Nabil Fahmy on the Middle East Founding Dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo; former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt Fisher Family Fellow, 2011-2012 The Middle East has the highest regional military expenditure, yet the greatest proliferation of conflicts and insecurity. It suffers from a political military imbalance between Arab and non-Arab members. This is fueled and further exacerbated by tactical transactional thinking. In exceptional circumstances, where strategies do emerge, they lean towards recreating historic episodes rather than investing the oftenpainful lessons of history in building regional security architectures for the future that ensure respect for international law, equal rights, opportunity and collective interests for all. Committing to the development of a forward looking, multidimensional regional security architecture based on nation-state concepts, incremental steps towards its fulfillment would help establish strategic goals, regional codes of conduct and confidence building measures to deal with historic political conflicts, as well as existing region-wide challenges such as terrorism, climate change, water shortages. Hopefully the regional youth bulge will be a catalyst for forward-looking concepts in this regard.
What advice do you have for the next generation of diplomatic practitioners? Before engaging with foreign interlocutors, diplomats should put themselves in their shoes to understand the real needs rather than the aspirations of others. This will help properly determine whether negotiations are worthwhile, whether agreement is possible, how best to get there and of course, whether your counterpart can deliver. In that context always listen carefully for what is not said as much as what is said.
Belfer Center for Science And International Affairs
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Harvard Kennedy School
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