A Power Vacuum in the Middle East

The collapse of stability and security across a wide area of the Middle East and North Africa in recent years has led to a situation in that region in which no single power, or an alliance of powers, is able to dominate, or at least stabilize, the entire region.  Moreover, the one power that was capable of playing a leading role across the whole of the Middle East and North Africa, the United States, has reduced its presence in the region in the wake of the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Now, a highly convoluted and ever-changing state of affairs exists in many areas of this region as conflict, unrest and instability have befallen a large numbers of countries there.  With no power or alliance in place to force stability and security on the region, a power vacuum is being created, with a host of internal and external players seeking to protect or enhance their role and their interests in the Middle East and North Africa.

In recent decades, the Middle East and North Africa has not been the most stable of regions, even in the best of times.  Nevertheless, prior to the 1980s, the region enjoyed a significantly higher degree of stability than today, apart from the large-scale wars that took place between Israel and its Arab rivals between 1948 and 1973.  However, it was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that began the process of unraveling the relative stability and security of the region in the 1980s when it embarked on a series of wars aimed at expanding Iraq’s territory and making that country the leading internal power in the region.  In the 1990s, the United States led efforts to thwart Iraq’s regional ambitions, but in the first years of this century, the US’ decision to oust Saddam and to promote democracy in the region allowed ethnic and religious tensions in the region to explode, leading to the destabilization of many countries in the region.  When the Arab Spring began earlier this decade, there were hopes that the promise of democracy would offset these ethnic and religious tensions (not to mention the region’s growing economic troubles), but instead, it added further fuel to the tensions in the region, due largely to the deeply divided nature of most countries in the region.  Now, countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen have been torn apart by civil wars and high levels of unrest are present in many other areas of the region.

While no single country within the Middle East and North Africa is powerful enough to dominate the region on their own, a number of regional powers are nevertheless attempting to assume the position of the region’s most powerful state.  One such power is Saudi Arabia, who, together with its Sunni allies in the Gulf and elsewhere, is attempting to lead a coalition of Sunni Arab states against Shiite and non-Arab rivals.  Another would-be leading power is the region’s leading Shiite state, Iran, which is supporting Shiite populations and movements in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere.  Before the 1970s oil boom, Egypt was seen as the leading power in the Middle East and North Africa thanks to its large population, but the country’s poor economic state and declining military power has resulted in a loss of power and influence in recent years.  In contrast, Turkey, which dominated the region until the First World War, has been attempting to regain lost influence in the region, but has found itself struggling to regain this influence amid all of the unrest around its borders.  Finally, Israel remains one of the region’s most militarily and economically powerful countries, but has seen its relative power threatened by demographic changes in the region and the rising economic power of the region’s oil states.

Despite the unrest and instability of recent years, external powers continue to attempt to protect and enhance their power and influence in the Middle East and North Africa as well.  For example, the United States has been the dominant external power in the region in recent decades and its presence had prevented a power vacuum from forming in the region.  However, the United States’ inability to bring peace to Iraq in the wake of its takeover of that country in 2003 added to the instability and chaos in the region and left many political leaders in the US, including its current president, wanting to withdraw most US resources from the region (especially after the shale oil and gas boom in the US).  Outside of the US, few other powers have the resources to play a major role in the Middle East and North Africa.  For example, Europe has deep economic and historical ties with the region, but its lack of military power and its competing interests in the region have dramatically reduced European influence there.  Likewise, Russia, despite its entry into Syria’s civil war, lacks the resources to play a major role throughout the region.  The only power outside of the US with the interest and the resources to play a major role in the region is China, but thus far, its role in the region remains largely as a market for oil and gas exports from the Gulf. 

Unfortunately, there is little chance that peace and stability will take hold in the conflict zones of the Middle East and North Africa in the near future.  In fact, the civil wars underway in the region appear likely to continue for a long time still, due largely to the fact that there is not a dominant power in the region that can tip the balance of power in these conflicts in favor of one side or the other.  Meanwhile, the region’s artificial borders (largely a legacy of European colonization) have resulted in deeply divided countries whose ethnic and religious divisions will continue to make it difficult to achieve long-term stability in the region.  Adding to these tensions is the fact that the region’s economy is struggling badly at present, leading to higher levels of unemployment, particularly among the region’s fast-growing youth population.  As such, there is little hope for a quick return to stability and growth in the Middle East and North Africa and this could result in new conflicts breaking out across the region. 

As the balance of power in the region remains relatively even in the wake of the reduction of the United States’ presence there, a power vacuum could take hold in which no power can bring stability and in which governments across the region see their hold on power within their borders also continue to weaken.  This will not only impact the Middle East and North Africa, but could further destabilize neighboring regions such as Europe and the former Soviet Union.  In short, if peace and stability are not imposed on this region in the near future, the situation in and around the Middle East and North Africa could yet become much worse.  Unfortunately, those powers with the capability of imposing peace appear unlikely to do so in the near future.