A Strategic Net Assessment
The IOR is one of the most complex regions in the world in human terms. It includes a wide variety of different races, cultures and religions. The level of political stability, the quality of governance, demographic pressures, ethnic and sectarian tensions, and the pace of economic growth create a different mix of opportunity and risk in each state. This can affect mid and long-term development, and sometimes creates near term problems in stability that can trigger internal or civil conflict.
The Burke Chair is issuing a final review draft of analysis of the region entitled The Indian Ocean Region: A Strategic Net Assessment. This document is available on the CSIS web site at:https://csis.org/files/publication/140725_Indian_Ocean_Region.pdf
The Contents of the Net Assessment
The revised study provides an updated and expanded comprehensive overview of the subregions and countries in the region, drawing heavily on a new Country Risk Assessment Model developed by Dr. Abdullah Toukan, a Senior Associate with the Burke Chair at CSIS. It provides detailed graphs, tables, and maps covering the IOR as a whole, each major subregion, and each of the 32 countries in the region as well as the impact of US and Chinese military forces.
• Chapter One provides an overview of risks in terms of governance, economics, ease of doing business, security, and progress in human development using the Country Risk Assessment model and ratings by the UN, World Bank, and IMF. It provides summary risk assessments in each key category.
• Chapter Two examines demographic trends and risks for the period from 1950 to 2050. It highlights the importance of population pressure, the “youth bulge” caused by the very young population in a number of countries, and the shock caused by rapid urbanization and the breakdown of previous patterns of social and political stability. It also examines the level of gender inequality. A critical factor slowing economic growth and development in a number of IOR states.
• Chapter Three expands the economic analysis but focuses on Gulf energy exports as a key factor shaping the IOR’s strategic importance to the world. It examines trends in production and exports, the growing importance of Chinese and Asian imports, and the strategic impact of the growth in US domestic energy production.
• Chapter Four focuses on the Gulf states: It examines the military and internal security risks in the Subregion. It summarizes the relative stability of the Southern Gulf states, and examines the overall military balance and threat posed by Iran, and the stability of Iraq, Bahrain, and Jordan.
• Chapter Five focuses on the Horn, Red Sea sates, and Egypt: It discusses the strategic threat posed by piracy in the region, and examines the level of instability in each Red Sea state and the growing instability in Egypt.
• Chapter Six focuses on East Africa and South Africa:There is no clear strategic threat in this sub-region as such. The chapter focuses on the level of instability in each East African state and its possible implication for the subregion and the IOR as a whole.
• Chapter Seven forces on South Asia: It examines the risk of another India-Pakistan conflict, India’s focus on China’s build up and the risks by country in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
• Chapter Eight analyzes risks in Southeast Asia: This chapter analyzes the threat of piracy in the Strait of Malacca, stability and instability in each state, and the impact of the Chinese military build-up on national forces in the subregion.
• Chapter Nine analyzes the impact of US and Chinese forces: It examines the changing military balance between the US and a rising China and the effects of this relationship on the present and future stability of the IOR.
The Strategic Impact of the IOR
The analysis shows that three critical strategic issues cut across the IOR and have a global impact:
• The stability and security of Gulf petroleum exports.
• The special risks create by the possibility of a future conflict involving India, which may be emerging as a major global power, and the risk if a nuclear conflict involving India and Pakistan.
• The overall security of maritime traffic and commerce through the entire region.
In the Western part of the IOR, the Arab Gulf states and Iran shape much of the world’s petroleum exports and play a critical role in the global economy. While many other areas in the Indian Ocean have strategic importance – and a fuller list is provided in the introduction to this study – petroleum exports through the India Ocean to Asia, through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, and around the Horn are the area where the IOR has the greatest single impact on the global economy and the world.
This is also the area of highest near-term risk in terms of serious military conflict. The negotiations between the P5+1 may have reduced the nuclear aspect of this conflict – although this may take several years to fully verify and determine. It has not yet affected the broad regional competition for influence between Iran and Arabs states, the risk of asymmetric war in the Gulf, a major conventional arms race, and Iran’s build-up of major ballistic missile forces.
