What Does the US-China Tech Cold War Mean for the Middle East?
On this week’s episode Alistair Taylor, MEI’s editor-in-chief, is joined by Mohammed Soliman, director of MEI’s Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program, to discuss the US-China tech Cold War and what it means for the Middle East. At the nexus of great power competition and rapid technological advances in areas like semiconductors and AI, the rivalry between Washington and Beijing is fuelling a longer-term process of economic and technological decoupling. Navigating this growing divide will be a key challenge for regional actors across MENA.
It has been an accepted fact that ISIS ceased being a territory-controlling entity in Syria after its March 2019 defeat in the town of Baghouz. Yet it is perhaps time to reevaluate this perspective on the group and its insurgent trajectory in the country. While recent massacres of civilians in central Syria have refocused some international attention on the desert region, known as the Badia, the renewed widespread battles between militants and regime security forces that have occurred in parallel to these attacks have gone unnoticed.
In the Middle East, the Gulf states — working together and on their own — are looking to achieve new scientific and commercial breakthroughs in various areas of the space industry. These ambitions carry major geopolitical implications with them, as an ever-growing number of spacefaring countries negotiate a sensitive and increasingly high-powered sector.
Washington and Beijing look at emerging technologies as a gateway to the new global order. Beijing wants to become an AI and innovation superpower, while Washington pursues a strategy of “tech containment” against Beijing. Chris Miller’s “Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology” walks us through the history of the semiconductor industry and could not be more timely in light of the Biden administration’s decision to work with allies such as Japan and the Netherlands to limit China’s access to advanced chips with the strategic objective of slowing down Beijing’s technological innovation.
Dispatches from Delhi: India and the changing global order
Delhi is one of the few capitals around the world that offers a representative view of the global order. After engaging with a wide variety of Indian policymakers and public intellectuals during a recent visit to India’s capital, I walked away with a better understanding of how Delhi is grappling with some of the main global issues.
By redefining and expanding the Asia-Pacific’s geopolitical dimensions, Abe Shinzō, the late Japanese prime minister, offered a geostrategic model that is now being realized across South Asia and the Middle East. With India at the center of this emerging West Asian ecosystem, Abe’s vision has begun to take shape.
In Disorder, They Thrive: How Rural Distress Fuels Militancy and Banditry in the Central Sahel
The central Sahel — Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — is buffeted by three main forms of armed conflict that overlap and fuel each other: communal conflict, banditry, and violent extremism. These conflicts are partly rooted in a crisis of governance in rural areas, and are exacerbated by climate change, demographics, and internal and cross-border migration.
An Arab Science Spring: Science, technology, and innovation in the Middle East
At present, the MENA region is a net importer of science, technology, and innovation (STI) products and a net exporter of STI talent. This was not always the case, however, as the Middle East has a rich history in science and needs to be put on a path back towards its historical zenith. An STI strategy for the region must focus on improving science education in universities, enhancing scientific research capacity, increasing financial support for R&D, and fostering regional and international scientific and educational cooperation.
Dispatches from Tokyo: Abe’s legacy, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, tech decoupling, and more
After a week of talks with Japanese officials, scholars, and intellectuals, I am still grappling with the back-and-forth about the emerging global disorder and the evolving situation in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.
Challenges new and old: The myriad economic issues affecting MENA through the lens of public opinion
For more than a decade, policymakers in developing countries in MENA have been confronted with high inequality, low growth, rising poverty, and high youth and female unemployment. They now face new challenges as well. This note briefly identifies some of the most important issues affecting the region, relates them to the results of a recent survey of 12 Arab countries carried out by Arab Barometer, and suggests some pathways out of the current quagmire.
The traditional 20th-century pillars of U.S.-Saudi bilateral relations are energy and security — a reflection of Cold War dynamics and the critical role that Saudi Arabia plays in the global economy as an energy superpower. Now, in 2023, Riyadh and Washington should think beyond energy to explore opportunities and address critical challenges in areas such as tech and cyber, which could ultimately cement their strategic relations for the 21st century.
