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The Multialigned Middle East | Foreign Affairs
The Multialigned Middle East
How America Should Adapt to China’s Growing
Influence in the Region
BY JENNIFER KAVANAGH AND FREDERIC WEHREY
July 17, 2023
JENNIFER KAVANAGH is a Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
FREDERIC WEHREY is a Senior Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
At the time it was announced, in March 2023, the China-mediated deal
between Iran and Saudi Arabia was widely seen as a sign of Beijing’s
arrival in Middle East power politics. Although the Biden administration
denied that China’s role in brokering the agreement—which reestablished
diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran—reflected declining
U.S. influence, Washington’s actions since then paint a different picture.
Over the last few months, the United States has deployed additional
military resources in the region, increased patrols and joint exercises
around the Strait of Hormuz, and signaled that it would push forward
arms deals with regional partners such as Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) and expand training with Egypt, Kuwait, and
others—all in an apparent attempt to reassure Arab partners of its
commitment to Middle East security.
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But these moves are unlikely to shore up U.S. influence. The pivot of Arab
powers toward Beijing is not a result of Washington’s declining military
presence. These states are well aware of Washington’s military investments
in the Middle East—though they increasingly doubt its willingness to
deploy those capabilities on their behalf. Rather, they are engaging China
in areas—such as infrastructure and technology—where they perceive
that the United States is less able or willing to help them. They are also
seeking to acquire certain military systems, such as advanced drones, that
the United States has wisely kept off-limits. Moreover, China’s foreign
policy tends to be friendlier to authoritarian regimes like their own, and
Beijing has managed to stay equidistant from the region’s competing
powers, allowing China to portray itself as an unbiased mediator.
Given these trends, the United States needs a new approach to the region.
It should accept the more positive aspects of China’s growing presence in
the Middle East and encourage—rather than try to contain—Beijing’s
contributions to regional development and stability. Washington will also
need to adopt a more targeted response to specific Chinese actions that
harm U.S. interests.
At the same time, Washington should not double down on its timeworn,
security-focused strategy, rooted in efforts to create pro-U.S. defensive
blocs as a counterweight to Chinese encroachment. Instead, the United
States should expand its policy tools and investment in the region to areas
where it enjoys a comparative advantage, such as human capital
advancement, education, green technology, and digital platforms. And it
should also support broader kinds of compacts with Arab partners and
rising middle powers such as Brazil, India, and Japan that will allow it to
diversify the region’s stakeholders, bring new investment, and reinvigorate
U.S. engagement on trade, climate change, food security, and other issues.
MULTIALIGNED, UNIPOLAR
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Over the past decade, the foreign policies of many Middle Eastern states
have shifted toward multialignment. Even traditional U.S. partners such
as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are no longer satisfied with
Washington’s attempts to create exclusive, U.S.-led blocs. They seek
partnerships with multiple powers, including China, India, Russia, and
the United States. Take the UAE. Although it remains a close security
and economic partner of the United States, Abu Dhabi has deepened ties
with Beijing through trade, technology sharing, and new arms deals. It
has maintained its diplomatic and economic relationship with Russia
despite Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. And it is also investing in
bilateral trade and technology initiatives with India, entering a new
Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2022. As other Middle Eastern
states pursue similarly diversified partnerships, this trend toward
multialignment is likely to reconfigure U.S. influence in the region.
Although the Middle East is multialigned, it is not multipolar: the
United States remains by far the Middle East’s leading security patron,
and that position seems unlikely to be challenged in the foreseeable
future. The total number of U.S. forces has fallen from its peak but
remains over 30,000—roughly what it was before the United States
invaded Iraq in 2003. Washington continues to spend billions each year
on security assistance to the region, and the U.S. share of the regional
arms market has even increased from 47 percent in the 2010–14 period to
54 percent in the 2018–22 period, according to data from Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, due in part to U.S. sanctions on
Russia after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, the United States
continues to maintain military facilities in at least a dozen countries
across the region, ranging from large bases to smaller outposts, training
facilities, and pre-positioned stockpiles of weapons and materiel.
But dominance does not mean exclusivity. Although China’s security
presence in the region is limited, it can offer its partners defense and
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economic opportunities that the United States does not. For example,
Beijing has just one military base, located in Djibouti, but it has invested
in ports across the region that can be used for both civilian and military
activities, a strategy that has helped it extend the reach of the Chinese
military while boosting trade with Middle Eastern countries. According
to a leaked December 2022 U.S. intelligence report, the United Arab
Emirates has allowed China to resume construction on a military
logistical facility at one such port—not to replace the United States’
sizable military presence in the country but to enable China to add to it.
