 Welcome to the Naval War College, the Navy's home of thought. We are excited to present a new series titled NWC Talks, where we showcase our world-class experts in discussing national security matters. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Welcome. I'm Professor Hayat Alvi. This is NWC Talks. I'm going to talk about U.S. national interests relative to the Middle East region. Let's begin by talking about why the United States Navy was created in the first place. Believe it or not, it has a lot to do with the Middle East region and U.S. national interests that were forged from the very beginning. The United States created the Navy in late 1700s in order to protect merchant ships against the Barbary pirates near and around the Mediterranean Sea. That is kind of the earliest part of history. Think of this for a moment. The birthplace and birth time of the United States at the time and its struggle against the British as a colonizer. At the same time, the United States was dealing with piracy and around the Mediterranean Sea. But think of that as the opening gateway for establishing United States interests, political, economic, security, diplomacy, all kinds of kind of multidisciplinary interests relative to the Middle East that expanded from that moment. Since that time, the Middle East region has been an important geographic region for U.S. power projection. And it began with maritime power and expanded over time into other kinds of power projection. Let's begin by asking some important questions about what is the significance of the Middle East region. Now, those of us in the field refer to it as the MENA region, Middle East and North Africa. So the Middle East region is the birthplace of the three monotheistic face, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Correspondingly, you will see that there are a lot of important sacred places relative to those religions like Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, and others. There are a host of other belief systems that exist and originate in the MENA region as well. And then it's also an important region to consider in terms of the fall and rise and rise and fall of different ancient empires throughout history. The MENA region also has, because of those historical empires, countless archaeological findings. So if you've ever been to Egypt, you probably visited the pyramids. There are many artifacts and relics and important structures and monuments that are rich for archaeological history and discipline throughout the Middle East region. Then you also have, again correspondingly, a host of ancient civilizations that originate in the MENA region. I'll list just a few. Ancient Egyptian, Persian, Anatolian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Jewish, Mesopotamian, and there are others. Around the 20th century then we see the discovery of oil. Keep in mind that there are within the region those countries that are considered oil rich and those that are not. So you see some economic disparity between countries in the region, the poorest country being Yemen. You also, after World War I and World War II, have Cold War politics where the United States and Soviet Union competed in the MENA region for influence. You can see some of those patterns and trends even in today's post-Cold War politics relative to the region. The United States also recognized the state of Israel and declared itself a state in 1948. This occurred on the global stage at the United Nations with the United States representative coming to the podium soon after the announcement was made and recognized the state of Israel. Seconds later you saw the Soviet Union do the same thing. Again, you see how Cold War politics come into play contextually at the time. You can look at that archival footage on YouTube. The United States has geopolitically strategic friends and allies throughout history but also enemies in the MENA region. But for the most part what you're going to find is that in today's world or in the contemporary context you have the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the GCC countries which are mostly oil rich that engage most regularly with the United States especially in the area of security cooperation. You can go to the US Central Command or CENTCOM website and take a look at some of those dynamics and relationships and security cooperation partnerships between the United States and various MENA countries but especially GCC countries. Understand also that the MENA region consists of state actors as well as non-state actors some of which non-state actors then transformed into what we call hybrid actors meaning they began as non-state actors and gained some degree of political legitimacy especially in the eyes of the locals. So consider for example Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza those are in many ways considered hybrid actors because they have some degree of political legitimacy. Another major concern for the West and the United States about the Middle East region is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons programs. Also the region is known for an arms race an almost constant high rank in the world in terms of weapons purchases. United States used to have good relations with the Shah of Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution however that relationship soured very quickly soon after the Islamic Revolution. The MENA region is known for its propensity for violent conflict and lack of conflict resolution. Related to that is that the MENA region is also known for decades of refugee and migrant crises both internally as well as spilling over outside of the region. Also understand that the MENA region is notoriously known for having gender disparity problems and it's also characterized by the push and pull between various ideologies that includes secular and religious ideologies. The MENA region should never be seen or viewed through a monolithic lens. I tell my students this all the time it's a major mistake whether you are analysts, national security professionals, or even the media to look at anything but particularly in the entire region or religion from the region in a monolithic lens. The MENA region is extremely diverse. It cannot be brushed with a generalizing stroke. It's very very diverse from country to country from belief system to belief system even at the very micro-local level. In recent years, the United States has had interests pertaining to the region involving things like or priorities like defeating ISIS or the Islamic State, counter-terrorism in general, supporting Israel of course is a constant priority, counter-proliferation and especially these days countering Iran. I said earlier that the region is known for its propensity for violent conflict. Well today we see major genocidal wars and conflicts going on in the Middle East. We have Syria and that war is not over but it has reached almost 500,000 casualties and then we have what I call a slow genocide in Yemen. And then there are humanitarian crises related to these conflicts and wars. You're probably familiar with a lot of instability and insecurity in Iraq but there's also a lot of worry and fear about what could potentially happen in other countries as well. One other important thing to remember about the Mina region is that it's mostly desert climate and so water scarcity and food insecurity are very critical issues especially if again you consider the demographics and population growth increase and you're not going to see a corresponding increase in resources including water and food. That's problematic. So at this point ask yourself because we always hear about the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which has still remained unresolved since 1948 that some argue that if we resolve this conflict then the Middle East region at large will see more stability and security. So pause for a second and ask yourself if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is resolved will that end the propensity for violent conflict in the entire Middle East region. Think about that hard because there have been historically wars and conflicts in the region that have had nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at least directly. Also think hard about some wild cards. Currently the headlines talk about Iran and its nuclear program and almost a critical stage that we're reaching in that problem. There's of course proliferation of terrorism and terrorist groups. There are wars and genocides in Syria and Yemen. There might be more instability and insecurity in Iraq over the horizon depending on how things go there. So some of the wild cards or we might even call them black swan incidents or events do reside in the Middle East region. The one thing you should take away from today's talk is that the United States has the strongest capabilities to engage in conflict resolution and resolve or help resolve the wars and conflicts in the region of the Middle East and North Africa. That is one of the main reasons why it's very important for the United States to remain proactively engaged but with a focus on bringing wars and conflicts to an end and bringing peace and stability and security to the region. Thank you for joining me in this talk today. I'm Professor Hayat Alvi. I'm in the National Security Affairs Department. This has been NWC Talks.