New changes and dilemmas of Middle East security situation

The security situation in the Middle East in recent years has been grim and complicated

In recent years, against the backdrop of profound changes in the international situation, although the security situation in the Middle East has been stable on the whole, local conflicts and hotspot issues have fluctuated, and traditional and non-traditional security are intertwined, resulting in a grim and complex situation.

The security situation in the Middle East has remained stable on the whole, but local conflicts continue and the security threat of terrorism has not been eradicated. On the one hand, the large-scale fighting in Syria, Yemen and Libya has basically ended and has gradually entered the stage of political reconciliation and the determination of post-war national reconstruction arrangements, but small-scale conflicts still break out between the warring parties from time to time. It is worth noting that in April 2023, clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to many parts of the country. On the other hand, the efforts to combat extremism and terrorism in the Middle East have yielded initial results, but the Islamic State and other extremist groups continue to be entrenched in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other places, and seek to spread to North Africa.

The security order in the Middle East is still in the stage of adjustment and reshaping, and major powers outside the region continue to adjust their security strategies towards the Middle East. It is mainly manifested in: first, the fundamental trend of "strategic contraction" of the United States from the Middle East has not changed, but it is still the external dominant player in the Middle East security affairs. While negotiating with Iran to revive the nuclear deal, the Biden administration pushed to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel in order to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East. The United States introduced India and other emerging non-regional forces to establish the "I2U2 quartet mechanism" and other practices show that the Biden administration wants to reduce security investment in the Middle East through the alliance system, and its essence is still to maintain the security dominance of the United States in the Middle East. Second, Russia has increased its security influence in the Middle East through its military intervention in the Syrian issue, deepening its security cooperation with Iran, Gulf Arab countries, Egypt, Turkey and other countries in arms sales, military technology and other aspects. Third, after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, Britain, France and other European countries have increased their security investment in the Middle East to ensure their own energy security. In May 2022, the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council established a strategic partnership to strengthen cooperation in areas such as regional stability and global security.

The "wave of reconciliation" among Middle East countries has helped to cool regional tensions, but the underlying contradictions have not yet been completely resolved. The United States led the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan to sign the Abraham Agreement with Israel, which normalized relations between these Arab countries and Israel. In March 2023, under the mediation and promotion of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran achieved a historic reconciliation, ending the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries since January 2016. Benefiting from this, Saudi Arabia sent a delegation to Sana 'a, the capital of Yemen, to negotiate with the Houthis in April 2023, and the Yemeni peace process achieved a breakthrough. In May 2023, Syria returned to the Arab League after 12 years. However, many of the core contradictions between Middle Eastern countries, such as secular nationalism and Islamist ideological differences, still exist, sowing uncertainty for the "wave of reconciliation" and long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.

In addition, countries in the Middle East also face severe challenges from non-traditional security issues such as climate change, water scarcity, food crisis and drug abuse, which have a superimposed effect on traditional security issues such as conflicts, exacerbating the security vulnerability of some Middle East countries. Due to multiple factors such as population growth, climate change and international crises, some countries in the Middle East are facing serious food crises. The UN agency reports that 53.9 million people in Arab countries will be severely food insecure in 2021, an increase of 5 million from the previous year. In particular, after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2022, Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and Lebanon that rely heavily on food imports have been severely impacted. In addition, climate change has led to an increase in extreme weather and natural disasters such as droughts and floods, threatening the lives and property of people in the Middle East. In April 2024, extreme rainfall caused rare flooding and urban flooding in Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Oman, killing at least 18 people in Oman.

The new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict has increased security risks in the Middle East

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation against Israel, and the IDF subsequently launched a ground military operation code-named "Iron Sword" against the Gaza Strip. The new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has lasted for a long time, been highly intense and caused great damage, and has spilled over to the regional level. It has had a profound impact on the security situation in the Middle East, and the security situation in the Middle East has also undergone new changes.

