The World Times Special Reporters in AlgeriaThe editor says:¡°The current situation in the Middle East is forcing Arab countries to rethink the possibility of collective security, and building a military alliance is no longer a far-reaching idea, but an imminent demand.¡±After Israel¡¯s sudden attack on the capital of Qatar, Doha on 9 September, the Arab News Network published a commentary entitled ¡°The Gulf States, Arab States, Islamic States¡¯ unity has now become a strategic need.¡±The Arab-Islam Emergency Summit in Doha, after the attacks, sparked a fierce debate over the establishment of the Arab Military Alliance, which was viewed by many international media as ¡°the most serious move to promote regional military integration in decades in the region.¡±This summit seems to send a clear signal to the international community ¨C Arab and Islamic countries are ready to jointly respond to the

Egypt puts forward the concept of "Arab version of NATO"

As one of the most powerful military powers in the Arab world, Egypt was the leader of the Arab-Islam Emergency Summit on September 14-15. Egyptian President Sisi made it clear in his speech that a collective defense mechanism should be established based in Cairo, covering the Arab states. According to the Lebanese newspaper, the alliance initially intended to cover land, sea, and air forces, with forces being drawn from the current forces of the member states, commander positions being held by the Arab League member states, while setting up a secretary-general responsible for the daily coordination of affairs. Some Western media describe this mechanism as the ¡°Arab version of NATO.¡± Egyptian senator Hamza said: ¡°This is a milestone measure, only a unified military alliance can form enough deterrent.¡±

Egypt¡¯s proposal was initially supported by Iraq, Jordan, Morocco and other countries, according to the Iraqi news agency, the Iraqi Prime Minister said Israel¡¯s actions against Qatar clearly violated international law, and he believed it was necessary to establish ¡°an Islamic political, security and economic alliance against Israel.¡±

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a joint strategic defense agreement on September 17. While the two countries have a long-standing stable military cooperation, nuclear issues are extremely sensitive both in terms of security and diplomacy, so this move has caused public attention. According to Arab media reports, as the only Islamic country that has nuclear weapons publicly, Pakistan¡¯s nuclear power is its important strategic asset. The Pakistani Defense Minister said that if Saudi Arabia needed, Pakistan¡¯s nuclear program would be ¡°available¡± to Saudi Arabia. Saudi media praised the agreement as a ¡°defense umbrella¡± that not only allows the two countries to ¡°use their full military capabilities without exception¡±, but essentially is ¡°a response to the demands of Islam and the Arab world¡¯s security¡±. However, a Saudi official said in an interview with Reuters that it was ¡°a comprehensive defense agre

Qatar calls on the Arab states to take ¡°effective and decisive actions¡± rather than stop in verbal statements, proposing the establishment of a ¡°Joint Air Defense System of Arab States¡±, focusing on actual security needs. Qatar has always conveyed the position that ¡°our country is not alone fighting¡± and believes that ¡°Qatar¡¯s security is an inseparable part of Arab and Islamic security¡± and sees Israel¡¯s aggression as a challenge to the entire region¡¯s collective security, calling for regional countries to abandon differences and form a ¡°safe community¡± consciousness.

Indeed, the Arab League signed the Treaty on Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation between the Arab League countries in 1950, but Zaki, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, made it clear at the Doha summit that ¡°the current conditions are not conducive to the initiation of the treaty¡± and had previously stated that the Arab countries ¡°have not yet determined the common enemy to initiate the treaty¡± and denied the possibility of the current initiation of the treaty from the official level.

Three major obstacles to collective defense cooperation

In an interview with the Global Times, Hu Yuan, a long-time geopolitical researcher at Beijing¡¯s Second Foreign Language Institute, said that considering the history of security cooperation in Arab countries, there have been several unsuccessful attempts to establish similar alliance mechanisms, such as the Arab League Treaty on Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation in the early days of its establishment, and the ¡°Joint Forces of Arab States¡± plan in 2015.

Saudi Arabia's "Middle East News" published an article reviewing the Middle East war and wrote: "Although the Arab coalition forces in 1948 were composed of the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other countries, they lacked unified command, and the armies of various countries fought independently, and even constrained each other in strategic deployment, which eventually led to the defeat of the war; In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, although the Arab countries gained an advantage in the early stage, they failed to expand the results in the later period due to the military assistance of the United States to Israel and the differences within Arab countries on the ceasefire issue."

