Abstract:
The past five years in the MENA region have seen intensive efforts at intra-regional investment and economic cooperation, as well as transborder infrastructure linkages, especially regarding energy, transport, and communications. These include several extra-regional initiatives to utilize the region as a land link, or part of a multimodal transport link between Asia and Europe. These initiatives have become more germane, as the impact of Houthi violence on world shipping highlights the danger of maritime chokepoints and the need for redundancy in supply and trade routes. The driving forces behind much of the regional and bilateral cooperation plans are the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who seek to further their plans for domestic economic transformation and position themselves as the globally significant linchpins of an interconnected and robust regional economy. The turbulence after October 7 slowed some of these projects, especially those involving Israel, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the drive and desire to integrate Israel widely may be declining. There is widespread skepticism regarding the likelihood of real success of multilateral trans-border regional projects in the Arab world; the past record doesn’t bode well. The current situation in the MENA region is one in which a series of advanced bilateral and multilateral issue-specific projects and infrastructures exist. These projects and infrastructures resemble a series of Lego blocks, which could be linked together into larger and longer structures as circumstances and needs dictate.
*This article is part of Regional Cooperation in the Midst of Regional Conflagration: Examining the Partnership Agenda in the Shadow of October 7th.
**This is a short version of the article. For a full version of this article that includes full text and source citations, please see the original publication file.