North Africa

As Tunisia approaches the tenth anniversary of its revolution, it faces a pandemic that has induced a historical economic crisis with significant social and political ramifications in the years to come.

The politics of pandemics: Evolving regime-opposition dynamics in the MENA region.

Once considered unlikely by regional experts, military confrontation along the Nile is a growing possibility, as a diplomatic solution to the Egyptian-Sudanese-Ethiopian stand-off recedes. Outside observers may not understand why Egypt considers the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) an “existential threat” to its existence, but, regardless, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his advisors see it as such.

There are virtually no coercion or accountability mechanisms that international stakeholders are committed to leveraging against domestic parties that are working to undermine the agreement with the support of foreign actors.

The proxy confrontation playing out in Libya has intensified a regional competition for resources in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, where several overlapping claims for maritime jurisdiction by Turkey, Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus have fueled escalating tensions.

While Paris’s official policy in Libya has supported the United Nations-led negotiations over Libya and the Government of National Accord (GNA) that resulted from them, France’s real policy on the ground has been one of total and full support for Haftar’s forces.