China has applied a similar strategy to sharing its military technology in
the region. Beijing does not provide much direct military aid to countries
in the Middle East, and Chinese arms sales account for less than five
percent of the region’s total. But it does offer cheap, condition-free access
to some of its advanced technology, primarily drones and precision-
guided missiles, for clients who cannot get these systems from the United
States. Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE value these
Chinese offerings as supplements to, rather than replacements for, U.S.
weapons systems, which they continue to purchase—and prefer—for their
higher quality and prestige. China has also provided support to Arab
governments on internal security, including law enforcement training and
access to sophisticated surveillance technologies.
Since 2021, six Arab countries—Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE—have become dialogue partners with the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, a China-led political, economic, and security
group that also includes Russia. They join Turkey, which has been a SCO
dialogue partner since 2013, and Iran, which was granted full SCO
membership this year. For Washington’s Arab partners, participation in
the SCO can strengthen ties with China, Russia, and countries in Central
Asia without replacing their deeper, more comprehensive relationships
with the United States.
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In the economic domain, China now plays a bigger role in the Middle
East than the United States but has not entirely displaced it. China’s trade
has long exceeded that of the United States, and by 2019, China passed
the European Union to become the region’s leading trade partner. Over
the past 10 years, data from the International Monetary Fund suggest
that while U.S. imports and exports with the region fell, China’s trade
with the Middle East increased by roughly 40 percent, driven by Beijing’s
growing exports to the region and insatiable demand for oil products.
China’s rising trade volumes have brought regional influence, but the
continued dominance of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency
gives Washington continued economic leverage, tying regional powers
and their trade and financial markets to the United States.
China has also rapidly increased its investments in the Middle East.
Although the United States still accounts for a greater share of the
region’s foreign direct investment, most U.S. direct investment is
concentrated in just three countries—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
—and in a narrow set of industries. By contrast, Beijing’s investments are
more diversified, involving countries such as Oman that do not receive as
much U.S. support and covering a larger number of sectors, including
energy, physical and digital infrastructure, and real estate. For many Arab
governments, China’s willingness to invest broadly without the conditions
that are often set by U.S. donors—which may link investments to meeting
criteria on human rights, democracy, or economic reform—makes the
country an appealing additional partner in the region.
Finally, the results of a 2022 survey from Arab Barometer, an opinion
research firm, show public support across the region for a multialigned
approach to foreign policy. Specifically, respondents in many countries
report that they favor more and deeper economic engagement with both
the United States and China even as they harbor concerns about the
influence of each.
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GET WITH THE PROGRAM
Despite the region’s growing preference for multialignment, U.S.
policymakers expect that the Arab states that have long enjoyed U.S.
support and protection will continue to regard Washington as their sole
and preeminent partner. This is illustrated most explicitly by the Biden
administration’s push to expand the 2020 Abraham Accords—a set of
agreements that normalized relations between Israel and four Arab
countries: Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the UAE. The administration
now hopes to negotiate a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia and to
have the accords encompass a wider portfolio of security and economic
issues. In pursuing these goals, Washington hopes to lay the groundwork
for greater military coordination against Iran and to create a pro-U.S.
bulwark against Chinese influence. But decades of regional rivalries and
conflicts and anemic economic development in many parts of the Middle
East make clear that this security-focused, bloc-based approach has
worked poorly in practice—even during periods when Washington lacked
major competitors. Now that countries in the region see alternatives to
U.S. dominance, the flawed logic of this strategy is even more apparent.
Billions of dollars of U.S. arms sales, training, and other forms of security
assistance have failed to build the military capabilities that Washington’s
regional partners need to credibly defend themselves or participate in
coalition operations. This security assistance has, however, emboldened
Arab partners to launch disastrous campaigns using U.S. weapons, in
Libya and Yemen, for example. These conflicts have triggered new threats
to U.S. interests, fed regional instability, and created new opportunities for
malign actors such as Iran or Russia’s Wagner mercenary group to exert
influence. In some states, such as Iraq and Egypt, U.S. security assistance
has also enriched kleptocratic elites and exacerbated corruption. Nor have
these investments engendered loyalty from U.S. partners. For example, not
only the UAE but also Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have continued
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to engage diplomatically and economically with Russia since its 2022
invasion of Ukraine.
