CERAWeek 2015: Friday plenary dialogue: geopolitical hot spots and drivers of change

Carlos Pascual, IHS Senior Vice President, chaired the Friday morning plenary on "Geopolitical Hot Spots and Drivers of Change." Joining him were Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute; James Clad, Senior Advisor for Asian Affairs, Center for Naval Analyses; Angela Stent, Professor and Director, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University; and Raad Alkadiri, Managing Director, Energy Insight, IHS. Members of the panel shared their views on the future of the Middle East, India, China and Russia, both in relation to and independent of US policy. The panel discussed the historical precedents for most of the current geopolitical uncertainty and agreed that long-term strategic thinking will be required to resolve these difficulties.

Nicholas Eberstadt spoke first of his work in demographics, which provides a good idea of what the world will look like in 20 to 30 years. In that time, he said, most of the world's labor force growth will be in Sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He added that Chinese population growth is already slowing, and its economy will confront serious headwinds as a result. He sees a bright spot in "NAFTA Land" despite a broken immigration system, pointing to the health and longevity of the Latino population in the United States. Across the world, Dr. Eberstadt noted that the youth bulge that had been expected to occur in the Middle East will not come to pass, as populations there are now choosing to marry later and have smaller families-and the result in the region will be a graying, infirm population living in increasing poverty. India, despite its huge potential workforce, will have to remedy its enormous education deficits if it is to become globally competitive.

Raad Alkadiri spoke about Iraq and its prospects to remain unified as a nation. In this regard he said that ethno-sectarian tensions are often blamed erroneously for political failure, whereas the true cause is more often institutional collapse that leaves a power vacuum. Currently in the Middle East this institutional collapse is being exacerbated by conflict between the two regional hegemons, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is in this context that the Islamic State has been able to seize territory and win members, Dr. Alkadiri said; Sunni Iraqis were left out of the political system post-2003, and without a say in governance or a stake in the country, such groups will look for protection from other sources. He noted also the resilience with which the Saudi government was able to handle the transition from King Abdullah to King Salman, despite the tumult elsewhere in the region. He said that any prospect for increased stability in the Middle East will need to come from the regional powers controlling their proxies and coordinating an overall security framework for the region.

On Russia's role in the world, Angela Stent remarked that Russia cares deeply about what is happening in the Middle East after so many years of supporting secular regimes in the region, as it fears that events there could affect Russian territory in the Caucasus. With regard to the endgame in Ukraine, Dr. Stent said that a big part of what is desired is recognition of a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet space and that this stems from the failure of the West to create a Euro-Atlantic security structure after the end of the Cold War that gave Russia a seat at the table. The former promise of some agreements, such as those on Iranian sanctions and weapons sales, was a function of Dimitri Medvedev being president, she noted, and things quickly deteriorated once Putin announced his intention to return to power.

James Clad observed that some of the conversations about flashpoints that we are having now are the same conversations from a decade ago. He remarked that the South China Sea, although a hot topic now, has been a developing security situation since the 1990s, and added that he is not sure about the applicability of Cold War deterrence policy to the current US-China relationship. Dr. Clad said that the US sees security of transit on the seas as a common good, and that although there have been exercises aimed at increasing the ability of other countries to patrol global hot spots with their navies, the United States will continue to be the guarantor of that security for the near future.

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By Caldwell Bailey April 24, 2015

This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.