Terrorism cannot be defeated without political reform

This week the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is an arm of the US intelligence community that is in charge of long-term strategic analysis, published its assessment of the future. Taking into account the forces and choices shaping the world, it provided a forecast of the direction the world is heading in over the next two decades.

Unsurprisingly, it paints a gloomy picture not least caused by the uncertainty about the United States, an increasingly introverted West, growing repression around the world, the rise of terrorism and the erosion of universal principals and norms.

Titled “Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress”, it is the sixth report in a series published every four years. This edition of Global Trends focused on two core issues: the changing nature of power in the global landscape and how this is increasing stress and tension both within countries and between countries.

The NIC believes that the inherent contradictions and paradox of modernity will shape the politics of the future. In their 226 page document, the authors, who comprise of analysts from the intelligence and academic communities, describe how the nature of relations between governments, society, people and the manner in which they manage what they describe as the “paradox of progress” will play out in the coming decades.

Their central claim is that the historic progress of the past decades – connecting people, empowering individuals, groups, states and lifting a billion people out of poverty in the process – has created tensions and conflicts which governments are struggling to cope with. Traditional politics and institutions, it claims, are struggling to meet the demands of aspiring individuals and changing    societies. They argue that “progress”, which ushered in the modern political system, based around nation states and international norms glued together by a global economic system, has also given birth to unique and unprecedented problems.

The Arab Spring, the 2008 global financial crisis and the global rise of populist, anti-establishment politics, are all evidence, say the authors, of an unstable system that threatens to generate more wars, conflicts and further tension.

Many will probably recognise the paradox described by the authors as the theory of relative deprivation, a term commonly used in in the social sciences to explain the tension arising from the gap between expectation and opportunity. Relative deprivation is primarily concerned with people’s changing expectations, their hopes in being able to fulfil them and the demand on government to meet basic expectations. What happens when growing expectations are not met – or worse, blocked – as is so often the case can be summarised as a script of cautionary tales about social and political unrest.

The theory is often offered by some as an explanation for extremism, believing that relative deprivation can give rise to social movements and fuel demands for social and political change. According to this reasoning, educated individuals with high aspirations that have no real prospects for advancement are the “frustrated achievers” says professor Taspinar. Frustrated, young and educated Muslims, with no prospect in their countries, are the extreme end of relative deprivation.

When people have high expectations, according to Professor Taspinar, and develop high aspirations and hopes for upward mobility, then there is great potential for frustration, humiliation and ideological radicalisation. “Frustrated achievers” are believed to represent a social time bomb that could have massive political implications.

In the NIC’s assessment of the Middle East and North Africa, specifically, it concludes that virtually all of the region’s trends are going in the wrong direction. It says that “governments will increasingly struggle to meet public demands for security and prosperity engendering further conflict.” It seems that the forecast for the region is more an observation of the last few years and an acknowledgement that extreme political repression can give rise to extreme political reactions.

Their assessment implies that groups like Daesh are a symptom of “the paradox of progress” being played out in an extreme manner; a “reflection of a dark and difficult near future”, as the authors portray. The factors that plague the world, it is argued, will become more pronounced in the Middle East than anywhere else.

The region is blighted is what the authors describe as a “lost generation” of dissatisfied Arab youths, whose foundational experiences have been shaped by violence, insecurity, displacement and lack of economic and educational opportunities. Their pain and disaffection evidently will challenge the traditional centralised governing structures in the coming years and decades.

In the foreseeable future, terrorists will continue to justify their violence by their own interpretations of religion, but their growth will be fuelled by several underlying factors, such as the breakdown of state structures. Weakening state institutions will, as a result, continue to create spaces for extremists and alternative groups to exploit. “Conservative religious groups – including Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Shia movements – and ethnically-based organisations like those centred on Kurdish identity are poised to be primary alternatives to ineffective governments in the region.”

On a broader plane, the Middle East will continue to drawn into Russia’s orbit as “Moscow becomes more active in the region, as well as those parts of the world in which it believes it can check US influence,” the authors posit. This shift in the balance of power will be fuelled in part because of the “perceptions in the region’s capitals that Washington is unreliable,” pushing Arab states to hedge their bets with China and Russia instead of the US.

“Political upheaval will characterise the next five years of the region, as populations demand more from entrenched elites and civil and proxy wars are likely to continue in a number of failed states, characterised by fierce contests among religious and political forces.” Such contests, it is argued, will likely include security competition among Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and perhaps Egypt, and could involve China, Russia and the United States. Furthermore society will be polarised as the leadership and society’s elite persistently disconnect and drift apart from the masses.

In summing their assessment, the authors believe that the next five years will see rising tensions within and between countries, and that we are “witnessing an emerging global landscape that is drawing to a close an era of American dominance following the Cold War and perhaps the rules-based international order that emerged after World War II”. The NIC painted a gloomy picture of the challenges pulling at the post-World War II global order, including extreme income disparities, technological dislocation, demographic shifts, the impacts of global warming and intensifying communal conflicts.

Their predictions are followed with possible scenarios. Societies, they imagine, “will begin to question the proper role of government across an array of issues ranging from the economy to the environment, religion, security, and the rights of individuals.” With implicit reference to the Arab Spring, it warns of the dangers of attempting to supress dissent against those questioning the political order. Suppression, they argue, will lead to chaos, which will be counterproductive and too costly.

As a caution to current regimes, who the authors stress are not locked in their present trajectory of the future, they say that “dominating and subjugating forces of political reform would require unjustifiable levels of resource in an era of slow growth, fiscal limits and debt burdens that would be unsustainable.” The choice for repressive governments would be stark; offer greater freedom and rights, or go bankrupt in trying to restrict people’s freedoms and rights.

Lastly, the NIC says that states that succeed in addressing the problems of the coming decades will not only be blessed with material strength, which will continue to remain essential to geopolitical and state power, but also they will have improved relationships with internal actors, including civil society. Their strength and sustainability in the long term will be determined by their willingness and ability to draw on networks of people and civic relationships across various domains.

Its conclusion, which looks very much like an indictment of the way popular uprisings have been suppressed in the region, was that in order to reverse the region’s depressing forecast, major state powers, as well as individuals and groups, have to craft new positive relationships and foster  international cooperation and competition.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.