A Vanishing West in the Middle East

The Recent History of US-Europe Cooperation in the Region

Charles Thépaut

• Éditeur: Bloomsbury Academic
• Année: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780755644322
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Politique et relations internationales
• Sous-sujet: Géopolitique

A Vanishing West in the Middle East covers the history of Western cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa since the end of the Cold War. Based on more than fifty interviews with diplomats and experts as well as consultations of the academic literature, it describes the operational and political frameworks through which the United States and European countries have intervened in the Arab world, and how their relations with the region have changed. Practitioner testimonies and detailed case studies illuminate U.S. successes and failures in enlisting allies for campaigns in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. This analysis goes to the heart of the American debate on "endless wars" but also questions the very concept of Western intervention in a region where the Arab Spring and subsequent uprisings have profoundly changed the geopolitical landscape. Today, whereas the United States wishes to pull back from the region, Europe understands it must become more involved. Whatever their particular motivations, both must adapt to an increasingly fragmented Middle East, influenced specifically by more assertive Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Emirati, and Turkish foreign policies.

1

Transatlantic Asymmetry During the U.S. Unipolar Moment, 1990–2011

Unpacking the idea of Western intervention in the Middle East requires first explaining its practical realities, including the ways by which European countries and the United States have cooperated to pursue their policies in the region. Channels between Washington and European capitals are well established: the United States has had intense bilateral relations with all European countries, and NATO has been the prime forum for discussions of transatlantic security. Yet the post–Cold War history of the transatlantic dialogue shows that the Middle East falls into a sort of gray area.

On the one hand, Middle East issues since 1990 have been among the most divisive for the transatlantic relationship.¹ Major policy differences between the United States and European nations have arisen from geography, distinct histories, a military power gap, divergences in foreign policy culture, and domestic items. On the other hand, no real framework has been set up to address these frictions beyond traditional bilateral relations. The first part of this book will thus show how each crisis in the region has triggered different possibilities for cooperation.

Imbalances, Capability Gaps, and “Burden Sharing”

Differing geographies and interests, along with the deep imbalance in the U.S.-Europe relationship, are likely reasons for the presence of so many different frameworks for cooperation with respect to the Middle East.

Diverging Interests and Geographies

Western cooperation in the Middle East requires two levels of convergence, involving not only some level of U.S.-Europe understanding but, even more importantly, some level of European unity.

A Disunited Europe in the Middle East

European unity with respect to the Middle East is traditionally hard to achieve, owing to diverging interests and levels of commitment. The number of EU member states historically involved in the Middle East is limited, and some member states are historically not interested in the Middle East at all.

Rather than there being one “European” approach, European foreign policy in the Middle East is composed of an aggregate of foreign policies shaped by the most active European member states, which are mostly those with the greatest interests at stake. Southern member states and member states with strong historical legacies in the region (related to colonialism, the Holocaust, or Soviet-era cooperation) maintained distinctive bilateral policies. Together, they have shaped a complex patchwork of European ties to the region.

Thus, France retained deep but complicated ties with former colonies and mandates, as did Britain in Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf. Britain retains a strong footprint in the Gulf, especially relating to security, investment, and arms sales. In 1996, Britain and the United Arab Emirates signed the Defense Cooperation Act, making it one of London’s most significant non-NATO defense commitments.² In 2018, the British opened their first permanent military base in the Middle East in more than forty years, in Bahrain.³ And in 2019, Britain and Egypt conducted their first bilateral military exercise in thirty years.⁴

Italy kept a strong connection to Libya and considers the “enlarged Mediterranean” a strategic priority. Italy also defines the Mediterranean as its third circle of interest, after its European and transatlantic ones.⁵

Spain had specific relations with countries such as Morocco after the French protectorate (1912–56), and also entertained strong diplomatic relations with other Arab countries during the Franco period (1936–75) as a way to break isolation and leverage support at the UN regarding the status of Gibraltar.⁶ Spain only established relations with Israel in 1986 because of Franco’s relations with Nazi Germany.⁷

Farther from the Mediterranean, other European countries have entertained specific connections to the sea’s southern shores. Germany’s “raison d’état” remained attached to Israel, and the Czech Republic and Romania preserved Soviet-era relations with countries such as Syria, especially through diasporas of students who had initially come to these European countries to study in the 1960s and 1970s.⁸ Others, especially Scandinavian countries, focused on mainstreaming goals like human rights promotion or gender equality in Arab countries.

