This week’s featured graphic provides an overview of Algeria and Egypt’s top trading partners. Russia’s absence from the top five trading partners list of either country highlights that despite Moscow’s revival of its ties with Cairo and Algiers, it remains overshadowed by other actors in the economic sphere. To find out more about Russia’s strategy in the Middle East and North Africa, read Lisa Watanabe’s chapter for Strategic Trends 2019 here.
This graphic highlights Russia’s role as one of the top arms suppliers to Algeria and Egypt. For an analysis of what this demonstrates about Russia’s reemergence as a power broker in the Middle East, read Lisa Watanabe’s article for Strategic Trends 2019 here. For more CSS charts and graphics, click here.
Image courtesy of EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations/Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
This article was originally published by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on 27 February 2018.
Legalising migrants can boost economic growth, improve international relations and prevent radicalisation.
Algeria and Morocco have for the past decade been important transit and stopover countries for migrants moving to Europe. Many also stop to seek informal work in Algeria’s $548.3 billion hydrocarbon economy and Morocco’s $257.3 billion diversified economy.
Courtesy of Manybits/Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)
This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 18 May 2017.
The low global oil prices being experienced since mid-2014 have had a serious impact on oil-dependent states across the world, many of which have a limited capacity to adjust to the current economic climate. Algeria is considered particularly vulnerable in North Africa, with fears of a return to the instability of the late 1980s and a diminished ability to respond to the region’s fragile security environment.
The steep decline in oil prices has caused budget deficits even in the wealthiest Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Yet these states generally have very large foreign currency reserves and sizable sovereign wealth funds that should help them weather the current slump comparatively well. Though not as poorly placed as some sub-Saharan oil-producers such as Nigeria, Algeria lacks such a significant cushion.
Courtesy Pictoscribe/Flickr
This article was originally published by the Small Wars Journal in September 2016.
Thanks to a sequence of fortunate accidents around 2005-2006, the world discovered the intellectual legacy of David Galula (1919-1967). Since then, two books and one monograph restituted the story of his life or vast segments of it. Although some went into a fascinating level of detail, none of these, in my view, are an easy read for a non-military audience. A minimal awareness in terms of war studies is needed to really capture what they had to say. Besides, the French-speaking readership is still far from hearing about Galula. These are the two reasons why I decided to tell the story of Galula’s life – in French.
Writing a book about David Galula amounts to recounting the story of a paradox (many of them actually). On the one hand, there is a consensus on him being the founding father of counterinsurgency, a groundbreaking theory in modern military affairs. Galula was a self-made man in various aspects; born into a relatively modest environment, he rose to positions where no one expected him to, in virtue of his faith and social background. He traveled the world and exerted the full scope of his talents in a diversified career ranging from diplomat, author and secret agent to infantry officer. Many influential people liked him and very few voiced any opposition or hostility at his respect. Yet, Galula’s legacy went silent after his premature death in 1967. During forty years, neglect and bad luck buried Galula’s unorthodox and stimulating contributions to the art of war. Neither book royalties nor a military pension were enough to keep his widow from having to look for a job to make a living and raise their only child. Galula is still mostly unheard of in his home country, France.
