 Okay, I hope you all enjoy your Republic Day break. Did you go somewhere for getaway, like short getaway? Yeah, I went to Istanbul. That was fun, actually. Great two days. Well, on the occasion of my father's and older brother's birthday, and I also had to change my winter tires, actually summer and spring tires for winter tires. So that was a good occasion to be in Istanbul two full sunny days. Excuse me? No, well, hopefully I was not there. But I've been almost everywhere else in Istanbul. All right, such a great city. But I can't believe I'm living in Ankara for so many years. All right. So, we were talking about the threat perceptions in the Middle East. Threat perceptions are essential to understand because they're essential to at least understanding the major part of the foreign policies of any country. Actually, most countries devise foreign policies with a view to advancing their interests beyond their borders. It's a pursuit of national interest outside of the borders. This is something that I kept saying many, many times. The idea, the principle is to seize opportunities, to get these opportunities whenever they emerge, and also avert risk to get away from risks as they come to the surface. Sometimes, of course, you may have an advanced opinion as to what is likely to come, either an opportunity or a risk, but it is something that requires elaborate studies by people who can do that. And those who can do this kind of things are professionals from diplomatic circles, military circles, political, academic circles. So, think tanks serve such a purpose to bring all these people together and by means of think tanks studies, elaborate and comprehensive studies. And, of course, these studies can provide some policy options to the governments and governments can better see what is likely to come ahead of their time in the future. So, one part of this kind of studies has always been threat perceptions. So, without proper understanding of what or what kind of threat a country perceives from what sources, what are the sources of threat, it may not be possible to fully understand the motives behind their foreign policies. Therefore, threat perception is an essential study or understanding threat perceptions of particular countries are essential for proper understanding of their foreign policies. So, this reading was made available for at least a week and I hope you all had copies from the reserve and I'm going to now check actually which one of you, which ones of you actually had a chance to at least have a look at what was in this reading because these readings are not put on the reserve just to stay there or just for you to make photocopies and shell them, but these are for you to read, all right? And these are actually all reading material, a source of information that you need for proper understanding of this course but especially considering that there will be a simulation in a little bit more than a month actually toward the end of next month and this is something that can help you a lot, especially for some countries who will be representing Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia. And now I would like to see especially representatives of these countries now being present and I will check who are present actually right now and I would like you to elaborate your understanding of your countries, I mean the country that you will be presenting at this simulation, your country's threat perception. So, and of course provided that you had this reading and also you read this reading, let's just look at it, all right? Egypt, can I see El Alp here? Yeah, okay, here. Gözdem, yeah, sure. Emine and Enis not here for the records. Okay, who else? Israel, Bishra, I can see her around. Shua'i, I see. Metin is here and again is here. Israeli team here more or less. Jordan, Hazal, I think, yeah, you're there. Yid, Fatma, okay. Jordanian ladies are always here but and Koral, Alpak, Lolo not present, right? And Saudi Arabia, Fatih is here. Iran, Marcus, Mert, F.A. Kuxal, F.A., right? Mert, Marcus, sorry. F.A. Kuxal and Ömer Faruk, Tanverdin. All right, actually I don't have any order in mind but just why don't we get started with Israel? In the Israeli team, I would like the members of the Israeli team to give us an account of their, quote unquote, their threat perceptions. How do you assess the threat perceptions? This is a chapter written by Shimon Limone. He was, I think he must be retired now because I met him back in 1995 and he was with the Israeli Defense Ministry. The chapter actually is something that makes much more sense because it comes from someone who worked at least for some time for the Israeli Ministry of Defense. That is someone who actually, I don't think he was a military, I don't know actually, I can't remember back then because I met him at a conference in Lund, Sweden and we had of course as usual exchange of views and opinion about the situation in the Middle East but I cannot remember whether he had any military background that doesn't make too much a difference being someone from the Israeli Ministry of Defense at some higher ranking official position. Actually this is something that gives him the opportunity to see things from within, of course, the state bureaucracy, of course from within the Israeli population and also because he writes in something to contribute in a book like that a unity research report like that, he's quite aware of the fact that this is going to be read by somebody else. So therefore opinions presented here make much sense as a true expression of how an Israeli officer or Israeli bureaucrat or Israeli analyst or scholar perceives the world in