The Dilemmas of Regional Security

What I believe is that it is not easy for writers to speak about the “problematics of regional security” at such a critical moment in the history of the region commonly referred to as the Middle East. Normally, such a task falls upon think tanks responsible for tracking sources of threat to the vital interests of states. These centers do not all exist within the framework of the state; many operate outside it, so that not all of them fall victim to groupthink, which often produces similar approaches and makes any departure from them seem akin to heresy.

Resolving this dilemma has led decision-making circles to rely on what they call the “devil’s advocate,” whose role is to present ideas that differ from—and sometimes contradict—the dominant and prevailing assumptions. Yet such an approach becomes ineffective during times when these challenges threaten national security itself, as their components become targets for security and intelligence agencies, especially when operations overshadow analysis. The reality is that thinking is a process, and although it is important at all times, its greatest importance lies in preventing disasters before they occur and ensuring that deterrence against adversaries remains effective.

At the present stage, there is a complete absence of national strategic thinking—thinking that engages with reality while extending into a carefully managed future. Instead, it is often confused with ideology, whose enthusiasm obscures many realities, or it ultimately devolves into the expression of one individual or a small group who imagine themselves to possess the absolute truth.

As with all human industries, thinking has become essential to decision-making processes within the framework of clear strategies. The process is inherently complex, and the current example of the Middle East is the clearest evidence of wars, crises, and courageous attempts to break through toward development and progress alongside other strategic objectives. What has occurred over recent decades is a state of decline in strategic thinking, stemming from weak direct engagement with challenges, whether national or regional. Studies, for example, on Israel and Iran have declined in both value and boldness, while studies and intellectual works concerning the religious fundamentalisms of political Islam—and the terrorist organizations that followed—have flourished.

Although these studies proved useful for society and for opinion channels within the state, especially for decision-makers who succeeded in pushing back this type of threat to the nation-state, this was not the end of the story. Violent fundamentalist militias have remained in place, creating parallel trajectories within the state and other paths that challenge it from outside.

In the aftermath of what became known as the “Arab Spring,” the “Regional Center for Strategic Studies” was established in Cairo in 2012 as a think tank. Over the following five years, the center monitored, analyzed, and assessed regional transformations of a strategic nature across the Middle East, in addition to international interactions affecting the region. This covered domestic developments, regional relations, economic trends, security affairs, and public opinion tendencies through a variety of scientific and research activities.

The center also established several specialized programs, including the Egyptian Studies Program, focused on Egyptian affairs; the Islamic Movements Program, dedicated to the phenomenon of Islamic movements and terrorism in the region; and the American Studies Program. The center’s work relied on a broad and interconnected network of academic, consultative, and interactive activities related to the daily analytical monitoring of events, the issuance of continuous strategic assessments concerning the condition and future of the region, the publication of periodicals and studies addressing major emerging trends and pressing issues, conducting public opinion surveys across regional states, and operating long-term projects and programs with regional partners. It also organized workshops, discussion forums, public seminars, specialized courses, and regional conferences in several capitals across the region, while electronically disseminating its scholarly output on a wide scale. Furthermore, the center launched a “security index,” known as the “Cairo Index,” to track violence and terrorism operations in Egypt and across the region.

The center demonstrated considerable vitality in dealing with existing challenges, and fortunately, it opened the door for the establishment of many other centers afterward. Yet the dilemma remains that current challenges—particularly those stemming from Iran and Israel, alongside the continuing threat of terrorism—now require not only study and scrutiny, but also a deeper understanding of these challenges within the atmosphere of the third decade of the twenty-first century. Studies on Israel, in particular, have become scarce and fail to approach the subject not only from the perspective of conflict, but also from the perspective of participation in peace. The matter involves numerous definitions and details, and understanding what remains from past eras has become an obligation at such a delicate stage as the one in which we now live.