Mohammed Soliman

MEI’s Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program participated in both the DeepIntel and DeepSec conferences in Austria this past week. Here are our reflections on the conferences, the conversations we had there, and the overall agenda.

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

MEI’s Center for Strategy and Emerging Technology participated in the second annual Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh this past week. Here are our reflections on the conference, the conversations we had there, and the GCF’s overall agenda.

A top priority of the regional order envisioned by the Abraham Accords should be building confidence by sharing cybersecurity tools through the Negev Forum.

Technology represents one potentially fruitful area where the I2U2 member states — Israel, India, the U.S. and the UAE — could cooperate together, expand their format to include more countries, deliver tangible results, and avoid agitating other global and regional powers.

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

The July 2022 leaders’ meeting took good steps on energy and food security, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia can help take the I2U2 to the next level when it comes to regional security.

Asia is undergoing a world-historical geopolitical transformation. The rise of the Indo-Pacific as a coherent geoeconomic and geopolitical system coincides with the rise of the “Indo-Abrahamic,” an emerging transregional order connecting India to West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. Until now, the geographic vastness of Asia and the legacy of “divide-and-conquer” colonialism have kept the continent politically and economically fragmented. By reshaping their bilateral relations, Cairo and New Delhi can seize the opportunity to link the Indo-Abrahamic with the Indo-Pacific, thus realizing this envisioned West Asian system. 

The Middle East is experiencing a seismic shift in its geopolitics: the dawn of the era of drones. From Syria to Libya and from Yemen to Iraq, UAVs have altered the dynamics on the battlefield. Agile and affordable, drones aren’t just a menace to remote conflict zones, but also to states far removed from theaters of war.

إن التوترات الاقتصادية والسياسية القائمة منذ فترة طويلة بين الولايات المتحدة والصين تستمر في الامتداد إلى قطاع التكنولوجيا، حيث جعلت القوتان العظمتان هذه الصناعة الحيوية أكثر من أي وقت مضى مسرحًا لحرب باردة جديدة. يبدو أن حدة التوتر ستزداد سوءًا في الفترة القادمة، مما قد يؤدي إلى ما وصفه البعض بانشقاق العديد من العُقَد المترابطة فيما يتعلق بتصنيع التكنولوجيا وتطويرها.

Long-simmering economic and political tensions between the U.S. and China have continued to spill over into the technology sector, where the two superpowers have made this ever-more vital industry the site of a new Cold War. The acrimony looks poised to only get worse moving forward, potentially leading to a tech decoupling, and 5G is at the heart of it. Some third parties have sought to find a way to navigate this divide and the dilemma is particularly acute for the Gulf states. As they seek to balance their relationships with both Washington and Beijing, several have chosen to stake out their own territory by building an Open Radio Access Network (RAN). This initiative could be a potential solution to the current conundrum that would give states 5G sovereignty in an era of great power competition, with a digital twist.

Tokyo’s long-standing, quiet diplomacy has built trust Washington lacks.

After decades of soul searching to define itself as a state, Egypt is building its own civilization-state and seeks to join an emerging club of nations that center historical and cultural tradition in their policy and governance structures and reject the West’s cultural dominance. The civilization-state is the prism through which Western capitals should view and understand Egypt’s domestic and foreign policy moves. 

ثمة تحالف جيوستراتيجي جديد وملحوظ إلى حد ما وهو آخذ في التصاعد. لفترة طويلة، ظلت الهند وإسرائيل والإمارات تتمتع بعلاقات سطحية في مجال المعاملات، غير أن اتفاقيات التطبيع في العام الماضي بين إسرائيل والعديد من الدول العربية – وعلى رأسها الإمارات – جنبًا إلى جنب مع محاولة تركيا العودة كزعيمة للمنظومة الإسلامية والتباعد المتزايد بين الإمارات وباكستان، قد أوجدت تحالفًا غير مسبوق ولعله غير متوقع بين الهند ودول الاتفاقيات الإبراهيمية. هذا الاتفاق متعدد الأطراف قد يملأ الفجوة التي تُخلفها أمريكا في الشرق الأوسط كذا لديه القدرة على تغيير الجغرافيا السياسية والجيواقتصادية في المنطقة.

There is a new and little noticed geostrategic alliance on the rise. India, Israel, and the UAE have had surface-level, transactional relations for a long time. However, last year’s normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — chief among them, the UAE — along with Turkey’s bid to return as the leader of a Muslim order and the growing distance between the UAE and Pakistan have created an unlikely and unprecedented “Indo-Abrahamic“ transregional order. This emerging multilateral pact may fill the gap the United States is leaving in the Middle East and has the potential to transform the region’s geopolitics and geoeconomics.