terms of threats posed to Israel. So now the floor is yours, it really is. Yes? Do you remember that? You will have a midterm exam next week and the day is, do you remember the day? Which day? 12, that is a Friday and the exam will start at 9 sharp and will last until 10.30. It's going to be an hour in the health more or less provided that you come on time and we start on time and the exam will take place in this class. I don't think it's going to be recorded. At least Mr. Ember can be off that particular Friday. Yeah, so what about the Egyptian threat perception? Where were the Egyptian guys? Can you just raise, I mean, yeah, okay. Any assessment of what my friend here said? All right, you were in a better position than compared to many of your classmates because you had a chance to attend at least two conferences. One was specifically on Egyptian issues related to Egypt foreign policy and that was on Turkish-Israel relations just last week. So, all right, let's hear from you. What else? Other Egyptians? Why didn't you read? Why didn't you guys read? Who read? Just let me, instead of asking who didn't read, anybody just won and he is a special student. Well, especially in every sense. All right, next time I hope you will not regret for not having read the assignments, all right? So, any question? Okay, when it comes to threat assessment, there are several issues that you have to bear in mind. I mean, to make a proper assessment of threat is important. I mean, as I said, it is important to understand the threats as they are perceived by the sort of ruling elite or the decision makers of a particular country because, of course, not exclusively, depending on that, to a great extent they bear in mind, they keep in mind the threats that they perceive in terms of sort of decisions that they are taken with respect to their countries foreign policy. So, therefore, I mean, you just, I mean, the very purpose of simulation here is to, of course, make this course more interesting because, after all, someone showing up here at all times and speaking and speaking, it turns out to be dull experience. It's not so much an excitement. So, by being part of or preparing for simulation, you go to embassies, talk with people, you attend conferences, you get together among yourselves, you make preparation, you submit reports. So, these are activities that make, I hope, your sort of teaching or learning experience a little bit more fun. So, after all, we all need to at least get some joy out of the work that we're doing. Me being as instructor here, you being students here. So, but after all, you are going to put yourselves in the shoes of the people who are truly representing their countries in international fora and in different platforms and round table discussions, conferences, whatever, seminars. So, many countries, especially those who are living in rather hostile environment or in such environment, in such geographical locations where there is not much stability. The politics is volatile. You cannot know what exactly is going to happen if not tomorrow, but just within a month, within a year or within next couple of years. Can you tell me exactly with 100% confidence or with great confidence that nothing's going to happen in Lebanon in a month or two? No. Well, Lebanon is much more stable when compared to the period between 75 to 1991, 15, 16 years of civil war. And then several things have happened. Now there is, you know, the stability is on and off. Well, for the most of times, it's much more stable and they are trying to hail the wounds of civil war. But the situation, especially the fabric of the population is so vulnerable, so fragile that some provocation can make things really unexpectedly worse than even it was back in the 70s and 80s. So therefore, this is a geography, this environment where stability is not so much of a case. Same applies to other countries in the Middle East. Can you tell me any particular country where you can just see five years from today that the regime will be stable? Well, people may come and go, but at least regime-wise in terms of the regime, the regime will remain the same. Can you tell this with great confidence? No. I mean, look at Syria. For the time being, there was some sort of a smooth passage from Hafez al-Assad to his son. And the regime, yes, it improves itself in terms of maybe some individual rights, maybe some authoritarian regime, which is of course still an authoritarian regime, because the state mechanism, the state apparatus is pretty much the same, is left almost intact with some replacements. But yes, Hafez al-Assad may be closer to the public than his father, a sort of Bashar al-Assad is maybe closer to his own public than his father because he had a much more positive image in this Syrian public domain. These are things that we understand from our Syrian colleagues or friends who study Syria. But you cannot tell with great certainty with, I mean, three years from today, five years from today, ten years from today, the Syrian regime will be exactly the same. Same applies to Iran, same applies to Saudi Arabia, same applies to Jordan, same applies to Iraq. I mean, Iraq even next week is uncertain. I mean, let alone next month, next year. Yes, there is this heavy weight diplomacy and military presence of the United States on the ground and also has its grips almost everywhere. There is this process of transformation of the Iraqi situation, the state as a whole. But still, there are certain factions, there are certain groups, there are certain powerful groups within the society which are, of course, being, some of them are being manipulated by other countries in