Non-state armed actors have become the main actors involved in conflicts. After the outbreak of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pro-Iranian non-state armed actors as members of the "Axis of Resistance" have been active in the Middle East: Yemen's Houthi armed forces announced an attack on commercial vessels linked to Israel, seriously endangering the safety of shipping in the Red Sea; Lebanon's Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into Israel, and the Israeli army in a tense standoff on the Lebanon-Israel border; Shia militias in Iraq and Syria have frequently attacked US military targets, notably the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Group, which attacked a US base in Jordan in January 2024, killing three US soldiers. On the one hand, the activities of non-state armed actors are no longer limited to achieving domestic economic and political interests. The recent harassment of US and Israeli targets is highly related to the trend of the Palestinan-Israeli conflict, aiming to pressure the Israeli army to stop military operations in Gaza. The Houthi armed forces said that they would stop attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea as long as the Palestinan-Israeli ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. On the other hand, there has been some operational coordination among non-state armed actors, with Hezbollah in Lebanon reportedly providing direct assistance to Houthi attacks on merchant ships in Yemen. Iran's increased activity at the regional level through the "axis of resistance" indicates that Iran is not willing to directly intervene in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and does not want to be involved in an all-out war with the United States and Israel because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Of course, non-state armed actors attacking the United States and targeting it also have their own political calculations, intending to consolidate the force's domestic political position and seek more popular support by demonstrating their military strength and firm support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

The widespread use of drones, artificial intelligence and other new technologies in the new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict has changed the shape of conflict in the Middle East. The IDF has made extensive use of AI in its military operations in Gaza, including the use of AI-powered drones to map Gaza's tunnel network, the Gospel AI system to identify building targets in Gaza, And up to 37,000 Palestinians labeled as members of Hamas through an artificial intelligence database called Lavender. Non-state armed actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Houthi forces in Yemen use armed drones to intensively attack targets in the United States and Yemen. While increasing the pressure on the latter, some drones bypass air defense systems by flying at ultra-low altitudes to cause damage to targets in the United States and Yemen. Offensive network technology has also been applied in the current round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in addition to the mutual cyber attacks between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, many international hacker organizations have also carried out cyber attacks according to their respective positions in support of Israel and Palestine, and the network security situation in the Middle East has deteriorated. The application of new technologies has increased operational flexibility, reduced attrition and operational costs, and demonstrated operational effectiveness in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has deepened the desire of Middle Eastern states to acquire AI-powered lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), while increasing the risk of non-state armed actors acquiring these new technologies.

Relations between Israel and other countries in the Middle East have been strained, raising tensions in the region. The first is that Iran and Israel have "ventured" on the brink of war, but have acted with some caution and restraint. On April 1, 2024, the IDF attacked the consular building of the Iranian Embassy in Syria. In the early morning of April 14, Iran announced that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a "real commitment" retaliation action, launching missiles and drones from the mainland to Israel, and the United States, Britain, Jordan and other countries to help intercept. The limited damage to Israel caused by the Iranian attack, and the lack of large-scale Israeli retaliation against Iran in the aftermath, indicate that there is no change in the willingness of both sides not to seek an escalation into an all-out war. However, the form of confrontation between Iran and Israel has changed: on the one hand, this is the first time that Iran has directly attacked targets in Israel from its homeland, demonstrating its military strength and long-range delivery capability to safeguard national security and honor, and increasing its deterrence to Israel; On the other hand, there is a serious imbalance between the offensive and defensive costs of Iran and Israel. Experts estimate the cost of Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel at $80 million to $100 million, but the cost of Israel's defense could be as high as $1 billion. Second, the normalization process of Arab-Israeli relations has been hindered. Saudi Arabia has frozen talks on normalizing relations with Israel, and Tunisia's parliament has discussed a bill that would criminalize attempts to normalize relations with Israel. However, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. The diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey, which were only restored in August 2022, were also damaged by the current round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Turkey announced in May 2024 that it would suspend all import and export trade related to Israel.

