Author Description

The Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Syria were significant disruptions to the Middle East and North Africa region. Their continually evolving consequences present the United States with immense challenges to regional and international stability. Responses to the Arab Spring demand a nuanced appreciation of the sources of fragility and causes of revolution that toppled the Mubarak regime and continue to embattle the Assad regime. Crucially, the individual histories of Egypt and Syria indicate that repressive authoritarian regimes were unresponsive to and disconnected from the broad mass of their populations and failed to meet the basic expectations of their citizenry. Several stressors amplified the regimes' fragility, namely: increasing radical Islamism, the capacity for social mobilization through Internet and communication technologies, long-term demographic pressures, and--crucially--climate-driven pressures. The fact that the US military is likely to deepen its response to the Arab Spring and similar instability indicates that studying the origins of these crises is indispensable.The Arab Spring, however, was more than just another strategic surprise. The Arab Spring is arguably emblematic of the US military's future operating environment in which unpredictability and the potential for rapid sociopolitical change will be constant. The speed and scope of these disruptions are products of the ever-advancing communication technologies that democratize information and accelerate cascading social movements. As unpredictable as those cascades will be, they will not appear de novo. Regardless of how "disruptive technologies" enable social action, these disruptions will still spring from the sociopolitical contexts within a given society. Consequently, the US Army should devote serious study to the Arab Spring revolutions as phenomena long in the making. The Arab Spring demonstrates that no matter how sudden or dynamic a situation appears, its emergent qualities ar