03.03.2021 | The Changing Military Dynamics of the MENA Region
by Anthony H. Cordesman - CSIS
The Burke Chair is issuing a comprehensive survey of the changing military dynamics in the Middle East North Africa region. It addresses the shifts by each MENA country as well as subregion, the role of outside powers, and the full range of new military and civil pressures that are changing regional security efforts and the role of outside security assistance.
The analysis focuses on the fact that the U.S. faces major challenges in its security relations with each state in the Middle East and North Africa as well as from nations outside the MENA region. It still is the dominant outside power in the region, but the security dynamics of the Middle East and North Africa have changed radically over the last decade and will continue to change for the foreseeable future.
The Biden administration must now deal with restructuring both security assistance and the entire U.S. force posture in the MENA region at a time when the U.S. has so far failed to find either a broad strategy or an approach to security assistance that offers security and stability in any given area.
At the same time, the military and security forces in every country in the Middle East and North Africa continue to change in size, structure, and force posture. Each MENA country has to create its own approach to creating new systems of command and control, battle management, secure communications, and dependence on space systems. There are advances in military software and uses of artificial intelligence as well as in all the other aspects of what the U.S. has come to call joint/all-domain operations.
This survey is available on the CSIS website
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/210302_Cordesman_Military_Dynamics.pdf?aFbaUdiB0knUgNbAmZ_SEJOABTSDemZ7
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