In the center of the IOR, India is such a large state that its emerging role in the global economy has great strategic importance, but so does the risk of another conflict between India and Pakistan – both now nuclear-armed states. This risk is assessed as low to moderate. Both nations have established a relatively high level of mutual deterrence and have little to gain from any form of future conflict. At the same time, both states still confront each other, keep increasing their inventories of nuclear weapons and now deploy them at the tactical level, terrorism is a serious threat, and the history of war is not the history of carefully calculated actions and risk assessments.
Finally, the overall stability of the flow of shipping and maritime traffic throughout the IOR impacts on importers and exporter on global basis, affects the flow of petroleum exports. The main risk to this stability is currently piracy and maritime crime. In the west, it is concentrated around Somalia and to the east around the Strait of Malacca and Indonesia. Piracy is presently a low but continuing risk, and one of major importance to shippers. It does, however, have a particularly critical impact on key East Asian trading states like China, Japan, and South Korea.
A more serious strategic risk may be emerging. At present, US sea and air power, and partnerships with a variety of regional states, play a major role in securing Gulf oil exports and the security of maritime traffic throughout the region. The US is now committed to a strategy that gives the Middle East and Asia high priority, but some question whether it will remain committed in the future as US energy import needs diminish. This risk currently seems limited, but cannot be dismissed.
The other risk is a potential shift in air-sea power as China acquires a major blue water navy and the potential ability to project air and missile power throughout the IOR. Asia has already replaced the West as the key energy importer and source of maritime trade across the IOR, and China will steadily increase its volume of imports and import dependence over time.
Given the tensions between China and the US and other states in the Pacific, this raises the question of whether China and the US will compete or cooperate in the IOR, and particularly how their actions could interact with the role of the states in the IOR, affect a key chokepoint like the strait of Malacca, and tie the IOR to regional tensions over the South China sea and the much broader areas involved China’s claims to maritime and air rights in the entire Pacific. This is not currently more than a possible area of future risk, but its strategic importance is too great to ignore.
Table of Contents
I. INTRODUCTION
DEFINING THE REGION
Subregion by Subregion and Country by Country
STRATEGIC INTERESTS AND RISKS
Regional Contested Spaces
Major Strategic Issues and Risks
THE COUNTRY RISK ASSESSMENT MODEL
Methodology Overview of the Country Risk Assessment Model
QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE
MACROECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT
Comparing Ease of Doing Business, Global Competitiveness, and Macroeconomic Stability Rankings
Comparing Ease of Doing Business and Governance Rankings
THE QUALITY OF HUMAN LIFE: THE UNDP GENDER INEQUALITY INDEX AND THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX 2012
The Human Development Index
Gender Inequality Index
USING THE COUNTRY RISK ASSESSMENT MODEL
THE NEED FOR BETTER ECONOMIC DATA AND PLANNING
II. DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN THE IOR REGION
Key Population Trends
THE NEED FOR BETTER DATA AND PLANNING
III. GLOBAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ENERGY TRENDS AFFECTING THE IOR REGION
IEA ESTIMATES
THE EIA ESTIMATES
OECD (Developed) Economies
Non-OECD Developing Economies: Asia
Non-OECD Developing Economies: Africa and Middle East
ESTIMATING THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL ENERGY TRENDS
THE IMPACT OF IOR ENERGY TRENDS
THE IMPACT OF GULF PETROLEUM PRODUCTION AND EXPORTS