the region such as Iran having a high degree of influence on Shia people, not all of them, but some of them. So therefore, the situation in the Middle East is pretty volatile. Well, of course, one might just turn to us and say, can you tell us with great certainty that the regime in Turkey will remain the same? Well, at least my hopes would be much higher when compared to the countries in the region, in the Middle East. Turkey has gone through all these difficult years at least keeping its regime intact. And yes, there were wounds, damages of all what happened back in the Iraq war and the implications of Iraq war. We are going to study this in the coming weeks. The changing circumstances of relations between Turkey and Israel, the PKK, supported by Syria for so many years until 1998 and since then, yes, we are developing a number of steps we are taking through certain stages that expectedly will improve the relation between Turkey and Syria. But all of this can tell us that Middle East is far too away from being stable. So therefore, when you conduct a study, a threat assessment study, there are basically two things that you have to consider for each individual country. You, first of all, look at the location of that country, the geographical location, and then you look at the historical situation with respect to that country. Of course, these are not the two only things that you have to pay attention to. I mean, these are the major issues because history is history. What happened in history has happened so you can change it. In some sense, well, just don't get me wrong what I'm going to say, history is somewhat static. Static in the sense that things have happened and you cannot go backwards in time and travel in time and just go and change things. This is not back to the future game, right? History has happened, but what makes it dynamic is how you interpret history. Your interpretation of history may be far more different than the interpretation of others of the same historical records. Just last week, I mean, or was it just, yeah, on the 23rd, 24th, 25th of October, a week ago in the United Kingdom, I think I just mentioned that we discussed the Middle East peace process, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but there was so much excitement about now the new role that Turkey plays in the region and people came to me, I mean, scholars, scientists, ex-diplomats, ex-mitra people, especially from the Arab countries, countries in the region, and also some Israelis also acknowledged, I mean, how fast Turkey's profile was rising in the region. So, and they were telling me about, well, Turkey is this, Turkey is that, so Turkey is doing great, so they said even Prime Minister Erdogan, if he were a candidate for presidency in any Arab country, he would win the elections far ahead of the second person. So these are things about the expressions of the admiration, especially in the public domain among the Arab people. But the moment we start talking about history, not today or future, the moment we start talking about history with our fellow Egyptian colleagues, Syrian or Iraqi or others, I mean, the interpretation of history was far different than ours. They always look at the Ottoman Empire period as a dark age, which, well, the acknowledge Ottoman's rule in a rather sort of a balanced manner without creating much difficulties. But after all, they hold the Ottoman Empire for being responsible for their backwardness in education. So when we read our history or teach our history or discuss our history, I mean, not myself or because I'm not a historian, so I don't feel competent enough to discuss these issues in depth. But even when we watch people on TV channels or when we read their books, articles, op-eds, whatever, we understand a certain Ottoman rule, a certain sort of vision, or we get a certain perception that more or less pleases us. But the very same history or maybe the very same historical records are being interpreted in a far more different way by people of the region. So, therefore, the perception of history, the reading of history, the interpretation of historical records or the view about the past has always been and will most likely be always be an important factor in the threat perception threats are sort of a fuel by your fears and historical or the perception of history or your reading of history also tells a lot about your fears. I mean, look at the situation between Turkey and Russia today. Under normal circumstances, Turkey and Russia might have had far more advanced relations even within the metro domain between the two. But over the past two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was a clear threat to Turkey and, therefore, Turkey had taken its part in the Western Alliance NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But then, even since then, for 20 years actually have passed a lapse since that period and when you talk to the diplomats, the major people and some scholarly people, especially somewhat older when compared to the news sort of scholars. The view of Russia today is not so much different than the view of what the Soviet Union was in the past because the fears are still alive, the fear of a colossal big sort of neighbor which is capable economically and especially militarily of doing harm or causing harm to you and, therefore, this is something that fuels your threat perception. Again, I mean, relations between Turkey and Syria, Turkey and Iraq, Iran, et cetera. So, therefore, history is one particular source where you should look at without proper understanding of historical relations or the way they are being interpreted by the