Brian Katulis, Contributor
Brian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where his work focuses on U.S. national security strategy and counterterrorism policy. For more than a decade, he has advised senior U.S. policymakers on foreign policy and has provided expert testimony several times to key congressional committees, including the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
Emile Hokayem, Contributor
Emile Hokayem is the senior fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of Syria's Uprising and the Fracturing of the Levant and the editor of Middle Eastern Security, the US Pivot and the Rise of ISIS.
Thanassis Cambanis, Senior Fellow and Director of Century International
Thanassis Cambanis is an author, journalist, and director of Century International. His work focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab politics, and social movements in the Middle East.
TCF World Podcast: Why We Shouldn’t Expect an Arab NATO
There have been repeated, failed efforts over the decades to assemble some kind of Middle Eastern regional security force, something like an “Arab NATO.” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, examines those initiatives all the way to the present. Grand initiatives are impossible, he argues, but small-scale, piecemeal, and tactical efforts to build cooperation among Arab security forces might make headway. America’s role remains important because of its deep bilateral security ties with so many Middle Eastern governments.
Meanwhile, the Arab states of the Gulf are enjoying warm relations with the United States but have fallen deep into internal feuds. Many of the Arab monarchies consider themselves in an existential struggle with Iran, and are also involved in regional conflicts elsewhere. Instead of building deeper relationships and coalitions, they have resorted to a constantly shifting mosaic of alliances, says Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. America’s insistence that Gulf countries exhibit more independence has increased instability, as Arab leaders in the Gulf hedge their bets with a greater number of often contradictory partnerships.
Katulis and Hokayem talk with TCF senior fellow Thanassis Cambanis about their contributions on these issues to Order from Ashes: New Foundations for Security in the Middle East. Their reports, and others in this TCF project, can be read online.
Participants include:
Tags: Podcast