Regional Powers in the Middle East

New Constellations after the Arab Revolts

H. Fürtig

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137484741
• eBook ISBN: 9781137484758
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

With theoretically-rich contributions from an international group of political scientists, historians, and economists, this volume addresses the puzzle of why the Middle East has produced no single dominant and acknowledged regional power, despite contenders such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, and Turkey. Rich, theoretically-engaged case study chapters address a gap in the vibrant international academic discussion on the role of (new) regional powers in global politics. Fürtig offers powerful insights into both the unique nature of the Middle East region, with its dispersed power structures and competing centers, and probable new power constellations.

C H A P T E R 1

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The Concept of Regional Power as Applied to the Middle East

Martin Beck

1 INTRODUCTION

Three tasks are tackled in the present contribution. First, it is shown that the regional power concept is innovative because it sheds new light on regional affairs, particularly, but not only, after the end of the Cold War. In the period following World War II, regional affairs have very often been shaped by the global rivalry of two superpowers. Thereby, the significance of regional actors has frequently been neglected. Only in the early twenty-first century when it became apparent that US capabilities are limited, a scholarly movement came into being that developed alternative approaches, among them being the concept of regional power that looks thoroughly at the momentum of regions and actors within it. Second, the Middle East features for not having produced a regional power. Yet, this by no means implies that the concept of regional power is not useful in analyzing regional affairs of the Middle East. Rather, the application of the concept sharpens the view for the actual structures and particularities of Middle Eastern regional affairs. Moreover, by analyzing failed attempts of potential regional powers in the Middle East, the concept proves to be very fruitful in better comprehending regional politics. Moreover, analyses of the Middle East on the basis of the regional power concept allow theoretical conclusions that can enrich the concept itself. Third, the chapter discusses whether and how the Arab Spring has changed the fundaments of regional affairs. It is remarkable that the Arab Spring has been committed by movements that strongly focus on domestic affairs, particularly since the two major revolutions that took place in the Middle East after World War II—namely, the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979—had a strong transnational component, that is, pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism, respectively. At the same time, by possibly challenging the 1967 Khartoum consensus that established a modus vivendi between republics and monarchies, the Arab Spring bears the potentials for a new round of conflicts on regional leadership.

2 NO REGIONAL POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The regional power approach is a major offspring of theoretical concepts of regionalism that have recently been enjoying a renaissance. The East-West conflict had its effect on scholarly approaches of international relations that focused on regional politics primarily through the lenses of global affairs, thereby often neglecting the momentum of genuine regional relations. After the end of the Cold War, a scholarly movement came into being that developed alternative approaches, among them the concept of regional power that looks thoroughly at the momentum of regions and actors within it: With the end of bipolarity, a higher degree of regional autonomy (Hurrell 2007), particularly in security-related issues (Buzan and Wæver 2003), seemed to be an inevitable trend—although there were also early warnings that global unipolarity could also have opposing effects (Rosecrance 1991). A quarter century after the Cold War, we are safe to say that in some regions, some issue areas and some periods’ regional affairs have been shaped to a higher degree than before by regional actors. Yet, it is equally safe to claim that developments on a global scale have been much too complex and even contradictory to overgeneralize: though regional politics do matter, yet, not all world regions today enjoy a higher degree of relative autonomy vis-à-vis global structures and actors in all policies than in the period of the Cold War. At the same time, the concept of regionalism also helped to rediscover the role of regional actors whose relative autonomy had sometimes been neglected when studying regional affairs only through the lenses of the Cold War (see Acharya 2007: 640).

2.1 Defining the Middle East

Most social scientists working on the Middle East would agree that it is a region composed of the Arab states plus Iran, Israel, and Turkey. Yet, if this convention is scrutinized, it turns out to be a rather demanding task to present intersubjectively comprehensible arguments in favor of this definition. When definitions of regions are based on commonalities, the Middle East appears as a rather complicated case, since it covers areas of three different continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe, which is why “objective” geographic factors are not easily applicable. There are some criteria beyond geography that, if applied, produce more promising results such as a shared history, language, and religion. However, none of the criteria is truly selective: not all Middle Eastern countries have been part of the Ottoman Empire (while some that are not considered part of the Middle East, such as Greece, were once its part), non-Semitic languages play an important role in the region (and Malta is rarely considered part of the Middle East although Maltese is a Semitic language), and not all Middle Eastern countries are predominantly Muslim (and the biggest Muslim country—Indonesia—is located beyond the Middle East). However, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958: §§ 66–67) argued that sometimes terms should be defined on the basis of family resemblances: as Wittgenstein argues, not all things we call games have one distinct feature in common; rather, they are connected through a complicated network of overlapping and crisscrossing similarities. This is also the case with the (members of the) Middle East. Then, we have to accept that the definition of the Middle East does not have clear borders and its exact meaning may vary according to the research issue we are focusing on.

