Security in the Middle East : Enduring and Emerging Challenges

The Middle East occupies the minds of policymakers, security experts, and geopolitical pundits arguably far beyond what the region’s territorial scope and economic heft appear to warrant. Notwithstanding the significance of hydrocarbon production from the region to the functioning of the global economy, the Middle East’s economic output (even when including North Africa, as this chapter does) makes up a small percentage of global gross domestic product (GDP). The region straddles important waterways, not least the Suez Canal through which an estimated 12 percent of global trade traverses. Yet territorially the Middle East does not hold anything like the same importance to global affairs as the Atlantic zone or, increasingly, the Indo-Pacific, which can now be considered the world’s geopolitical center of gravity.This chapter seeks to bring some analytical clarity to the endless array of seemingly primordial conflicts, geopolitical maneuverings, and freshly imported security challenges that define the region’s character. A central theme that emerges is that the sources of insecurity are a combination of longstanding issues as well as new, emerging challenges. In what is necessarily no more than a summary of the most significant factors shaping the regional security environment, this chapter also broaches the important role played by technology. While we in no way posit a technologically deterministic account of security trends in the region, there is little doubt that rapid technological developments are having an important shaping effect, creating new vectors for rivals to target one another, and spurring profound social, political, and economic change