You may have heard about NATO, a military alliance whose member countries are in Europe. But I'm sure you may have never heard about " Arab-NATO".  As strange as it may sound but there is a strong possibility that it will be a thing soon

image source: tfipost

 Who Will Be Arab-NATO Members? 

West Asia, is a region home to different countries that are not so different if we look at their history, culture, and religion. Yet, it's a region always in news for its ongoing conflicts. There are more than 22 Arab Nations with at least 400 million people. They follow the same religion and share the same set of beliefs but still do not get along very well. 

Saudi Arabia doesn't get along with Qatar, Lebanon with Syria, and Morocco with Algeria. However, it wasn't like this before. If we look at history, there was a time when Arabs were united. Pan-Arabism was a movement in the 1960s. It integrated the Arab world both politically and socially. It promoted the idea of one Arab State. Today, the movement is dead. 

But after all these years there is a strong possibility that the Arab World could be united again and this time under the strategic alliance "An Arab-NATO". 

image source: americansecurityproject

Arab-NATO

Arab-NATO will be a military alliance for West Asia, an alliance between governments just like NATO. It will have a common name and a common enemy. But who will be the enemy? NATO was formed to counter Russian aggression. In the case of Arab-NATO, it will be the Islamic Republic of IRAN. 

There is no official declaration about this plan however there are a lot of indications. For instance, the American government is pushing for it ( source: click here), the king of Jordan is promoting it ( source: click here), Israeli ministers have conformed to it ( source: click here) and Egypt is holding secret meetings ( source: click here). 

Though there are a lot of speculations and questions about this alliance but let me tell you the idea is not really new. In 2015 the Arab league discussed it. It decided to join forces and form a military coalition to counter terrorism, but it flopped. In 2017 came another proposal from Saudi Arabia. Backing it was Donald Trump, the president of the US. The plan was to unite 6 Arab states. It was supposed to be a political and security alliance to counter Iran. But that didn't work either.

After 5 years Arab-NATO is in the headline again. So what's different this time? Well for starters, the political landscape has changed over the last few years. America has withdrawn itself from the region and due to this some of its allies feel defenseless. Another change to consider is Iran's moves. Iran is getting closer to building a nuclear bomb, When that will happen it will be a great thread for Arab states. Another thing that has changed is the relations between Arab states and Israel, they have improved. 

After the Russian-Ukraine war, NATO has become relevant again. The world is realizing the importance of a military alliance. 

In the past few months, Iran has issued threats of war, expanded its uranium program, and launched its ballistic missiles in Iraq ( source: click here). After all these things Arab world wants a NATO-like block that can counter Iran's growing aggression. 

Who Qualifies For A Group Like Arab-NATO

There are 6 potential members. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. In addition to these 6, there can be 4 more Arab countries like Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, and Morocco. Also, there can be Israel too which is a Jewish  state. Israel's defense minister, Benny Gantz has confirmed it, and no I'm making this up. In his own words " We are building out wide partnership with additional countries in the region to ensure a secure, stable and prosperous Middle East. Among other things, this also includes aerial defense". 

Challenges For Arab-NATO

 Uniting Arab countries is hard and adding Israel to the list is even harder. Why? Adding Israel is controversial because many Arab states still do not recognize Israel like Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, and Jordan. So we can't say for sure whether Israel will be in this block or not but what we can say for sure is that all these countries feel the need for such a block.

Traditionally Arab states were dependent on the West for regional security. It was a give and take relationship, The Arabs gave oil and in return Western powers gave security. But now America doesn't depend on the Persian Gulf for oil. This has forced the Arab world to look for security in their home. They wanted to increase regional cooperation. That's why they want a multi-national military force to counter regional threats. Besides Iran, there are other threats too like transnational movements by hard-line Islamists or threats of terror groups like ISIS making a comeback

How Strong Will Be Arab-NATO?

Individually these countries' military doesn't count for much. The UAE has active personnel of 63,000 Kuwait has 70,000 personnel, Morocco has 195,000 personnel, Saudi Arabia has 227,000 and Egypt has more than 438,500 personnel. Some of these numbers look good but they are small if we compare them with their enemy. Iran has more than 610,000 active-duty personnel plus 350,000 reserved personnel. Total strength (610,000+350,000) 960,000. If we talk about the global firepower index of Arab states, Iran lies at rank 3 ( source: click here)

So you see individually these Arab states don't stand much chance against Iran but together they do have a collective defense mechanism. If these states form a block like NATO and bring Israel into the equation, which not to mention is the most powerful state in West Asia, then it can change the game completely.

Arab-NATO is something America wanted for a long time. They wanted to build integrated air and missile defense system in the Middle East ( source: click here). Barack Obama wanted it so did Donald Trump and now Joe Biden. 

Conclusion 

So there are concrete pieces of evidence to say Arab-NATO is indeed in making. What they will call it and when will it be formed only time will tell. 

Thanks for reading, if you do find this article informative then do comment and share your opinions. I would love to hear it.