decision-making elite, the ruling elite, the military diplomatic elite of that particular country. You may not have a good idea, just a clear idea about their threat perception. Another thing, as I said, is geography. Again, just like history is static per se, but it is made dynamic by way of interpretation, geography is also more or less static, at least for a given period unless there is a significant change in the territories or geographical outlook of a region because of, I don't know, possibly wars because war is something that changes sometimes even the political geography and not only the geopolitics. So, when you look at the map, you always have this source for proper threat perception. I mean, who are your neighbors? And what are their military capabilities? What are their expectations from you? What are the issues in common which may turn out to be confrontational? Well, of course, you may have some problems with a country in the past, but you may work on these problems and you can just solve them peacefully. But certain problems or some problems are not that easy to solve in a peaceful manner unless there is, of course, dedication on both sides or all sides that are parted to the conflict solve this problem. By looking at the geographical location, as I said, by looking at the military economic capabilities as well as the regimes of other countries that are neighboring to you, not only just the immediate neighbors but also distant neighbors and also, in some cases, countries as far as the United States for Israel for Iran, for instance. So, therefore, the intentions and capabilities of other states constitute the threat that you perceive from them, if any. Of course, not all neighborhood may be threatening or just an unstable neighborhood. I mean, there are places in Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe where threat perceptions, at least for the time being, have been mitigated. Well, there were some threats perceived in the past but not necessarily today or somehow are pushed to the back burner. I mean, they are not left to come to the surface and they are not making the headlines for the time being. But again, the threats, the military capabilities and the intentions of your neighbors constitute the threats that you perceive. So these are important things. But of course, these are, in addition to this, to these two more or less static or the major inputs, ingredients in your threat assessment analysis, you also have to look at the economic situation which is much more, of course, flexible, much more dynamic, is very much subject to change on a daily basis, of course, or not daily but in a rather short term. But also, there is this political issue. I mean, the political regimes. Political regimes, again, may change and once a regime changes, they threat the very history or the very geographical location of that country being the same or remaining the same, just because of change in the political regime of that country, that country may either turn out to be a threat or may not be anymore as serious a threat as it used to be. So therefore, these are issues that you have to bear in mind. History, geography, economic situation and political situation. These two are more or less, not at all times, not forever, more or less static. So therefore, their analysis is much more easier. I mean, just by looking at history, you know if you have access to primary sources, archives, documents and reliable interpretation or reliable secondary sources and also geography itself is there and tells a lot all by itself and of course one particular aspect here is how capable are you in terms of getting the real input or the correct accurate data about the metric capabilities of any particular country. In today's world, it is not that difficult to have at least more or less an assessment of what kind of metric capabilities a country may have and therefore, I mean, it's not something totally secret, it's not something that you totally be on your reach. There are many, many sources in the open literature, databases, think tank reports, et cetera, which provide more or less, again, of course none of them can be 100% accurate but more or less a good estimate about the metric capabilities of any specific country. Just go, for instance, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, CIPRI, if you're interested in the metric capabilities of any country, just check the website of this. It's still called International Peace Research Institute. It publishes almost every year, a yearbook about the metric capabilities. Well, you may agree, disagree with some of the data provided that you have a better explanation or you have better data but or some interpretations may be not fully correct if you know that particular country but on the overall, it's an invaluable source. It's a very, very valuable source of information for conducting a research and study on metric capabilities of any country in the world. I mean, they have almost at least half a page or up to 10 pages or even more for specific countries. So, therefore, what I was trying to say was when you talk about or write about threat assessments, you have to start with how or what the geography tells, what the history tells about that particular country's threat perception and also above this or in addition to that what the political regime tells us about the threat perception and what the economic situation tells us because economic situation has to do, I mean, just like any other thing. I mean, also, this is something that also applies to political regime but also, but more, more so, the economic situation has two dimensions. First, it has to