In the second half of the twentieth century, each member state further developed its national foreign policy along specific lines. Germany increased its market share in trade with North Africa and the Gulf, and invested a lot in technical assistance and civil society support. France developed strong military and economic partnerships with Gulf countries, starting with Saudi Arabia in 1967, and kept invested in cultural, academic, and scientific cooperation in the Middle East while capitalizing on its UN Security Council role to maintain diplomatic sway in the region.

British ties with Egypt are stronger than its ties with other North African states. Trade and energy have also deepened the interdependence. Private investors in the Gulf and in sovereign wealth funds have invested so heavily in Britain’s capital that then mayor Boris Johnson once described London as “the eighth emirate.”⁹ It is estimated that Britain is Qatar’s single largest investment destination. Britain, for its part, is by far the largest single foreign investor in Egypt.¹⁰ In 2016, Britain accounted for 41 percent of all foreign direct investment in Egypt.¹¹ Italy and Spain have also extended their trade relations with countries in the Middle East.

In this context, European nations have struggled to define strong “European” positions on Middle East matters. Only step by step, one treaty at a time, have they increased their coordination on foreign policy. Historical differences described above have shaped national positions until today.

Geography, People, and Trade: Diverging Perspectives

An understanding between the United States and Europe is also hard to reach. The traditional European focus on North Africa and the Mediterranean often seems disconnected from the broader U.S. interest in the Middle East (see figure 1.1 for maps of the U.S. vision of the “broader Middle East” and of the EU “neighborhood”). The Baghdad Pact of 1955—between Britain, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, and (in 1958) the United States—initially sought to replicate in the Middle East the same sort of alliance that the United States had created in Europe through NATO, but the project failed, and U.S. policy in the Middle East remained dominated by bilateral partnerships. Historic U.S. partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Egypt challenged the role of former colonial powers in the second half of the twentieth century and forced France and Britain to adapt their foreign policy to the growing challenge posed by American influence. The 1956 Suez crisis specifically, which saw the United States opposing the British-French operation in support of Israel against Egypt, marked a turning point in transatlantic relations in the Middle East.

Perceptions related to geography are a key aspect explaining numerous transatlantic misalignments when it comes to the Middle East. In general, the Mediterranean is understood in the United States as NATO’s southern flank, strategically less important than the eastern one. But for Southern European states, the Mediterranean defines their strategic depth, and is an immediate area for power projection. Likewise, the area of priority for Spain and France in North Africa— Morocco and Algeria—is not a U.S. priority.¹²

Spain, Italy, and France have historically pushed for a more unified European policy toward the Mediterranean. The launch of the Barcelona Process in 1995 remains one of Madrid’s key diplomatic successes,¹³ and created a multilateral dialogue between the countries of the South and North of the Mediterranean¹⁴ on an array of issues, from culture to security. Though Spain launched the Barcelona Process capitalizing on the positive dynamic created by the Oslo Accords, Southern European countries had a consistent Mediterranean focus before then, as reflected in the Spanish-Italian Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (1990); NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue in 1994; the agreement at the Valencia Euro-Mediterranean conference in 2002; the French-led Union for the Mediterranean in 2008; and the Summit of the Two Shores in 2019. N...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 Transatlantic Asymmetry During the U.S. Unipolar Moment, 1990–2011
• 2 The Arab Uprisings, U.S. Fatigue, and the Vanishing West, 2011–21
• 3 The New Middle East Geopolitics
• 4 Heading in Opposite Directions
• 5 Toward Western Humility in the Middle East
• Index
• The Author
• eCopyright