Story and Photo by MAJ. EBONY N. CALHOUN/U.S. ARMY CENTRAL PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Military representatives from Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen met in Washington, D.C., in April 2015 for U.S. Army Central’s first Senior Strategy Session on the Arabian Peninsula and Levant. The event was held with support from the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA).
The five-day session brought together some of the region’s leading strategists and academic experts to exchange perspectives on what makes the Middle East such a complex region. Lebanese Brig. Gen. Calude El Hayek noted, “Holding conferences like this has positive effects in approaching perceptions, sometimes about conflicting matters taking place in various parts of the world. At the same time, it builds, nourishes and maintains partnership among nations. The conference effectively represented a free stage for every represented nation to exercise freedom of expression, exchange of ideas and an opportunity for the representatives to strengthen social and political ties among each other. Such conferences offer great opportunities for the best partnership building.”
During the exchange, 30 representatives from the seven partner nations and the U.S. Army received presentations from experts from the U.S. Department of State, George Washington University, the National Defense University and other agencies. Topics included military support during humanitarian disasters and the impact of oil production on stability in the Middle East. All participants agreed that these were compelling discussion points, but several attendees mentioned that the most salient presentations addressed terrorism.
“There are many different conflicts in the Middle East. It’s not only Da’ish or ISIS. It’s not only the al-Qaida-affiliated organizations,” said NESA professor Dr. Murhaf Jouejati, who is originally from Syria. “In that onion, there are many, many layers. We have only touched some of them this week.”
During his lecture on the nature of terrorism, Dr. David Ucko, professor of strategic studies at the National Defense University, asserted that the challenges extremism pose to the political and military environment are unique and increasingly complicated.
“Insurgent groups will use terrorism as one of many different actions of strategic components. They have the political standing. They may use subversion. They use maybe the provision of government services. Maybe they might have an education section that essentially educates the next generation,” said Dr. Ucko. “The reason they can do all of this is because they have a certain political following.”
Throughout the exchange, members from several delegations echoed Dr. Ucko’s remarks, stating that terrorism has no single source of motivation, so the problem cannot be viewed with a single focus.
Participants and event organizers felt that the foundation for confronting terrorism requires an ongoing exchange of ideas like the type of dialogue experienced in the Senior Strategy Session.
“There were some tough problem sets discussed. Tough issues. There are no easy solutions,” said Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, deputy commanding general, Operations, U.S. Army Central, in his closing remarks. “We continue the dialogue. We use this conference as yet another forum to build relationships, because this relationship building will help us eventually understand more to tackle some of these problems in the future.”