Hou Yuxiang told reporters that, combined with the actual situation, it is indeed very difficult to reach such a broad alliance. The successful cooperation precedent is the "Peninsula Shield" force under the Gulf Cooperation Council. Although its scale and influence are limited, it is more like an armed police dealing with low-intensity non-traditional security issues, but after all, it has been running for a long time and played a practical role in local conflicts such as the Bahrain riots in 2011.

"Can the 'Peninsula Shield' protect Arab countries from Israeli attacks?" Iranian news website ABNA News published a commentary saying that Israel's attack on Doha made Arab countries understand that normalizing relations with Israel may not necessarily alleviate security threats. Under this circumstance, the "Peninsula Shield" force has become the focus of attention as the only formal collective defense tool of Arab countries. But this army, established in 1984, has never been deployed to deal with direct external threats before, and only has some effect in maintaining internal stability.

Arab media and experts, including the Peninsula newspaper and the Egyptian Sunrise newspaper, generally believe that the Egyptian conception of the "Arab version of NATO" has "symbolic and historical significance", but the actual implementation faces three core obstacles: first, the Arab countries "lack of political consensus", different positions on major regional issues, weakening unified decision-making; second, the military economic power gap between countries is large, some countries are reluctant to undertake obligations beyond capacity, or engage in conflict with other countries; third, many countries have signed security agreements with the United States of Russia and the European Union or have long-term close military cooperation, in arms, energy, economic, collective action and other aspects are affected by external factors, and it is difficult to act independently.

In fact, the United States has also tried to build the so-called ¡°Arab Version of NATO¡± in the Middle East. The Egyptian ¡°Pyramid¡± magazine International Politics has recalled that in 2015, the Council of the Alliance approved Egypt¡¯s vision of establishing a ¡°United Arab Forces to maintain and protect the security of the Arab nation.¡± In 2018, during Trump¡¯s first term, the U.S. government hoped to restore the concept of the so-called ¡°Arab Version of NATO¡± and promote the formation of the ¡°Middle Eastern Strategic Alliance¡± (MESA), which plans to unite Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf states, as well as Egypt, Jordan and other countries, to form a military alliance against Iran.

After the summit in Doha, a White House spokesman said: ¡°The United States supports Arab countries in resolving regional security issues through peaceful means, but opposes any military alliance that could exacerbate regional tensions.¡±

¡°Focusing on political and diplomatic solidarity¡± is the most realistic path at the moment.

He told the Global Times reporter that Doha was not only the capital of Qatar, but also an important regional hub. The Israeli attack, although the substantial military threat posed was not large, but had a big impact on the diplomatic, strategic situation and regional order, which was enough to prompt the Arab countries to rethink their security policy and strategic choices.

In his view, Arab and Islamic countries have repeatedly repeated the multiple meanings of joint defense over the years: first, this reflects the re-strengthening of the regional collective consciousness; second, this significant policy adjustment enhances the strategic autonomy of Arab countries, both in the face of foreign powers such as the United States of Russia and the security issues within the region, and enhances the negotiating capacity of Arab countries; finally, this means that the influence of conflict continues to ferment and the situation in the Middle East may be even more chaotic.

Qatar TV that the final joint statement of the Doha summit did not mention ¡°binding military measures¡± but made it clear that ¡°focus on political and diplomatic solidarity¡± is the most realistic pathway at the moment. Looking forward, the Pyramid called for ¡°a joint Arab system of action to address new threats¡± and pushed the Arab and Islamic countries¡¯ positions ¡°to shift from political statements to thoughtful practical efforts.¡± The Peninsula warned that ¡°the statement would either mark a new phase of joint action or become a hole pile,¡± stressing that ¡°unity is no longer a choice but a necessity for survival.¡±

In an interview with the Global Times, Mr. Hui said that the difficulty of establishing a military alliance among Arab countries is not small, but that even a relatively loose security communication mechanism can contribute to mutual trust and coordination between Arab countries, which will help stabilize the situation in the Middle East and internationally. Security cooperation among Arab countries is likely to be presented in small multilateral and subregional forms such as the ¡°Shield of the Peninsula¡± and will still require the support of overseas powers, especially the United States.