The spillover of the Gaza conflict has led to a security dilemma in the Middle East

The unstable security situation in the Middle East has led to more intense competition among external powers for security influence in the Middle East. The United States has had to increase its military operations in the Middle East because of the casualties of militia attacks in Syria and Iraq, and regional Allies have asked the United States to increase its security investment in the region. In December 2023, the United States announced the formation of an international escort coalition code-named Operation Guardians of Prosperity in response to the Red Sea crisis, and has repeatedly carried out air strikes in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq to retaliate and maintain deterrence. Qatar is said to have reached an agreement with the United States to extend the use of the al-Udeid air base for another 10 years, and Saudi Arabia and the United States are close to reaching a historic security agreement. Although Russia has reduced its direct involvement in Middle East security affairs due to the Ukraine crisis, it is still one of the leading countries on the Syrian issue, and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in December 2023, and invited Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian political factions to Moscow for negotiations in February 2024. This shows that Russia will not easily give up its security influence in the Middle East. In addition, Britain, France, India and other countries also took the opportunity to increase their military presence in the Middle East. Britain announced the deployment of two warships and surveillance aircraft to the Middle East shortly after the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, France also sent the amphibious helicopter carrier Dixmude to Egypt to provide medical aid, and India deployed three guided-missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea in December 2023.

The spillover of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict also has an impact on the internal political stability of Middle Eastern countries. On the one hand, some Arab citizens are dissatisfied with their governments' reactions and positions to the current round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A poll by the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., found that most Arab respondents were dissatisfied with the positions of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority on the new Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with only 51 percent of respondents viewing Qatar's position positively. Large demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, including signs and slogans critical of the government's Israeli-Palestinian policies, have taken place in several Arab countries, leading Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and other countries to halt some pro-Palestinian rallies and arrest some people. On the other hand, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has worsened the economic plight of some Middle Eastern countries. In Egypt, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Red Sea crisis have led to a significant drop in tourism and Suez Canal revenues, exacerbating the country's foreign exchange shortage and further pushing up inflation.

As the new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become the focus of the international community, the situation in Syria, Yemen and Libya has received less attention, and the political reconciliation process has slowed down and the situation has been repeated. Since October 2023, Russian and Syrian government forces have increased air strikes on opposition-controlled areas in northwestern Syria, while the Israeli Defense Forces have repeatedly bombed targets in Syria, exacerbating the security pressure and humanitarian disaster in Syria. On the issue of Yemen, the negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi armed forces to end the war in Yemen have not been held since September 2023, and Saudi Arabia is concerned about the escalation of the situation in Yemen and urges the United States to exercise restraint against the Houthi armed forces. At the same time, the situation in Sudan escalated again, and in January 2024, Burhan, chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, announced that he refused to reconcile with the rapid reaction force, and the long-term trend of internal armed conflict in Sudan became increasingly obvious. In addition, extremist and terrorist forces such as the Islamic State have also taken advantage of the chaos to make a comeback, adding to the instability of the security situation in the Middle East. In January 2024, a bomb attack in the Iranian city of Kerman killed more than 100 people and was claimed by the Islamic State. The shadow of such attacks hangs over the Middle East from time to time. It is worth noting that the death of the Iranian president in a helicopter accident on May 19, 2024 has brought about another change in the security situation in the Middle East, and the relations between Iran and Israel and the relations between Iran and the United States have drawn attention.

The impact of the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the security situation in the Middle East shows that the Palestinian-Israeli issue remains the core of peace and stability in the Middle East. In particular, when the Gaza conflict lasting more than half a year will cease fire and end the war, as well as the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip, will continue to affect the Palestinian-Israeli issue and even the direction of the security situation in the Middle East. If the Palestinian-Israeli issue is not resolved in a fair and just way, the fate of an independent Palestinian state is uncertain, and it will become a risk of instability and insecurity in the Middle East in the future. Therefore, the current round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict will accelerate the adjustment and reshaping of the security order in the Middle East. The military presence of non-regional powers in the region will increase, the competition for security influence will intensify, and the countries in the region will maximize their own security interests through continuous differentiation and combination, but it is still the general trend to maintain and promote peace and stability in the Middle East. (Author: Yu Guoqing, Researcher and doctoral Supervisor, Institute of West Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)