The summer of 2015 has been a terrible climate moment and an energy game changer in the Middle East. From the end of July to the middle of August, a terrible heat wave has swept the whole region, from Iran and the Persian Gulf to Egypt, causing hundreds of deaths and a heavy pressure on the health of people, the infrastructures and social cohesion (Kyle Jaeger, “”Heat Dome” in the Middle East is ravaging region’s residents”, ATTN, August 4th, 2015). At the end of this sequence, at the beginning of September, the Italian oil giant corporation ENI announced having found a mammoth off shore deposit of natural gas in the Egyptian economic exclusive zone (Jeff Reed, “ Elephant discovery made …
Category Archives: Middle-East and North Africa
China, Israel, and the New Silk Road
In April 2014, the Israeli President and historic figure Shimon Peres led a three days state visit in China, in order to bolster the growing relationship between the two countries (Shannon Tiezzi, “As China Turns Toward Middle East, China and Israel Seek Closer Ties“, The Diplomat, April 09, 2014). It is interesting to note that the discussions were mainly focused on agriculture, natural resources, environmental protection, education and healthcare. Since then, other talks have been held about defense cooperation (Mercy A. Kuo and Angelica O. Tang, “The U.S.-China-Israel Defense Dynamic: Strategic Common Ground”, The Diplomat, May 11, 2015). Beijing has even proposed its mediation in the Israel-Palestine conflict (Shannon Tiezzi, “China appoints new special envoy to the Middle east”, The Diplomat, September …
Scenarios for the Future of Libya within the Next Three to Five Years
Now that we have identified and understood the actors in Libya’s civil war (see State of Play), we may outline the various scenarios regarding Libya’s future within the next three to five years. A civil war with two rival governments, armed coalitions, jihadists, and various tribes creates a complex climate, and we have constructed initially …
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Israel, Natural Gas and Power in the Middle East
Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime minister is known to joke about the fact that Moses led his people during forty years in the desert to the only place in the Middle East without oil (Marin Katusa, The Colder War, 2014). And, indeed, for the first sixty years of its existence, the lack of energy resources has been a major difficulty for Israel. However, a profound change seems to be underway, since two giant off-shore natural gas deposits have been discovered in the Israeli exclusive economic zone in 2011. The Tamar and the Leviathan fields hold respectively 10 and between 19 and 22 trillion cubic feet of gas of estimated reserves, which could ensure decades of domestic consumption as well as …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 200 – The Future is Now: Robots Warfare In Iraq
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 23 April scan → World + Tech & Weapons – This week’s featured article is Nichols “Militia’s War Robots Raise Questions About Future Of Warfare” for Forbes. Nichols points out there that a 23 March 2015 video posted by Muqtada al-Sadr Shi’a Peace Brigades (Saraya Al Salam) (see brief on the group by Jihad Intel) advertises some (still small) futurist warfare capabilities, demonstrating the use of two armed robots or “weaponized unmanned ground vehicles (UVGs)”. Nichols then interestingly uses this example to underline that the common American focus on technology and future warfare needs to be considered also in the light of their use by non-state actors. He then imagines how the future of …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 199 – Of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Petrodollars
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 16 April scan → World – Two major developments should more particularly be underlined this week, the first related to world order and further threat to the U.S. Dollar supremacy and the second to the potential forthcoming anti-Bashar al-Assad Saudi-Turkish attacks in Syria. First, there is the impact of the lower oil prices on petrodollars, with potential second order effects on the supremacy of the U.S. dollars as international currency, and then again potential consequences on American power and world order. As underlined in Bloomberg’s article (see “Oil-Rich Nations Are Selling Off Their Petrodollar Assets at Record Pace” in the Weekly), currently analysts are divided in two schools of …
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Collapse War in the Middle East?
The current war raging throughout Syria and Iraq is profoundly singular, because it combines itself with the social and environmental collapse, combined with the severe effects of climate change, known by these societies. In Iraq, the current war is waged between, on the one hand, the Kurdish forces, and the Iraqi army, both supported in a way or another by the Iranian forces and air strikes delivered by the US-led coalition (Rowan Scarborough, “Iranian Quds force aiding Iraqi Shiites with Obama administration’s blessing”, The Washington Times, September 20, 2014) and the aggressor, the Islamic State, on the other (Valantin, “Environment, Climate Change, War and the State”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 16, 2015). It is in itself politically quite …
The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 197 – Unstable Equilibrium in the Middle East
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 2 April scan → World – Three articles this week are particularly interesting, in themselves but also when read together. Amal Mudallali “Sorry, Obama: The Arab World No Longer Needs America” for The National Interest, focuses on the pride and “new Arab spirit” resulting from the Saudi-led …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 196 – Yemen, towards the End of the U.N.?
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 26 March scan → World – As the world wonders about the motivation that could prompt the copilot of Germanwings to crash a plane, and while the hypothesis of a terrorist intention is most probably on everyone’s mind, a very large number of crowdsourced articles this week …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 195 – Tunisia Museum Attack, Global Jihadi Threat and Public Indifference?
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 19 March scan → World – The deadly attack on the Bardo museum in Tunisia, on 18 March, reminded the world that the Salafi-Jihadi threat is far from being overcome, despite some lassitude displayed by crowds and media over such attacks. One of the interesting signals to notice here, is the small number of crowdsourced articles referring to the attack. Only three articles found their way in The Weekly, when the casualties are far more important than those of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris or of the shooting in Denmark, to say nothing of the impacts to Tunisia’s economy and more broadly polity, and in terms of spread of Jihadi attacks, threat …
