Research & Commentary Results

A senior Chinese military delegation landed in Iran for a visit in late April. The readouts from Tehran were rather dull, but there is more to this visit than meets the eye. While a new “axis” may not necessarily be forming, there are troubling trendlines that Western policymakers need to counter.

The Dorra Gas Field, located in shallow waters offshore in the northern Arabian Gulf, lies at the junction of competing territorial claims by Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. With the growing gas demand in these countries, any production will be absorbed into the domestic network and the impact of production on the global gas and LNG market will be insignificant. However, the development of the field, if it occurs, may serve as a bellwether for regional relations.

Making the most of Iran’s reserves will require it to develop shared fields like Dorra/Arash, a gas field located offshore in the northern Gulf, where Iran must vie with competing claims from neighboring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In the past, Iran has often neglected its joint gas fields as a result of sanctions and focused instead on meeting its rapidly growing domestic needs through exploiting non-shared fields, but the country says this must change going forward.

The Israeli government is in the midst of a fight to define what it means to be on the “right” politically in Israel, and this has important implications for U.S. security policy in the Middle East. The United States’ support for Israel is a defining pillar in its Middle East policy, and the decisions made by this fragile Israeli government could have ramifications that affect the security landscape of the entire region. There are small policy shifts the U.S. can make now to lessen the security impacts of those changes.

Efforts to restore confidence between the U.S. and the Arab Gulf states took a first step with the recent formation of a new naval task force, known as the Combined Maritime Forces-153 (CMF-153), to improve maritime security in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden, including the hotspot of Yemen. Established in mid-April, the new task force intends to target weapons smuggling for Ansar Allah, as the Houthi militias are officially known, as well as human trafficking and the drug trade.

The two-month war between Russia and Ukraine has disrupted global food supplies, exposing the fragile state of food security across much of the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike those Mena nations struggling to secure cargoes of wheat and other staples, the UAE is in a better position, even though it currently imports 80 to 90 per cent of its food, thanks to its forward-looking food strategy during the past several years.

In February 2022, the Council of the European Union gathered in Brussels to discuss the extension of the Coordinated Maritime Presence (CMP) concept to the North-Western Indian Ocean. Its decisions constituted a rare consensus among E.U. member states that Gulf maritime security is a strategic interest for Europe as a whole.

Egypt’s energy policy is helping to change the terms of the global debate on climate change by demonstrating that there is a basic compatibility between developing domestic natural gas resources and developing renewable energy sources. Disproving the dogma that natural gas and renewables are in a zero-sum competition, Egypt is advancing as a leader in renewable energy development while also increasing its offshore natural gas production capacity.

Karen Young, director of MEI’s Program on Economics and Energy, is joined by Emily Stromquist and Colby Connelly for a discussion on gas and energy developments in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The tiny country may be next on Russia’s list. Iulia-Sabina Joja interviews Moldova’s foreign minister, Nicu Popescu.

As the U.S. administration considers whether to remove Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, understanding its nature, development, and ideology is essential to making an informed decision. There is much about it that differentiates it from a conventional armed force. One fundamental aspect of its ideology that until now has been overlooked is the doctrine of Mahdism.

As the conventional war in Ukraine continues and military operations intensify, Russian President Vladimir Putin is wrestling with the need to maintain his fight in Ukraine while demonstrating to the Russian people that he is winning in the following three key areas: land, security, and identity.

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned into the largest testing ground for ballistic and cruise missiles in modern warfare. Militaries around the world are watching carefully, and Iran is certainly no exception. With its military doctrine heavily dependent on ballistic missile forces, Iran has a particular interest in the war in Ukraine and is taking notes on Russia’s use of missiles.

MENA countries are currently home to nearly 15% of the world’s installed energy storage capacity, but this total will need to grow to enable variable renewable energy systems to be integrated into the region’s power grids in a flexible and stable manner.