To its credit, the Biden administration has begun to shift away from
ambitious nation-building projects in the Middle East, especially those
conducted by force. That strategy was epitomized by the 2003 Iraq war
and its aftermath. But Washington’s growing aversion to direct military
intervention has not ended its overly security-focused approach to the
region or its efforts to force local partners into exclusive partnerships.
Thus, the Biden administration continues to advocate for a regional
security architecture centered on U.S. guarantees and additional
contributions from regional partners, all backed by more combined
military exercises and increased U.S. arms sales. Accompanying these
initiatives is Washington’s explicit expectation that Middle Eastern
partners choose between the United States and its major rivals. As a
senior U.S. defense official, Mara Karlin, noted in May, “We want our
partners purchasing U.S. and allied systems. . . . Not doing so undermines
our partnerships as well as elements of our strategic approach to the
region.”
In addition to maintaining an unrealistic demand for exclusivity, these
policies fail to prioritize economic engagement. Unlike China, which
seeks new free trade agreements across the region, the United States has
signaled little interest in extending market access to regional partners. The
Middle East is included in the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and
Investment, the G-7’s answer to China’s Belt and Road, but new
investment in the initiative is too limited for it to serve as the core of
renewed U.S. economic involvement in the region.
THE MORE THE MERRIER
To revitalize its presence in the region, the United States must start by
recognizing that the era of exclusive partnerships and security blocs in the
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Middle East is over. Washington will need to accept that its partners’
diversification in areas such as arms purchases and security dialogues does
not mean that they will fall into the orbit of U.S. rivals. But it does herald
a new reality characterized by multialignment.
To adapt, Washington will need to avoid reactive policies that seek to shut
out Chinese influence. Not only are such policies destined to fail but they
may also force the United States to make unappealing compromises on
economic reforms, human rights, and other critical issues. The Biden
administration should not offer new security guarantees to Arab states—
such as those requested by Saudi Arabia—or waive the normal oversight
and scrutiny that it attaches to its arms transfers, simply to deny China.
Out of both preference and necessity, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and
other countries in the region are unlikely to turn their backs on the
United States—particularly on defense and security matters.
At the same time, the administration needs to embrace an economic and
political strategy that offers tangible benefits to the region. Capitalizing
on Arab states’ interest in multialignment, Washington can broker new
“minilateral” partnerships—usually groups of three to seven states—
between the United States, Arab partners, and leading powers in other
regions to address critical issues such as economic diversification,
governance, and climate change. Through a network of such overlapping
but nonexclusive partnerships, Washington could help draw investment
from new players, reenergize U.S. economic participation, and strengthen
its own political influence while also building resilience in the Middle
East.
One promising example of this strategy is the I2U2 group, formed in
2022 by India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States to jointly address
issues such as food security, energy, and public health. The I2U2 is still
new, but it has already made progress on technology sharing and
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investments in agricultural innovation and sustainability. As Washington
builds out this and similar groupings, however, it should avoid framing
them as explicit counterweights to China. For some partnerships, the
United States can act as a catalyst rather than engaging directly, and
where there are converging interests—for example, on climate change or
food security— China should be included in new groups.
Finally, the United States should not neglect the mounting domestic
pressures facing its Middle East partners. In particular, it needs make the
promotion of better governance and socioeconomic inclusion more of a
priority in its regional strategy. The absence of these reforms in the
Middle East has long been a driver of social unrest and violent upheaval
and is likely to become more so, especially as already fragile states grapple
with global economic uncertainties, the fallout from the war in Ukraine,
climate change, and other transnational challenges. Of course, any effort
by Washington to push for meaningful changes will be difficult, given
resistance from its autocratic allies. Focusing on increasing government
transparency and improving local access to social services would be one
place to start. Another would be to prioritize direct engagement with
citizens across the region, for example, by expanding digital access and
increasing funding for education and job-based training.
The deficiencies of Washington’s bloc-based, security-centric approach in
the Middle East have long been apparent. With the rise of China and the
region’s growing search for multiple partners, the need to revise this
strategy has become urgent. To avoid being sidelined, the United States
will have to recognize that socioeconomic and governance problems
within states, and not great-power encroachment, are likely to be the
Middle East’s defining threats over the next decade.
Copyright © 2023 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
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