Shifting Sands of the Middle East and the Impact on the Arab World

Posted: January 16th, 2019

By Kenneth Pollack

Kenneth M. Pollack is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing in particular on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries.

In part two of his two-part exclusive series for The Cipher Brief, AEI Scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of the recently-released Armies of Sand: The Past, Present and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness, discusses how the fundamental balance of power in the Middle East is impacting the Arab world.

The Middle East is changing. Dramatically so. The political, economic, and cultural systems that the Arab states (and Iran) installed after gaining independence following World War II are breaking down all across the region. Most are financially shaky as a result of a torrid population boom that has outstripped the oil revenues that underpin their rickety economies. Their growing citizenry is infuriated by the lack of decent jobs—jobs that they believe their educational achievement merits, but because the quality of their education is so lacking, jobs they cannot obtain.

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