SCENARIOS FOR ESTIMATING GULF PRODUCTION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE IOR
IRANIAN OIL PRODUCTION AND EXPORTS, SANCTIONS, AND THE P5+1
THE PETROLEUM “PIVOT TO ASIA” AND ITS IMPACT ON IOR SECURITY
THE IMPACT OF INCREASES IN ASIA DEMAND FOR IOR PETROLEUM AND OTHER LIQUIDS
SMALLER, BUT SIGNIFICANT INCREASES IN ASIA DEMAND FOR IOR RISING ASIAN GAS PRODUCTION
AMERICAN STRATEGY IN THE IOR AND US “ENERGY INDEPENDENCE”
The Impact of Increased American Production of Petroleum and Other Liquids
The Impact of Increase US Gas Production
US OFFICIAL ESTIMATES OF ENERGY DEPENDENCE ON IMPORTS, THE IOR. MENA OIL, AND THE GULF
THE BROADER NATURE OF US STRATEGIC DEPENDENCE ON OIL IMPORTS
IF THE US FALTERS OR WITHDRAWS
MARITIME TRAFFIC AND PETROLEUM
Strait of Hormuz and Pipeline Options
Westward Flow Through the Sumed Pipeline and Suez Canal
Eastern Flow Through the Strait of Malacca
Other Trade Flows in the IOR
IV. THE GULF SUB-REGION
IRAN, AND THE US AND ARAB GULF STATES
The US and the Southern Gulf States
IRAN’S STABILITY, INTERNAL SECURITY AND MILITARY CAPABILITIES
The Gulf Military Balance and Iran’s Evolving Military Threat
Iran’s Asymmetric Capabilities: The Al Quds Force
The MISIRI, MOIS, or VEVAK
Iran’s Capabilities for Asymmetric Warfare
Iran’s Missile Forces
IRAQ
Iraq’s Security and its Military Forces
BAHRAIN
Yemeni Instability
Yemen and Iran
Yemen, the US, and Saudi Arabia
The Emerging Role of AQAP
Counterterrorism and Cooperation with the US
An Unstable Bridge between the Gulf and the Red Sea
JORDAN
Jordan’s Internal Stability
THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN ISSUE, SUNNI-SHI’ITE TENSIONS, AND CONFLICT WITHIN THE ISLAMIC WORLD
V. THE RED SEA AND HORN SUB-REGION
Strategic Risk versus National Risk
EGYPTIAN SECURITY, STABILITY, THE SUEZ CANAL AND SUMED PIPELINE
SOMALIA: EXTREMISM AND PIRACY
Somalia as A Center of Terrorism and Extremism
Somalia and Piracy
DJIBOUTI: A KEY BASE FOR US AND FRENCH FORCES
ERITREA AND ETHIOPIA: CONTINUING TENSIONS, BUT NO IOR THREAT
The Situation in Eritrea
The Situation in Ethiopia
A History of Tension and Border Issues
SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN
STABILITY AND SECURITY IN THE RED SEA AND HORN SUB-REGION
VI. EAST SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA SUB-REGION
STABILITY AND SECURITY IN THE EAST AFRICA SUB-REGION
KENYA
TANZANIA
COMOROS
MOZAMBIQUE
MADAGASCAR
MAURITIUS
SOUTH AFRICA
Economics, Demographics and Trade
Security and Military Forces
STABILITY AND SECURITY IN THE EAST AFRICA SUB-REGION
VII. SOUTH ASIA SUBREGION
India-Pakistan Military Balance
Land and Air Balance
Pakistan’s Asymmetric Maritime Capabilities
VIII. SOUTHEAST ASIA - OCEANIA SUB-REGION
IX. US AND CHINESE STRATEGIC COMPETITION OR COOPERATION IN THE IOR
US STRATEGY AFFECTING THE IOR
US Central Command
US Pacific Command (PACOM)
CHANGES IN US STRATEGY AND REBALANCING TO ASIA
CHINESE STRATEGY AND FORCES AFFECTING THE IOR
Chinese Naval Forces
Chinese Activity at Sea
The Chinese Air Force
US REACTION AND THE AIR SEA BATTLE
THE IMPACT OF SHIFTS IN US AND CHINESE STRATEGY AND FORCES IN THE PACIFIC
The Nine-Dash Line
Chinese Operations to Deal with the US Second Island Chain
THE IMPACT OF SHIFTS IN US AND CHINESE STRATEGY AND FORCES IN THE IOR
The Asian IOR States
The Changing Limits to the Chinese role in the IOR
APPENDIX A: ADDITIONAL RISK ASSESSMENT CHARTS
LABOR FORCE AS % OF POPULATION VERSUS UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AS A % OF LABOR:
LABOR FORCE AS % OF POPULATION VERSUS LABOR MARKET EFFICIENCY:
CORRUPTION CONTROL RANK VERSUS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE RANK:
POLITICAL STABILITY & ABSENCE OF VIOLENCE, VERSUS WEF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS INDEX:
EXTERNAL DEBT TO GDP VERSUS EXPORTS OF GOODS AND SERVICES % OF GDP
Comments and possible additions to this report would be greatly appreciated and should be sent toacordesman@gmail.com.
Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
No comments:
Post a Comment