When the definition of the Middle East is based on the density of social interactions, the Middle East easily qualifies as a “regional security complex” (Buzan and Wæever 2003: 187), which, however, is highly penetrated by external actors, above all the United States. Yet, if other issue areas are highlighted, the Middle East does not always easily meet the criteria of a region. In particular, many countries of the region have much closer economic ties with countries beyond the Middle East than within the region. Thus, from this perspective, the definition of the Middle East—and its meaning—depends on the issue area under consideration. Although the oil-producing countries of the Middle East have been part of a truly globalized industry with comparatively few regional economic ties, it is remarkable that the Western perspective on energy security very often reinforces (the perception of) the Middle East as a region.

The latter aspect substantiates that our definitions of regions are (often) based on social constructions. Edward Said (1995) shows that in the case of the Middle East, Orientalism contributed to an artificial dichotomization of “us” and “them” that created an ideological basis for asymmetrical political, economic, and cultural relations. It is, for example, telling how the major European powers arrogated to exclude the Ottoman Empire (and its modernizing members, particularly Egypt) when establishing a concert of modern nation-states in the nineteenth century (Rogan 2013). Apparently “objective” factors such as the Mediterranean sea were—and are still—used to draw regional borders, although the Roman Empire despite its much lower technological level in terms of transportation and communication had no problems in defining the Mediterranean as “our sea” (mare nostrum). At the same time, it must be emphasized that the Middle East is not just an ascription from outside. The term “Middle East”—sharq al-awsat in Arabic—is frequently used in the region although it literally denotes a very British worldview. The Arab Spring has been just the latest proof that the Middle East shapes social reality (and therefore, does exist): what started in a rather small country on the far West of the Middle East very soon gained momentum in the whole of the Arab Middle East, be it as a catalyst for regime change or as the major topic of political debates that were focusing on developments in Tunisia and Egypt as quasi-domestic issues. Although Turkey, Iran, and Israel were not directly affected, the meaning and impact of the Arab Spring on the non-Arab states of the Middle East became a top aspect of their respective national agendas.

2.2 Attempting to Identify Regional Powers

A regional power is an actor—normally a state—whose power capabilities in a region significantly outweigh those of other actors within the same region and whose power is, to a high degree, based on its leadership role within the region. As has been conceptualized by Detlef Nolte (2010), regional powers heavily rely on soft-power skills since, as he argues, their power capabilities are not sufficient to dominate regional affairs by unilateral measures. Thus, regional powers exert their influence on the basis of cooperation (which is not always symmetrical yet never purely imperialist) rather than measures of hard-power politics.

According to Nolte’s (2010: 893) presentation of the state of the art of the regional power concept, a regional power is characterized as a state that fulfills not less than 11 criteria. Although these criteria are formulated in a way that leaves the issue of operationalization rather unspecified, it appears evident that only few of the criteria are met by states of the Middle East. There are indeed some Middle Eastern actors that articulate “the pretension (self-conception) of a leading position” in the Middle East: Iran (particularly since 1979), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt (particularly between 1952 and 1967 but also thereafter), Israel (particularly in the 1990s), and Iraq (particularly in the 1980s). One could further agree that some countries—mainly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—influence “the geopolitical delimitation and the political-ideational construction of the region.” However, it is questionable whether any (single) country in the Middle East “displays the material (military, economic, demographic), organizational and ideological resources for regional power projection”; “truly has great influence in regional affairs”; “is economically, politically and culturally interconnected with the region”; “provides a collective good for the region”; and “defines the regional security agenda in a significant way.” Moreover, no single Middle Eastern state exerts its influence “by means of regional governance structures” and “defines and articulates a common regional identity or project.” There also appears to be no Middle Eastern state that enjoys a “leading position in the region [that] is recognized or at least respected by other states inside and outside the region” and “which is integrated in international and global forums and institutions where it articulates not only its own interests but acts as well, at least in a rudimentary way, as a representative of regional interests.”

Whether or not regional powers shape regional affairs to a high degree in other world areas appears to be debatable. Particularly with reference to Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, it can be doubted whether regional actors exist that match the criteria of an “ideal-type” regional power (see Beck 2010: 146–147). Not all empirical findings point in the same direction and not all conceptual problems are solved, particularly in terms of the relationship between regional and global politics, particularly in the case of Asia. Therefore, one who claims that there are strong regional powers in major world areas is on much shakier ground than one who asserts that there is no regional power in the Middle East. Thus, we enjoy solid empirical foundation when we apply the regional power approach to the Middle East—which makes much sense, if we deal with the fact that there is no regional power in the Middle East in a productive way; we must identify those features of the Middle East that unveil this very fact. By doing so, we have a fair chance to reach a better understanding the structures that actually shape the Middle East. There appear to be four major features that set the Middle East apart from an ideal-type region shaped by a regional power: high power dispersion; preponderance of competitive rather than cooperative behavior and hard-power rather than soft-power use; the command of only low global-power capabilities and the lack of usage of resources for regional development by regional actors; and the distinct role of the United States as a quasi-regional power.