do with the economic capabilities or financial capabilities of that particular country in terms of arms procurement and arming itself if it is so necessary for that country whether it has the capability or ability to procure arms, weapons or other types of security systems and also, I mean, this is something that is significant for some analysis but also, what is the situation in the public domain? I mean, whether the population is happy with the economic situation, are there any internal domestic political problems that may have repercussions for the regime, that may have repercussions for the relations with other countries? For instance, I mean, in terms of economic situation economy being one of the criteria that we just talked about, history, geography, economic situation, political situation, I mean, almost all of them, of course, depend on economic situation any country, I mean, not only the ones in the Middle East, in South Asia, in North America, Latin America, Europe, et cetera, everywhere but we just talked about the, how much the economic, the changes in the economic circumstances in the economic situation affected the position of Egypt and that's why Abdumman al-Said Ali places emphasis on this particular situation from geopolitics to geoeconomics. I mean, first and foremost among, in his analysis comes the changing economic situation because of the war in the Gulf. We just mentioned very briefly last week that because of the war, the first war, 1991 war and in the period leading up to the war, I mean, just before the war and starting from that moment onwards and for so many years that followed, the Egyptian workers who have gone to the Gulf countries work there, find work and make an earning, make a living and then not only that they themselves being employed because of the significant population of Egypt and there was not so much work to do and not so much employment in Egypt, many of them have gone to the Gulf, not only that they were employed as such but also they were making a living, making incomes and sending part of them back to Egypt and this situation has been significantly tampered with the war in the Gulf. Then comes, of course, the situation with respect to the geography. I mean, what is the most important thing from the Egyptian perspective in terms of the, I mean, the sort of the most vital asset of Egypt? Any idea about what is the most important thing for Egypt? No, no, I'm telling you, yes. What was your name? Kurshad. Kurshad. No idea about what the most important thing for Egypt might be? Does this map tell you anything? No, you're not looking at the map. Can't you see anything significant for Egypt? Right. Who sees anything? Yes, please. Excuse me, I can't hear you. Nile? Nile sea? You mean river? Yes. Okay. All right. The Nile river. Any idea about where it originates? The Nile? Which way the Nile flows? Upwards or downwards? Or, I mean, this way or this way? I shouldn't say upwards or downwards. I mean, this way or this way? This way. All right. Because some people might think it comes all the way from the Mediterranean into the Central Eastern Africa. No. It originates from here, the Horn of Africa. And nowadays, this issue, the headwaters of the Nile, is becoming a much more significant issue for Egypt and also for the region. Because it's one of the most important sources of not only, because for a culture, but also for energy generation. So no one, from the Egyptian perspective, no one should tamper with the waters, the free flow of waters of the Nile river. Because the Nile is not totally, entirely within the Egyptian territory. It originates from the Horn of Africa here. And therefore, the headwaters of the Nile river and the way it flows all the way. I mean, this is downstream, right? Peering, although when you look at the map, you see like an upstream. No, it is not. So the headwaters being here and the Egypt being a downstream riparian, it is heavily, if not entirely, but to a very great extent, it is heavily dependent on the waters of Nile, for its economy, agriculture, which is a great source of employment, and also, of course, providing food for the population which is not rich, and also for generating electricity. So therefore, any attempt to change the flow or to affect the flow of the Nile river would be something as hostile as any armed attack to any country. So therefore, a threat is not only perceived from the metric capabilities of other states. Of course, these are major source of threats in terms of how you make your analysis or how you sort of devise your perception. But here, the very waters of the Nile are the most important things, among other things, for the security of Egypt. Without Nile, Egypt is almost nothing because it's almost desert here. And if you have a chance to fly over this territory, you can see that both banks, I mean, right and left-hand sides of the Nile are just because of agriculture. It's all green, but the rest is desert. And not so much, well, except for some oil and gas reserves here, but this is not something that makes it significant in terms of oil and gas. Well, it somewhat exports, but not as much, of course, as any other Gulf countries or Saudi Arabia. So therefore, when it comes to threat perception, just a specific case like Egypt, now you have something which is not necessarily primarily militaristic, but something maybe even more significant than any meter threat because this is something that, in a sense, makes the Egyptian economic life, public life, political life, of course, dependent on the regime of the waters of the Nile river. Okay, let's give a break here and we'll continue with other countries.