Introduction

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.

Why the Middle East seems to grab outsized attention can perhaps be pinned to the seemingly imponderable array of security problems occurring in the region. To the casual observer and area specialist alike, the scale of violence can seem bewildering. Stories about the Middle East over the past decade all too often have had conflict at the center. Political violence appears to be on the decline in every region of the world except for the Middle East and North Africa. Indeed, it would be hard to disagree with James L. Gelvin, who characterizes the hallmarks of the “new Middle East” as “rebellion and repression, proxy wars, sectarian strife, the rise of the Islamic State, and intraregional polarization.”

It is also a region, perhaps more than any other, where traditional security challenges intersect with emerging, nontraditional ones. The ongoing civil war in Syria is apposite in this regard. Some of the early demonstrations that triggered the heavy government crackdown were protests at the diminishing livelihoods in agricultural areas plagued by climate change-exacerbated drought. Likewise, the COVID-19 global pandemic has placed added stress on fragile states in the region, exposing poor governance structures and broken healthcare systems. The wealthier hydrocarbon producers in the Gulf have been able to weather these challenges, buoyed as they are by rebounding oil prices. As a consequence, the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” in the Middle East has become increasingly pronounced. Indeed, the region is more heavily characterized today by high wealth inequality between states than possibly at any point in its modern history.