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If you looked at Europe in the mid-1600s, you would probably think something along the lines of “Wow, these guys are not going to make it.” Even though the region was already seeing economic growth from colonialism and the expansion of global trade, much of it had also just been devastated by the Thirty Years War, which killed around a fifth of Germany’s population alone. That war, which involved most of the region’s major powers opportunistically sending in mercenary armies who committed untold atrocities on regular people, came on the heels of a century and a half of brutal religious wars and schisms. Politically, Europe was hopelessly fragmented among a vast number of polities, principalities, feudal possessions, proto-states, and so on. And the whole region was menaced externally by the Ottoman Empire, whose proxy pirates were known to enslave Europeans and seize coastal European towns.
We all know how the story goes after that. Just two centuries later, Europe was on top of the world, having invented industrial technology and modern science, consolidated under a few powerful empires, conquered most of the world, and seen growth in living standards unrivaled since the dawn of history.
Europe’s rapid rise from the ashes of centuries of division, war, and poverty provides a vivid demonstration of how a civilization’s potential is not baked into its cultural or historical DNA. Regions that seem dysfunctional are capable of rapid rises.
Just a few years ago, there were few regions of the world that seemed as dysfunctional as the Middle East. Some Middle Eastern countries had oil wealth, but overall living standards were mediocre and pretty stagnant, and there was little domestic technology or competitive industry to speak of. Authoritarianism was everywhere, and strict religious values had produced persistent social inequalities. And most importantly, the whole region was mired in a seemingly intractable morass of wars. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere claimed millions of lives, and displaced more millions. Dictators, rebels, religious zealots, and proxy militias sent by great powers and regional powers alike battled it out on the bloody sands for decades.
And yet when I look at the Middle East today, I’m strangely hopeful. I don’t know if the region is primed for global ascendance the way Europe was in the mid-1600s, but I anticipate significantly better days ahead, for a number of reasons. The most important are the decline of war and the green energy transition, while the demographic transition will also be helpful.
Middle Easterners are getting tired of war
Seven or eight years ago, the Middle East was the center of global warfare — most of the war deaths in the world were happening in the Middle East. But by the 2020s, most of the region’s wars had calmed down to a greater or lesser degree, and other places had become much more violent:
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The big news this week, of course, was a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. In fact, I’m pessimistic that this deal will hold, and the question of Gaza’s independence — and of Palestine in general — is still unresolved.
But elsewhere, reasons for optimism are stronger. Syria is now largely at peace, after rebels suddenly overthrew Assad’s regime in December. While it’s still early days, the most important rebel group has signaled that its regime will be a relatively moderate, pluralistic, tolerant one, rather than an Islamist theocracy like the Taliban. That might just signal a desire to be accepted by the West, but it also probably stems from the Syrian people being utterly tired of civil war and sectarian strife.
Meanwhile, Lebanon is looking more peaceful and stable, after an Israeli campaign decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership and forced Hezbollah to withdraw from border regions. The Lebanese state has begun to assert its power, and the country’s new president has promised to disarm Hezbollah. Even if he can’t keep that promise, the country will certainly benefit from supreme power no longer being held by an unaccountable militia that constantly insists on provoking wars with Lebanon’s neighbor to the south.
Syria and Lebanon aren’t the only place where peace is creeping in. Iraq is more stable and peaceful than at any point since the U.S. invasion in 2003. ISIS has been defeated. The war in Libya has died down to a large degree. Only in Yemen does war still rage, with the Houthis continuing to attack international shipping and repress the local population.
Besides sheer exhaustion, the Middle East’s sudden experiment with peace has been helped by the retreat of meddlesome powers. A number of the wars were being caused, or at least exacerbated, by Iranian meddling via proxy militias. But with the overthrow of Assad and the devastation of Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran is fast running out of effective proxies. Domestic unrest and Israeli military superiority appear to have helped tie Iran’s hands as well. Meanwhile, Russia, which was intervening heavily in Syria and a bit in Libya, has had its attention drawn elsewhere, and so is now mostly incapable of causing trouble. The U.S.’ role in the region shifted from destructive (the Iraq War) to constructive (helping to defeat ISIS), but overall the U.S. is also less invested in the region than before.
This doesn’t mean the Middle East is about to become a peaceful place, but the fact that it’s moving in that direction suggests that the region’s people are simply fed up with endless, grinding war. That could set the stage for a rapid economic and social recovery, once people and regimes start turning their attentions to more constructive pursuits.
Geography, technology, and demographics are all on the Middle East’s side
Geography has been a curse for the Middle East for a long time. The region is basically a giant desert, with fewer water resources than anywhere else on Earth:
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This seems like a hard constraint on development, but technological innovation is changing the game. As Hannah Ritchie reports, improvements in energy efficiency mean that large-scale desalination is a lot more feasible than it used to be:
And the Middle East is building a ton of desalination plants:
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As Ritchie writes, desalination is very cheap for providing drinking water, but still not feasible for large-scale use in agriculture. But Israel has shown that it can help a lot, because household wastewater can be used for growing