 Welcome again to the fourth annual Great Decisions series sponsored by Mead Public Library and the Sheboygan branch of the American Association of University Women, an organization dedicated to empowering women and girls and advancing equity through advocacy, education, and research. We are presenting our sessions virtually this year because of the pandemic and are grateful to WSCS for filming the programs. Great Decisions is a project of the Foreign Policy Association which also publishes a book with information about the timely topics. We will not be offering books for sale this year, but you can call 1-800-477-5836 to order a copy. That's 1-800-477-5836. As always, we are indebted to Mead Librarian, Jeannie Gartman, for arranging the schedule for these programs. Tonight's topic is Red Sea Security and will be presented by Daniel C. Stowell, PhD. As Associate Dean for Global Affairs at St. Norbert College, Dr. Stowell provides oversight and direction for all of the activities within the Center for Global Engagement, including study abroad programs, international student recruitment, and English as a second language institute. During his career, Dr. Stowell has worked in both the foreign policy community as well as higher education. Before coming to St. Norbert, he had several positions at Georgetown University and the University of Missouri, Kansas City. As a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, Daniel had postings to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the U.S. Consulate General in Johannesburg, South Africa, and in the Near East Bureau of the United States Department of State. While with the Foreign Service, he received three Meritus Honors Awards. Daniel's research focuses on issues of water and food security in the Middle East. Dr. Stowell. Hello, and thank you for joining this conversation on Red Sea Security, turmoil, and competition. With this topic, we are looking at a part of the world that until recently has not gotten a lot of attention from policymakers or politicians from around the world, in part because it's something of an in-between area, if you will. It's not fully in Africa, it's not fully in the Middle East, and as a result, experts, policymakers, focused on either those two issues or regions, would really regard the Red Sea area as someone else's issue. But tonight, we are going to be focusing on this issue because it is growing in importance and is increasingly part of the strategic calculus of countries around the world and not just in the region itself. It's a source of tension, great instability, both politically and economically, but also increasingly has problems associated with deteriorating environmental conditions. And as a result, not only do the states in the region have challenges that they are confronting, but conditions in the region are affected by players outside this region trying to exert control, trying to exert influence, and create some sort of power in that region. I would like you to focus a bit on the map right now in order to just situate yourself. We're talking about eight littoral states, eight different countries that are bordering the Red Sea itself. We're looking at an area that is approximately 169,000 square miles. There's a very important sea transit point, the Suez Canal, there's the Bab El-Mendab, and also it's very close to a number of different political hotspots currently geopolitically, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia. The strategic importance of this region though really cannot be overemphasized. Anywhere between nine and 13% of the world's trade passes through the Suez Canal. It is an important energy conduit, 94% of Saudi Arabia's exports and trade generally passes through the Bab El-Mendab region. The Suez Canal and the Red Sea save approximately 10 to 12 days of transit for ocean going vessels, so it has a tremendous economic impact on ocean trade. Increasingly, this area is also though becoming a area for naval transit. Countries as varied as Britain, China, France, United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE are having naval transport through this area. It's a tremendous source of natural resources, including almost 112 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, five billion barrels of oil, as well as substantial deposits of zinc and gold and copper. As we saw earlier as well and as we'll develop further into this presentation, it's an area of considerable regional instability. There's ongoing civil war in Yemen, there are tensions in Sudan, there's political and environmental challenges that Sudan is facing, and there continues to be piracy in the region, particularly focused on oil tankers. And so today we are facing a situation where just about every country in the region, those eight states I had mentioned, are experiencing some sort of political challenge, internal stability. We are also looking at competition in this region from nations around the area, particularly from the Gulf, but also as far afield as Iran and Turkey. And we are also then looking at the area as a kind of proxy area, if you will, for tension, for rivalry between countries such as the United States as well as China. All of these countries, not just the ones in the region, but bordering and beyond, are attempting to exert influence, create some sort of dominance or power in the region, and as a result, there is this mix of tension and competition that you see in the region. Now, unfortunately, this tension that we're seeing today is nothing new. In fact, just since the 1950s, we have