There are several Middle Eastern states that have more or less outspoken ambitions to act as a regional power: Egypt, Iraq (in the 1980s), Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. All of these states have significantly higher power capabilities than other states of the Middle East such as Tunisia, Lebanon, or Kuwait, and therefore qualify as potential regional powers. Yet, none of them enjoys sufficient material and ideational resources to actually prevail against the others, at least against all of the other potential regional powers at the same time. As in other regions, particularly Asia (China, India, and Japan), the Middle East does not have one uncontested regional power. Yet, in the Middle East, regional power dispersion is extremely high.

2.3 Contracert rather than Concert of Power in the Middle East

The Middle East constitutes a multipolar system whose actors have failed to create a concert of power—it is rather a “contracert.” In crucial moments in recent history, major potential regional powers have competed against each other, thereby very often using hard power. Egypt and Israel fought several wars between the 1940s and the 1970s, thereafter, concluding a peace that not only always remained cold but also destroyed Egypt’s credibility as a (potential) regional power. Egypt attempted to export nationalist republicanism to Saudi Arabia. The proxy war in Yemen only ended after Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 June War. The 1980s witnessed a major war between Iran and Iraq (1980–1988) followed by Iraq’s attempt to forcefully control the Gulf by annexing Kuwait, which was only reversed by direct US intervention. Since the end of the Cold War, Israel’s attempts to normalize relations have been stopped by a failed peace process with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), tensions between Israel (as well as Saudi Arabia) and Iran have increased, and until recently Turkey has projected its power ambitions more toward Europe and the Caucasus than to the Middle East. Moreover, the high dispersion of power in the Middle East is also indicated by two more regional features: first, regional institutions and their impact on regional affairs are underdeveloped in comparison not only to Europe but also to the Americas and Asia (Mercado Común del Sur/Mercado Comum do Sul [Mercosur/Mercosul], North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA], and Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] inter alia). As a result of the Middle Eastern contracert, potential regional powers do not agree upon strengthening regional institutions and since they are so weak, (potential) regional powers are incapable of developing their potentials through regional governance institutions. Second, Qatar, which, due to its very small size, does not qualify as a potential regional power has in recent times been among the most successful brokers of regional agreements, which underscores the weakness of Middle Eastern potential regional powers.

2.4 Limited Power Capabilities of Middle Eastern Actors on a Global Scale

Most potential regional powers in the Middle East command rather limited power capabilities on a global scale. Contrary to Asia (China, India, and Japan) and Latin America (Brazil), no state of the Middle East has made it to the global top ten in terms of Gross National Product (GNP). There are two Middle Eastern countries, though, that enjoy high capabilities in special niches: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel, which became of full member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2010, is politically, economically, and culturally very well connected with the centers of Western power, particularly the United States and, furthermore, the European Union (particularly Germany). Yet, Israel rarely uses its special access to global resources for regional policies based on cooperation and soft power (Beck 2010). Saudi Arabia’s power capabilities are solely based on its command of major energy resources. In the immediate years after the oil revolution in the 1970s, some observers expected that a new paradigm in regional development could emerge by reallocating globally earned resources into regional development. Yet, as will be elaborated further below, this did not happen.

It is not any genuine regional actor but the United States that directly controls the most advanced military capabilities deployable to and even deployed in the Middle East. On the ideological basis of the Carter Doctrine (1979), US president Ronald Reagan activated the Central Command over the Middle East (CENTCOM) in 1983, one of whose major components is the US navy’s Fifth Fleet (Naval Forces Central Command), which is headquartered in the Bahraini capital Manama. In several wars, particularly with Iraq in 1991 and 2003, the United States proved that it is the strongest regional actor not only by sea routes but also by air and land means. Moreover, the United States also used soft power when it brokered the very few successful peace processes of the Middle East. Particularly Camp David I in 1978 was a major breakthrough since the former major ally of the Soviet Union switched camps, which is why the Cold War in the Middle East was basically over ten years before the implosion of the Soviet Union terminated it on a global scale.

3 HOW TO EXPLAIN THAT THERE IS NO REGIONAL POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

3.1 Theoretical Embedment of the Regional Power Concept

From an explanatory perspective, the question arises what are the causes that prevented a regional power from emerging in the Middle East. The regional power approach itself does not give an answer to this crucial question because it is inspired by “Institutionalist” thinking—without seriously taking into account that critical “Institutionalism” is well aware that institutions in international relations only develop under favorable conditions (Keohane 1984). Institutionalism was developed by critically challenging Realism, yet both schools of thought shared some basic assumptions, particularly the notion that the international system is shaped by anarchy. Therefore, a fruitful way to approach the issue wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 The Concept of Regional Power as Applied to the Middle East
• Part I Iran and Its “Revolutionary Mission”
• Part II Egypt: Past and Future Glory?
• Part III Turkey and the Ottoman Past
• Part IV Israel—Hidden Opportunities
• Part V Saudi Arabia—More than Petrodollars
• List of Contributors
• Index