Dubai: The Middle East has witnessed 16 major wars in 61 years, costing the region 1.4 million lives and trillions of dollars in lost opportunities, lost generations, and lost identities.
These are the findings of a wide ranging study on the real and opportunity cost of conflict in the Middle East since 1991.
The study by the India-based Strategic Foresight Group revealed an opportunity cost of $12 trillion for the region between 1991 and 2010 in the absence of peace.
Some regional powers have been increasing their military expenditure by ten per cent every year, making the Middle East the most militarised part of the world. Seven states in the region are among the ten highest military spenders in the world.
The cycle of militarisation has arguably had the opposite of the intended effect of consolidating sovereignty and ensuring stability. The number of American troops in the Middle East today stands at more than one hundred times what it was twenty years ago. At more than 200,000 troops, American military manpower in the region is greater than that of eight countries in the region.
This, the report points out, has come at the expense of education, health and development. The region is plagued with unemployment and a growing brain drain.
The millions of widows and orphans created over the years can only ensure a continuation of volatility and lack of development for the coming generations.
But the effects of conflict in the Middle East are not confined to its borders. The socioeconomic conditions in the region have made it ripe for a long incubation of non-state actors that are not bound by laws or international conventions. They often command more respect and fear than sovereign governments and have taken their struggles beyond the region.
The rise of Al Qaida is a prime example of this. The organisation has taken 9,000 lives of non-Middle Easterners between September 2001 and 2008 and cost the international community billions of dollars in wars and peacekeeping. Almost $800 million has been spent on just three UN peacekeeping missions in the region.
By showing the shocking figures of human and monetary cost of the conflicts in the Middle East, the authors of the report attempt to have the region's decision makers to stop and ask: is it worth it?