seen a number of conflicts, a number of oars that have broken out in this region and have kind of set the stage, if you will, for conditions today. There was the Suez Crisis in 1956, which, by the way, closed the canal for over six months. The 1967 war between Israel and then Egypt, Jordan, and Syria resulted in the Suez Canal closing until 1975. There was the North Yemen Civil War. There have been ongoing disputes between Egypt and Sudan. And increasingly, there is competition within the Nile River Basin, among Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia, over the waters of the Nile River. A lot of this stems, a lot of that particular competition or tension stems from Ethiopia's decision in 2011 to build something called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. This is a massive engineering project that is nearing completion, but Ethiopia has seen it as a way of jump-starting, if you will, kick-starting economic development in the country. It's intended to generate electricity that will be a source of hard revenue for Ethiopia. It's intended to regulate the Blue Nile and create stability that way. Sudan has seen this as a benefit. It believes that the dam will provide it with cheap electricity and also regularize the flow of the Nile. Egypt, on the other hand, has regarded this dam as an existential threat. Since its construction started in 2011, successive US, I'm sorry, successive Egyptian presidents from Mubarak to LCC have called this one of the most grave threats to Egypt's existence. This tension has heightened over the last three months. Once Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind the dam, this reservoir, some experts predict, could be as large as the metropolitan London area. And this has kick-started, as well, a frenzy of mediation and efforts by powers outside the region to try to bring the three parties to some sort of agreement. So in November 2019, the United States, working with World Bank, attempted to create some sort of resolution. Now the African Union is involved. All of this just means that there are influences being exerted on this region from outside. At the end of the day, though, what this competition, this particular bit of competition means, is that Ethiopia is gradually supplanting Egypt as the dominant power in the region. And as a result, there's an added level of turmoil and unrest. When we talk about the states bordering the Red Sea itself, again, those eight countries, we're talking about a tremendous amount of internal political instability. There is the ongoing tension within Sudan, the creation of South Sudan, but now also increasingly the environmental challenges that Sudan is facing. The fact remains as well, Sudan remains on the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism. There are ongoing border disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Somalia is driven by instability. There's the independence of Somaliland. And as a result, tremendous amount of dislocation and friction within a number of the states. If you look at the region just beyond them as well, you're looking at the ongoing tension in Yemen and the Civil War that has been in existence there. In fact, the United Nations has called that one of the deadliest conflicts in the world ever. This instability, this tension, this conflict has in turn contributed to the rise of a number of terrorist organizations in the region, including Al Qaeda of the Arab Peninsula, the Islamic State in Somalia, as well as extremist groups in Egypt. All of these groups are trying to take advantage of the instability and the weak national governments to exert influence in the region. You're also talking about influences from outside the immediate area. It is increasingly, the Red Sea is increasingly becoming a source of conflict, kind of injected, if you will, from states not quite along the coastal lines, but still very close. And so you're seeing several fault lines developing in the region. On the one hand, you have competition between the Arab Gulf and countries like Iran and Turkey. You've got Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates physically involved, interjecting themselves into the ongoing civil war in Yemen. And increasingly, there is conflict among the Gulf states themselves that can spill over. So for example, since June of 2017, the other states in the Gulf Cooperation Council have tried to isolate, have tried to blockade Qatar. And there is, while there's sign that there could be some resolution to that particular conflict, they are still officially blockading Qatar. And as a result, another source of tension in this part of the world. Saudi Arabia has attempted to control some of this unrest, control, bring order, if you will, to some of this by creating something at the beginning of the year called the Council of Arab and African Coastal States of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Kind of a cumbersome name, but it is their attempt ostensibly to bring order to the region. Interesting though, a number of states that you would think would part of this particular council are really not members. So right now, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen are part of this body. Qatar is not Somaliland is not. And as a result, what is important is not just the creation of the council, but who is outside of this. And again, while Saudi Arabia claims this is a way of trying to deal with issues like piracy or illegal migration, many observers see this particular entity as a way of keeping Turkey, Iran, Qatar out of the