CIAO DATE: 04/2013
January 2013
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
This paper focuses on the implications that the ‘Arab spring’ has for the security of states and individuals in Europe and North America as core parts of the ‘West’. It first discusses potential challenges which emanate from the foreign policies of Arab governments that in different ways respond to recent protests and the processes of political change that they have initiated. Reflecting concerns of their main constituencies, the new governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya may increasingly, though probably moderately, question aspects of the current international order, in particular global inequalities and Western policies towards Israel and Iran. Conversely, many governments that so far managed to resist change (with Syria as a notable exception) are likely to focus on Iran and its allies as a major perceived threat and may complicate the dispassionate search for common ground. More generally, Western policy makers will have to take into account that security perceptions among Arab states will increasingly diverge. The paper then discusses challenges that directly emanate from the continued or increasing weakness of the Arab states that manifests itself in terms of state capacities including the monopoly of the means of coercion, policy delivery and related discontent, and even state disintegration. It argues that diverging interests and concerns between the ‘West’ and the new Arab governments are manageable if analysed independently of received wisdoms. This also applies to Islamists currently in government but not necessarily to all Islamists. Threats associated with weak and collapsing states ranging from dangers to the environment to areas dominated by organized crime and terrorists need to be addressed by patient, long term attempts at state building and reconciliation; these should be based on power sharing arrangements strengthened by capacity building and inclusive social and economic development.
Resource link: The Security Implications of the Arab Spring [PDF]