Anthony H. Cordesman
Far too much of the analysis of the Middle East and North Africa only covers a small part of the broad trends in the region or does not examine and compare the data now available. There is also sharp compartmentation of the analyses and data by a specific area and an equal division between reporting on the civil and military trends.The attached report presents a wide range of data on both civil and military trends. The result is a summary net assessment that covers both civil and military trends and compares sources in the form of graphs, tables, and maps to show both key trends and the wide differences from country to country and between sources. At the same time, it identifies key problems in the data now available.
At the same time, it is designed to bring summary data together on a range of the key variables shaping regional stability, rather than to provide a comprehensive analysis. It highlights key data and trends and does not go into analytic depth in many areas, which requires extensive discussion to properly explain all the issues involved, the many conflicts in the data available, and the range of different views on the subject.
The report begins by summarizing the key issues and trends affecting military and internal security and then goes on to provide an overview of civil issues like demographics, governance, corruption, human rights, economics, energy, water, climate change, employment, and other key civil aspects of regional and national security and stability.
This focus on providing an overview of both security and civil challenges is particularly critical in the case of the MENA region because most of its internal instability and violence are driven by its civil failures, while much of the recent analysis of security issues focus on extremism, terrorism, civil wars, and regional conflicts. The result is to concentrate on treating the region’s violent symptoms rather than the civil causes of its diseases.
At the same time, the report shows that much of the official and outside analysis of civil trends is politicized, or compartmented, in ways that fail to accurately portray the extent to which civil trends contribute to active violence or major instability. This is particularly true of the failure to address how serious problems are in governance, the impact of corruption, and the real-world impact of poverty, unemployment, and internal ethnic and sectarian divisions.
The report also reveals many differences in the quality and coverage of the data now available. It should be stressed that MENA states differ sharply in the depth and accuracy of their reporting, as do their analytic efforts to compile comparable data. MENA countries often fail to indicate how they gather data and exactly how they define it. There is no way to validate much of the data now available or to compare the accuracy of sources. Accordingly, the analysis often presents a range of sources to illustrate the uncertainties in key data and provide a basis for comparing sources.
The table of contents of this report is shown below:
Finally, so many major changes are taking place in the region’s production and exports of oil and gas – their principal source of strategic importance to the outside world. These changes are complex and shaped by the different national needs of major exporters and importers, global warming, and the growing confrontation between the world’s major powers.
They cannot be easily summarized and need a separate full-scale analysis. Accordingly, the energy exports issues shaping the MENA region—as well as data on total regional trade, migration, and global lines of communication—are addressed in a separate analysis titled The Strategic Importance of the Middle East and North Africa: The Strengths and Limits of Oil and Gas Wealth, and the Challenge of Climate Change. This report is available on the CSIS website at https://www.csis.org/analysis/strategic-importance-middle-east-and-north-africa-strengths-and-limits-mena-oil-and-gas.
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