nations not actively fueling the war with weapons, money, training, and mercenaries now see that halting these destructive flows is critical to bringing the rival militias to the negotiating table. However, this will not be enough to solve the conflict. Once militias are cut off from external sources of support, the core economic issues that gave rise to the conflict will still remain. Only a new approach empowering Libyan economic reformers and reworking the economic system can fix the dysfunction. To achieve this, international actors need to facilitate the establishment of a Libyan-led International Financial Commission with the authority to restructure the economy.

Since 2011 Libya’s seemingly endless Wars of Post-Gadhafi Succession have not fundamentally been fought over the control of territory, but rather over the control of economic institutions, patronage networks, and the amorphous optics of legitimacy and international support. The most recent battle, the 2019-20 “War for Tripoli,” was about gaining access to the fonts of both legitimate and corrupt enrichment: letters of credit, smuggling networks, subsidized petrol, and control of those myriad institutions to which Libya’s sui generis economic system grants the ability to exert de facto fiscal, financial, and legal power. Therefore, although Hifter and his allies have been wholesale evicted from western Libya, the grievances they highlighted, preyed upon, and took advantage of remain unchanged.