The Gulf states are often overlooked as indirect beneficiaries of the Russia-Europe energy war. In what ways and to what extent have they leveraged it? Are these benefits sustainable?
The challenge of developing export strategies for the offshore natural gas resources concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean predates the Russo-Ukrainian war. Yet over the course of 2022, Europe’s intensifying energy crisis created a new and more immediate incentive to solve those export challenges, despite a great deal of work still to be done.
For the past ten years, Italy and Morocco have been two of the most economically dynamic countries in the Mediterranean basin. Morocco’s rise as a manufacturing and distribution hub for companies seeking to nearshore operations close to mature European end-markets, as well as emerging African end-markets, has created new potential synergies for a deeper Italy-Morocco commercial partnership.
The latest U.N. IPCC report details the alarming changes that Mediterranean countries will experience in the coming decades due to climate change, highlighting three critical areas — warming and droughts, declining ecosystems, as well as socioeconomic and public health risks.
Ten of the most important or far-reaching events and trends that dominated the MENA region in 2022.
As Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine turned into protracted positional and attrition warfare, often speculative reports emerged about the imminent reduction of the Russian military presence in Syria. Several factors may explain the changes in the Russian military presence in Syria and its future.
Kremlin-linked oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the notorious Wagner Group PMC, is taking power away from the traditional Russian military establishment and fostering President Putin’s dependence on his resources and advice. This trend will undoubtedly propel the escalation of the war in Ukraine and possibly inflict irrevocable damage to the future utility of the Russian Armed Forces.
A vital part of Iran’s long-running grey zone warfare strategy is plausible deniability, as they most often work through proxies in the Middle East. And so the easiest way to keep Iran from taking action is to make sure the Islamic Republic knows the spotlight is on them.
On Nov. 21, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia launched a drone attack against the Dhabba Oil Terminal in Yemen’s Hadramawt Governorate. The threat of further attacks on oil ports and military targets remains high as the militant group tests the tolerance and response of Yemen’s government and the international community while increasing its demands.
Should the Turkish government make good on its threats to launch yet another military incursion into northern Syria, it would lead to a sharp escalation in violence in a country afflicted by a more-than-decade-long brutal conflict. Not only would Turkey’s military incursion have significant immediate effects on civilians and combatants in Syria, but it could also reverberate further throughout the region and world.
Under what conditions is the United States likely or unlikely to intervene militarily on behalf of a close partner with which it may have defense arrangements short of a formal alliance? This is an increasingly relevant question for the United States as it engages in strategic competition with China and Russia for regional partners, as well as for resources and broader influence.
In recent years, the United States has stepped up its efforts to promote a Middle East security order in which cooperation is more widely preached and effectively practiced among like-minded nations. Nowhere has this multilateral approach to regional security been more credible and fruitful than in the maritime domain.
اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.
The December 2020 Moroccan-Israeli normalization deal has evolved from a vehicle enabling Morocco to gain long-sought U.S. recognition of its claims on Western Sahara to a broader strategic partnership with Israel. But the relationship further strains relations with neighboring rival Algeria.
Participating in COP27 provided a unique opportunity to view the proceedings firsthand and evaluate the effectiveness of the meeting in advancing critical climate priorities that can alter the alarming trajectory of future climate change.