region. In addition to those states surrounding the region, we also see a number of countries such as China, the United States, but also European countries trying to exert influence in this part of the world. The motives that they have for trying to exert influence vary and resemble what we have been talking about already. Moves to counter piracy. Try to protect commercial or navigational rights. Also though, countries getting involved to counter the influence of other countries trying to exert influence. And we see these attempts, we see these efforts to have influence most concretely in the creation of a number of military bases that had been built in the region just within the last 10 to 15 years. In some ways, this is unprecedented. So we have a number of an unprecedented developments in the region, including the fact that China has built its first military base outside of its immediate neighborhood. We have got the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia pursuing very activist foreign policies. They're no longer just willing to spend money or provide aid, but actually inject themselves in issues such as the Yemen Civil War. You have Japan for the first time executing naval patrols in the region. And as I said earlier, since 2002, a rapid development of military bases, military infrastructure in the region. Djibouti now, for example, hosts the military bases of nine different countries. There are five multilateral military missions in this region. And at any one time, almost 16 different nations are running naval operations in the Red Sea. And what this map tries to do is capture just a bit of what that infrastructure is looking like and where it exists. As a result, when you talk about the Red Sea region now, you're not just talking about those eight states that I had mentioned earlier, bordering, having coastline along the Red Sea. Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Jordan. But now you're also having to take into account two states that have no coastline on the Red Sea but are still influential, Ethiopia and Somalia. And you're also looking at a number of states from well outside the region that are starting to have a presence in the Red Sea area and trying to exert influence. And so as a result, you have Turkey now enjoying a 99-year lease on the port of Suakan in Sudan. You have China using this area as part of its broader Belt and Road Initiative. And you have increasing economic ties between this part of the world and the Gulf. Between 2000 and 2017, Gulf states invested over $13 billion in infrastructure projects and agricultural projects in this region. And there's also a growing dependency that these countries in the Red Sea have on worker remittances. A tremendous number of Egyptian, Ethiopian, Somali and Sudanese workers work and live in the Gulf countries and remit their wages back. Those remittances are a tremendous source of hard currency for those governments. So what are the long-term implications? What are we really talking about in light of this instability, this growing influence from powers outside the region? Well, for one thing, there is this growth in, as I said earlier, the military bases. There is a lot of naval and military activity going on that's not just within and among the littoral states, but it's the result of influences from China, European states, the United States and countries like France and Britain. There's also an increasing tendency of countries like China, for example, to try to use their presence in the Red Sea to project influence outside the region. So China, for example, trying to influence events in Libya and North Africa several months ago. Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates trying to influence events in Yemen. Turkey is looking at the Red Sea as kind of a new territory, if you will, or the possibility of re-exerting influence that it traditionally had under the Ottoman Empire. And the United States as well building bases at the El Udeid base in Qatar. So policymakers around the world starting to look at this region as an important arena for proxy competitions, for protecting commercial and trade navigational routes, for exploiting the mineral wealth of the country, and then kind of by extension or by proxy rivalry among themselves. Even without that external influence that's being exerted, however, the fact remains that these states bordering the coastline of the Red Sea themselves have a tremendous number of political, economic, and environmental challenges that they're facing right now. Is there a way forward? There has been conversation about creating something called the Red Sea Forum. This is still very much in the formulation stage, still very much an idea that's being discussed. Some experts have called it, you know, the Red Sea version of ASEAN, the Association, the Southeast Asian Association of States. It would be not necessarily an organization, a formal entity, but more of a mechanism for bringing countries together to debate common issues, identify common problems and solutions, and really allow them to discuss, negotiate, talk rather than fight. This Red Sea Forum though still remains very much an idea and not something that has grown into reality. And as a result, the potential for conflict, the potential for some sort of military tension breaking out exists and will occupy policymakers for several years to come. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Stowell, for that interesting discussion. And please join us next week when our topic will be the Philippines and the US. Thank you.