For the geopolitics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), it is a time of great anxiety. With the non-Arab actors engaging in another tense series of regional infighting, coercive diplomacy and modern warfare have halted episodic interventions from the Arab counterparts. The MENA high-fliers have moved from their traditional stances of diplomatic arrangements and prioritized military readiness in the current spiraling crisis. For decades, the dominant challenge for the Arab nations has not been Israel’s aggression nor Iran’s ambitions, but their inability to sustain collective agreement in coalitions. The MENA region has seen countless alliances fracturing over the years, resulting in a region without one superpower. If the Gulf states continue to rely on the United States’ changing focus in the Middle East, it will end up losing more than its economic potency and military confidence. It will lose the ability to arrange the chessboard.

The inability of the Arab world to synchronize with its proximate neighbors has weakened the prospects of creating a counterintelligence structure in regional flare-ups. Is staying mutually vulnerable to modern intelligence operations a mistake worth repeating in traditional alliances?

To mitigate conflict spillovers, the Arab nations have prioritized active defense investments and air denial practices. Systematic defense procurements have streamlined their multi-domain operations to prevent entanglements, but out-spying Iran’s asymmetric warfighting or Israel’s intelligence warfare remains a political test. Israel’s intelligence directives of movement profiling and persistent surveillance of the Supreme Leader highlight the necessity to advance intelligence methodologies. MENA’s defensive architecture requires an additional protective layer over deterrence: counterintelligence. Not synchronizing against a common enemy caused several problems: domestic fracturing, outdated doctrines, historical distrust, and interoperability gaps. Investing rapidly in modern war equipment has erased the Arab world’s warfighting inferiority. Still, the mismatch continues to exist in indigenous productions of air defenses, military intelligence, and technical expertise. Despite inter- and intra-regional strategic connections existing as a starting point, the underlying factors of alliance fragmentation have increased.

Consistent strategic differences are fracturing the prospects of political reconciliation and strategic retrospection. Facing multiple power projectors, shared security architecture has reshaped how the geography collaborates during political flare-ups. MENA’s high-fliers see this geography without one dominant actor. This vacuum has yet to be filled, but complete dominance requires incremental layering, which Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, and Iran seek. The Gulf’s current strategy to combine deterrence with diplomacy has been met with historical, geopolitical tests. From Kuwait (1990) to Bahrain (2011), this geography has had its fair share of regional adventures. The fear of exposing warfighting weaknesses has halted political adventures in MENA. Aside from weak engagements in Yemen and Syria, and confused performances with Israel and Iran, the geopolitical awareness to arrange the Middle East offers a

complex silver lining. The ongoing crisis demands more than a cohesive block from the Gulf. Moving in line with other MENA actors invites multidimensional risks, gambles, and prospects in managing the evolving theater.

Israel’s versatile intelligence alters political entanglements for the Gulf. It introduced a hybrid wave of targeted psychological operations (PSYOPS). The open presence of Israel’s intelligence in the Middle East has resulted in its neighbors’ doctrinal fatigue. This ‘eye in the sky’ layering impacts the susceptibility, vulnerability, and recoverability of MENA’s doctrinal postures. It pushes the Persian Gulf to enhance battlespace in three settings: Iran’s predictive intelligence, the Gulf’s threat assessment, and integrated weapons systems. Still, the absence of collective military intelligence and interoperability is glaring.

To keep a watchful eye on regional aggressors, the Gulf adopted a threefold approach, by formalizing passive defense, security clusters, and proactive diplomacy. With multiple doctrines, MENA struggles to succeed in collectively preserving power, let alone projecting it. Be it Iran or Israel, a common pattern in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) strategic behavior was observed. It preferred personalized military innovations and investments, while securing inter-regional strategic alliances. From the Levant to North Africa, the GCC to Iran, and Tukey to the broader Middle East, this reality articulated the disconnected objectives. However, the Gulf’s common direction to domestically upgrade remained constant, and it offers three scenarios for a future strategy.

First, to become innovative by forming a layered intelligence coalition with regional military sectors in different geographical quadrants, making Five Eyes a blueprint to align domains, departments, and systems. Second, to continue investing in personalized, ad-hoc security investments before active defense localization. In the current situation, this strategy provided the Gulf with ample psychological and operational confidence to fuse other arrangements together. Third, use the previous geopolitical arrangements of MENA to innovate. The Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) was the rump administration’s idea to bring the Arab states together for a joint cause: unifying against Iran. The Qatar blockade and Egypt’s withdrawal soured the idea MESA became a memory. Therefore, the prospects of coordination by cross-regional powers require a consensus.

