Is a shifting balance of power causing Middle Eastern conflict?

While all may play a role, none are especially new. Many have been present for decades if not centuries. So what provoked the levels of violence that erupted in the 21st century?

For the answer, look for what has changed, moved, or shifted. In this case, it is something that scholars have long warned could lead to conflict: a shift in the regional balance of power.

A system's stability

Many feel that the Cold War avoided actual, physical, full-scale war between the US and USSR because both sides' capabilities were balanced.

Washington and Moscow boasted nuclear weapons, huge conventional arsenals, advanced military hardware, and lots of allies. Neither side dared initiate war. This (just about) kept the peace.

When this 'bi-polar' Cold War world turned into the 'uni-polar' post-Cold War world, with the US as the sole superpower, this kept the peace as no-one dared challenge the US.

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In contrast, the era before the Cold War saw no such global balance of power. World politics then was 'multi-polar'.

In this, several medium and large powers competed for advantage, developed new military technologies, and danced in and out of alliances. This made war more likely. The more players, the bigger the chance of conflict.

Today, most regions are either bi-polar or uni-polar, with one or two states dominating, making war generally less likely. In East Asia, for example, China and Japan are the most powerful, so have a tense but generally stable relationship.

In North America, the US dominates its neighbours, while South Africa and Nigeria are the obvious military powers in their corners of the vast African continent. In South America, Argentina and Brazil stand above the others.

In Southeast Asia, India dominates, though Pakistan's nuclear weapons allows a degree of balance between Delhi and Islamabad. This helps keep an uneasy peace.

A changing region

Then we come to the Middle East, which looks nothing like any of these regions. Rather than one or two dominant actors, it has a plethora.

In the same general orbit there is Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. All have serious military capabilities and all reach beyond their borders.

And, though tiny, Qatar and the UAE punch well above their weight militarily, with fleets of modern weaponry from Western defence companies.

The Middle East is therefore a multi-polar region, and it is this that increases the likelihood of war breaking out there.

Yet the Middle East has been multi-polar since the aftermath of the First World War, but this did not lead immediately to conflict, so what changed? Until the 21st century, there was a degree of balance, although imperfect.

In the 1950s and 60s, most Arab states were aligned with one of two blocs, what Malcolm Kerr called 'the Arab Cold War' between Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser on the one hand, and the monarchies led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia on the other.

In the 1970s and 80s, the alliances changed in the broader Cold War context, as most states aligned with either the US or the USSR.

After 1991, the US came to dominate the region. Most governments shimmied up to Washington, but a few 'rogue state' outliers like Iran, Iraq, Libya and, at times, Syria, refused to accept America's hegemony.

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The regional order from 1945-2000 was far from perfect—wars and civil conflicts still broke out—but there was a semblance of balance, and the fighting that did break out was of a different order of magnitude to that seen after 2000.

New entrants

The Middle East's balance of power changed in several ways in the 21st century. Firstly, new powers entered the scene, shifting dynamics.

For all the fear surrounding the Iranian revolution, Tehran had not been much of a Middle Eastern actor in the years following 1979, save its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. This changed after the US toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

With the removal of Iran's arch enemy, the door opened for Tehran to spread its regional influence, resulting in major interventions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond.

At the same time, Turkey—historically disinterested in the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire—shifted its position.  

After the election of the AK Party in 2002, Ankara inserted itself into Middle Eastern politics.

Turkey's huge economic and military capabilities certainly registered their arrival in the region's international relations.

In addition, smaller states that had previously been peripheral, such as Qatar and the UAE, used their vast wealth to buy a seat at the table, ordering fleets of jets, tanks, helicopters, and missile systems.

US exits stage-left

The second major change was the position of the United States. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were not seen as huge successes in the region. US financial problems from the 2008 Financial Crash further checked US ambitions.

By the time of the 2011 Arab Spring, the US was far less keen on intervention in the Middle East. It got involved at times, such as in Libya, but frequently demurred, holding back in Syria and Yemen, for example.

This marked a major shift in the regional balance of power. Middle Eastern states, for so long used to Washington being the leading actor, had to adjust to a world where American intervention was far from guaranteed.

Whether US allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, or US enemies like Iran, states reacted by expanding and enhancing their own involvement in regional conflicts.

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Researching my new book Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East, I found that of all the region's civil wars from 1945-2008, on average just two states directly intervened, yet from 2008-24, six states directly intervened.

This massive jump helps explain the increased intensity and bloodiness of the region's wars.

Multiple regional powers pursuing their own agendas (rather than aligning to one of two blocs or deferring to a hegemon) has stoked the growing violence.    

Multipolarity and Gaza

In the decade following the 2011 Arab Spring, multiple regional powers plus Russia and the US intervened in states like Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Iraq.

With the US seen as withdrawing after Iraq, these weak states became arenas for regional competition, as powerful actors fought for advantage over rivals in the vacuum.

Many had hoped the region had recently turned a corner. The early 2020s saw a series of détentes between rivals who had spent much of the past decade fighting one another either directly or indirectly.

Likewise, the Gulf blockade ended in 2021, easing tensions between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.

Then the UAE shook hands with Turkey in 2022 after years of tension, while in 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran even agreed a thaw, in a deal brokered by China.

But the explosion of the Gaza war has upended many of those hopes. Again, it is to the balance of power that we look for explanation.

Although there had been an improvement in the Saudi-Iranian rivalry and the Emirati-Turkish rivalry, Iranians and Israelis still hated one another.

Tehran remains committed to aiding and supplying Hamas, and to using Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq to pressure Israel and the US.

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This illustrates the precarious nature of a multi-polar regional power balance. At any one time, multiple regional rivalries can break out in conflict.

If the region were bi-polar, such an outbreak would be less likely, as each bloc would be too fearful of provoking a major regional war. If the region were unipolar, a single hegemon would keep the peace and quell disruption.

But in today's multipolar Middle East, even if some states agree not to fight, there are plenty who remain willing to do so, increasing the chances of conflict.

European parallels

The Middle East is not the only region with a multi-polar balance of power.

Another is Europe, which may offer some clues as to how to move away beyond the violence of the past few decades.

With hints of lazy Orientalist sentiment, some commentators have suggested the Middle East is 'behind' Europe and will eventually follow the same path to stability.

Some have pointed to parallels between Europe's 17th century wars of religion and the recent sectarian violence in the Middle East.

This grossly simplifies both past events in Europe and today's Middle East as being all about religion. They are not.

A more useful parallel is to look at why differences in Europe, whether over religion or otherwise, often led to war.

Again, a multi-polar balance of power explains why much of Europe's modern history was characterised by conflict.

European states broke the cycle by learning to live with multi-polarity i.e. by accepting that no one state—be it France, Spain, or Germany—would ever dominate, so agreeing to work together instead, towards common goals of prosperity.  

The idea that Middle Eastern states may reach a similar conclusion and develop an equivalent to the European Union may seem miles away, give the current reality.

But this supra-national cooperation did prove a successful way for states to live with each other in a multi-polar balance of power and is replicable.

Whether such a move towards collaboration over conflict ever emerges in the region remains to be seen. Many will be sceptical.

Yet without it or something similar, past precedent suggests that the Middle East's current balance of power makes further war likely.