Strategic Forum Number 5: The Pending Crisis in North Africa
Abstract
The goal of this conference was to exchange views on regional security challenges, their underlying causes, and appropriate strategies for addressing them. Differing Tunisian and American perceptions of these challenges soon emerged. The American security concern is two-tiered: the shorter-term threat is the incremental spread of radical Islam, ultimately capturing the region, creating a tide of refugees in France, Italy, and Spain. The longer-term threat is the possibility that radical-leaning regimes would acquire weapons of mass destruction and that those regimes would disrupt the Middle East peace process. Other American concerns included controlling state-directed terrorism and the possible resurgence of dormant non-Islamic radicalism by anti-Western and anti-U.S. figures, such as Qadhafi. The main Challenges Facing North Africa include: Demographics(illiteracy levels unemployment, underemployment, internal migration to urban areas, declining agricultural production and social dysfunctions generated by a permanent lower class). External debt; Islamic Radicalism; and Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The U.S. delegates were less sanguine than their hosts about the emerging economic- political-security environment. At the same time, they did not consider that emerging security challenges in North Africa would impact directly on U.S. security interests. U.S. concerns were the-Potential instability of Authoritarian regimes and the Lack of a regional security community.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1994
- Accession Number
- ADA284104
Entities
Organizations
- National Defense University