Currently the urgency to upgrade counterintelligence structures is neither lacking incentives nor temptations. The urgency to innovate in multiple spheres of traditional power is a matter of strategic inevitability. MENA has found a cogently balanced geostrategy to maneuver in multidirectional geopolitical dimensions. Natural resources, chokepoints, and trade passages give significant bargaining chips to MENA. It has shaped its strategic profile to constructively depend on geostrategic positioning. Using traditional elements of power with natural commonalities and conditionalities offers alliance politics. In a not-so-friendly neighborhood, finding common ground remains an Achilles ‘ heel. Bringing elements of confidence-building from inter-regional coalition lessons is one go-to strategy.

Muhammad Hamza Chaudhary is a student of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has published his work in the Small Wars Journal, Modern Diplomacy, and the Center for Strategic and Contemporary Research (CSCR). The views of the author are his own.

A Counterintelligence Profile: Are High-Fliers Ready? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Extremist propaganda has spread beyond Libya to reach Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. While this isn’t a new phenomenon, North African states continue to suffer from substantial terrorist attacks. Recently, the Tripoli-based Libyan National Oil Company and the High National Electoral Commission were attacked by militants seemingly linked to ISIS (Daesh). Extremist movements are increasing their propaganda output and continue to pose a severe threat to internal and regional security.

Tunisia is engulfed in a deep economic crisis. As such, international financial institutions are demanding significant economic structural reforms, which have triggered protests and prompted an increase in propaganda originating from networks in Libya to exploit socio-economic issues to attract disaffected young people to their ranks.

On October 28^th, 2018 a woman with no previously-known militant background (according to Tunisian authorities) blew herself up. The attack occurred just as the country’s vital tourism industry started to recover more than three years after two deadly terror attacks. More recently, on March 7^th, 2019, a post office in Tunis intercepted 19 letters containing potentially deadly toxins addressed to notable journalists, politicians, and trade unionists. Local authorities revealed that the substances were produced in a Tunisian laboratory. This is a critical security issue that needs to be addressed—both domestically and regionally, and possibly in cooperation with the European Union. Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt are strategic partners for Europe—ensuring their stability is essential to avoid further crises in the region.

On March 10^th, 2019, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb’s (AQIM) al-Andalus media foundation released an audio clip of a speech given by AQIM official Abu Obeida Yusuf al-Annabi. The address championed the Algerian protests against current Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and encouraged protesters to demand Sharia-based governance. Despite Algeria having recently initiated a massive counter-terrorism operation to prevent the infiltration of terrorists through the country’s borders with Tunisia, Libya, and Mali, extremist propaganda still represents a serious issue.

Algier’s counter-terrorism efforts are increasingly complicated by illegal migration and human trafficking along Algeria’s southern border. Terrorism and criminality are increasingly interconnected, and the need to break the nexus between the two has increased following the social unrest that led to the ouster of the 82-year old Bouteflika. Stability in Algeria is critical—for the security of Algerians, and the broader region. The country’s next leader will face a challenging economic situation, persistent threats from terrorist networks in Mali and Libya, and increasing extremist propaganda targeted to influence the country’s younger generations.

According to the British government’s Foreign Travel Advice, “terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks in Morocco. You should be vigilant at all times.”  Two Scandinavian tourists were brutally killed in Morocco in December of 2018. While local authorities reported the attackers were not affiliated with ISIS, the attack—coupled with ISIS’ territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq—has lead to growing scrutiny over the group’s increasingly asymmetric dimension.

One component of the Moroccan counter-terrorism strategy is moussalaha—a reconciliation program. Launched in 2018, it is a de-radicalization program to combat violent extremism. According to the General Delegation for Prison Administration and Reintegration, human rights and anti-radicalization experts provide psychological support and rehabilitation of charged and jailed people for terror crimes. On March 10^th of 2019, Moroccan authorities announced a repatriation program to allow militants of Moroccan origin to return in safety. The returnees were subject to judicial investigations for their alleged involvement in terror-related activities. The Head of Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation estimated 1.668 Moroccans joined ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

In Egypt, several cells affiliated with Wilaya Sinai (Islamic State in the Sinai) remain operational and continue to threaten security and stability in the Sinai. Egypt continues to suffer from ongoing attacks against Christians and other religious minorities. The elimination of the territorial holdings of ISIS in Syria and Iraq could force militants to flow into Egypt.

Furthermore, despite the group’s territorial defeat, ISIS-affiliated propaganda and the group’s shift to an asymmetric entity from a territorially-based entity will continue to threaten North African security. ISIS, in addition to smaller, localized groups, are capable of radicalizing young people in a complex regional context, one deeply affected by economic crises. Extremist propaganda represents an illusory—but convincing—opportunity for young people to turn from losers to winners. Breaking the nexus between terrorism and criminality (especially smuggling) is essential to promote regional stability and security.

The Resilience of Jihadi Extremist Groups in North Africa was originally published on Global Security Review.