Research & Commentary Results

Saudi Arabia and the UAE purchased $5 billion of U.S. air-defense missiles at a time when multiple American partners around the world are also looking to buy the same systems. The main effort in the Gulf will continue to be training and provisions of the material to develop an indigenous missile-defense capability.

After achieving respectable growth in 2021, the GCC member states now face the risk of monetary (over) tightening due to the need to follow the U.S Federal Reserve’s interest rate adjustments. These increases are not warranted, however, as the GCC economies currently face relatively moderate inflation. Instead, they should use the available fiscal space to mitigate the negative fallout of monetary tightening and make greater use of PPPs for future infrastructure development.

Even prior to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death in a CIA drone strike on July 31, the last few months have mostly underscored the Taliban’s global isolation and the anguish of the Afghan people. A year on from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021, no foreign government has officially recognized the regime.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s recent, six-day European tour, which took him to Germany, Serbia, and France, aimed to boost his image and status as a central player on the world stage despite widespread criticism of his regime’s human rights record.

Iranian-Turkish trade and economic cooperation has been the all-important platform on which otherwise often tense bilateral relations could survive. With trade and economic ties now weakening, their geopolitical rivalry could sharply re-intensify.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s July 19 visit to Tehran will have important repercussions for the region’s evolving security environment as well as the trajectory of Iranian-Russian relations more specifically. Although officially billed as seeking to revive the “Astana peace process” on Syria, the significance of the trip has less to do with the trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia, and Turkey and more with the deepening of ties between Moscow and Tehran.

The deepening partnership between Germany and Morocco has been driven by the private sector, providing an enduring foundation for cooperation. During the 2021 diplomatic crisis over Berlin’s position toward Rabat’s autonomy plan for the Sahara region, German-Moroccan business-to-business relationships remained largely unaffected. The fraying of global supply chains is bringing now Germany and Morocco into a closer economic partnership. The sudden supply shocks caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine have accelerated that process. In the years just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chains were already shortening as companies and countries in Europe placed greater emphasis on resilience rather than on just-in-time inventories serviced by distant Asian suppliers. This structural transformation meant bringing sourcing and manufacturing closer to European end-markets. The drive to “nearshore” while maintaining a competitive advantage has provided an impetus to German and other international firms to locate manufacturing facilities in Morocco, which has focused on cultivating an appropriate business ecosystem.

The U.N.-sponsored truce of April 2022 is the longest pause in fighting Yemen has experienced since the Houthi armed rebellion broke out in September 2014 and the Saudi-led coalition forces intervened six months later. But although there is strong external interest in both extending and expanding the truce given the scale of turmoil in the global arena, credible progress remains lacking, while serious obstacles persist.

The decades-long confrontation between Israel and Iran is now arguably becoming more dangerous. Amid a lack of consensus among Israeli leaders on how to address this perceived existential threat, calls for applying greater pressure are gaining momentum. The two countries have been engaged in a shadow war for years that includes assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings, and cyber operations, but a new phase of tensions may only bring them closer to a full-scale conflict.  

The India-Middle East Food Corridor developed organically among the three Asian countries themselves, through private sector, joint venture investments carefully cultivated via bilateral public-private partnerships. The United States’ participation in the corridor could prove beneficial as the U.S. seeks to bolster its presence in the strategic architecture of the Indo-Pacific.

With energy security becoming a top priority, the sudden need to find new sources of hydrocarbons dampened Europe’s and the United States’ previously pledged resolve to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

The main objective of President Joe Biden’s trip to the Middle East last week was to signal to both partners and adversaries that the United States was serious about restoring its strategic position in the region, which has taken considerable hits in recent years.

Russia’s war launched on February 24, 2022, may have partly been motivated by Ukraine’s large reserves of critical metals and their global strategic importance in the production of advanced “green” energy technologies. The cutoff of access to Ukrainian sources, combined with the nature of the partnership between Moscow and Beijing — with China being the largest supplier of the necessary critical minerals — could endanger the very notion of the West’s energy transition.

Turkey’s economic problems continue to go from bad to worse. Its foreign trade deficit has reached a monthly average of $8 billion this year. Amid the sharp rise in global energy prices this spring following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s average gross energy imports shot up from $3-4 billion per month to $7-8 billion. A reduction in energy imports and the recovery of tourism this summer have not offset this, and the current account deficit continues to widen.