In his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic in April, Barack Obama spoke briefly about power politics in the Middle East. If the most powerful states in the region learn how “to share the neighbourhood”, as he put it, the Middle East might have a shot at long- term stability.
Beyond suggesting that Iran and Saudi Arabia must figure out a way to coexist, Mr Obama did not offer specifics as to how such a cold peace might come about. But it would probably require some sort of rebalancing of power, perhaps orchestrated by the US. This is a very bad idea. If the next president is sympathetic to Mr Obama’s logic and seeks to manipulate regional power dynamics among key Middle Eastern states, it will probably upset whatever fragile balance currently exists.
The concept of the balance of power is as old as the study of war and peace. Yet despite the volume of scholarship on the subject, the relationship between the distribution of power and the likelihood of war is unclear.
Many have argued that war is least likely if power is distributed equally among key states. Others have suggested the opposite: that war is least likely if power is distributed unequally. And some have said that power balances have either little or no influence on conflict one way or the other.
The empirical evidence has been similarly inconclusive. For example, despite the system of alliances before the First World War ushering in a certain power balance in Europe, it was inherently unstable, allowing very little room for diplomacy and arguably paving the way for conflict.
During the Cold War, while it seemed that a US-Soviet power equilibrium preserved the peace, it was most probably the mutual fear of nuclear war between the two superpowers that prevented direct conflict.
What matters more than the distribution of military capabilities among key states is the outlook of those states: status quo or revisionist.
The problem is not dominance or unequal distribution of power per se, it is whether the dominant state’s policies are aggressive or peaceful.
For example, the Chinese Qin dynasty during ancient times and the leaders of the US during the late 19th and early 20th century were benevolents who ruled their neighbourhoods and spread their influence with virtually no opposition or balancing by other states.
In contrast, Nazi Germany was a belligerent dominant power that expanded its territory through war and ruled most of western Europe through a reign of terror.
In the Middle East, Iran has learnt how to live under US regional influence and appreciate US military power, exercising a healthy dose of rationality and refraining from crossing any red lines to avoid direct conflict. However, it does not seem to be at peace with its present status or content with its existing fortunes. American power in the Middle East is a source of frustration to Iran’s mullahs and generals, and they often describe Washington’s military footprint in the region as unwelcome and unnatural, meant to subjugate the Iranian nation and prevent it from meeting its full potential.
To deter Iran or any other aggressive, anti-US powers from dominating the region, the United States has maintained a robust military presence in the area since the early 1970s and established security partnerships with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Washington has also sold its Arab Gulf partners a large amount of modern and powerful weapons, creating a regional military imbalance in their favour and against Iran.
The strategic logic of such policies remains sound: as long as ideological powers wishing to alter the security-political landscape in the Gulf through political violence are militarily inferior in relation to status quo powers, the likelihood of direct military conflict and escalation is lower.
If the next president agrees with Mr Obama that such a regional power imbalance is a source of instability and believes that a new equilibrium in the Middle East is needed to achieve stability, they might recalibrate US weapons sales to the Gulf (Washington would not start selling weapons to Iran, of course, to even things out, but would reduce the volume of and place conditions on arms sales to the GCC) and/or reconfigure the US defence posture in the area to possibly make it less expansive and domineering.
While there is immense value in the United States rethinking its overall defence strategy and posture in the Gulf to make it more effective and sustainable, this process should not be driven by illusions of stability generated by a new power balance in the region.
The real issue is Iran’s revisionism, not the fact that some states have more guns than others or that military power is distributed unevenly.
This raises the question of which policies would be most effective to both pressure and incentivise Iran to modify its aspirations and ways, which might not be possible with a theocratic and radical regime in Tehran.
Promoting a military equilibrium in the region or a vague notion of a balance of power, which could amplify Iran’s bellicosity and pave the way to it becoming a hostile and dominant power, is certainly not the answer.
Bilal Saab is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council
