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.
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.
Immediately following the outbreak of COVID-19, cyber attacks swept across the Middle East, leaving public and private entities highly vulnerable and transforming the pandemic into both a physical and a digital threat. Despite worldwide physical isolation, many people were more digitally connected than ever before, which vastly expanded the attack surface for eager cyber threat actors. Ransomware attacks, in particular, hit the Middle East rapidly and in great numbers, especially the UAE.
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.
The last few years have seen a lot of consolidation in Gulf financial sectors. Not only do these mergers create economic benefits, the merged entities also become potent tools for economic development. The mega-funds and other major financial institutions are part of a trend where Gulf political elites sidestep ossified bureaucracies and instead centralize power in private entities over which they have even more control.
Industry analysts widely agree that OPEC+ production levels are currently well below the members’ authorized quotas and that any production increases will mainly be met by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The challenges facing the group are daunting, but if met, seven major OPEC countries could feasibly raise crude oil production while utilizing existing infrastructure, significantly narrowing the global demand-supply gap.
In response to water shortages exacerbated by population growth and climate change, an increasing number of countries have invested in weather modification technologies over the past decade, including precipitation enhancement, or cloud seeding. The UAE has been a leader in exploring this technology within the arid Gulf region, launching a cloud seeding program in 2002.
Relations between Washington and some of its traditional Gulf Arab partners, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are at their lowest point in history, which is why the Biden administration on Monday sent a high-level delegation to Abu Dhabi: specifically to pay respects upon the death of former UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and to congratulate his successor, Mohamed bin Zayed, but more generally to try to heal those ties.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
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.
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.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
In recent remarks, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi announced preparations for a potential upcoming military operation, foreshadowing a possible move against Iran. Kochavi’s announcement came shortly after Israel and the foreign ministers of four Arab nations — Morocco, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain — along with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met at the Negev Summit in the Israeli desert to lay the foundation for a strategic military alliance to deter “Iran and its associated militias,” as Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid put it.