The Future of Arab Nationalism, Incumbent Regimes, and the Nation-State

Far from the wars ravaging the region, Arabs must grapple with a fundamental question: What future lies ahead for Arab nationalism, incumbent regimes, and the Arab nation-state itself?

Throughout their modern history, Arabs have failed not only to build a unified Arab nationalist state, but also to establish a common political system capable of turning their shared national identity into a genuine political, economic, and strategic force. More seriously still, the failure of the project of Arab unity has prevented the nation-state from emerging as a viable alternative. Rather than investing in development, education, the economy, human development, and institutions, Arab countries have devoted considerable resources to wars, conflicts, arms, and the preservation of incumbent regimes.

The result is a stark historical paradox: a unified Arab state has never emerged, while the nation-state itself is now under threat in several countries.

The Palestinian Nakba and the Beginning of a Transformation

To understand how the Arab world reached this point, we must return to the Palestinian Nakba of 1948.

The Nakba was not merely a military defeat, the loss of Palestine, and the expulsion of its people. It also eroded the legitimacy of the existing Arab political order. The war exposed the Arab regimes’ inability to defend Palestine and laid bare the weakness of the political and military institutions established in the wake of decolonization.

The army thus appeared, in several Arab countries, to be the only force capable, in the eyes of a large segment of the population, of changing the situation, confronting Israel, and putting an end to the impotence of the regimes in power.

Initially, the military’s rise did not necessarily run counter to popular will. On the contrary, it often enjoyed broad popular support because it presented itself as the driving force behind a project of liberation, modernization, unity, and social justice.

The rise of the military as a political force was thus closely intertwined with the rise of Arab nationalism. Palestine, the struggle against colonialism, Arab unity, development, and social justice came to form the pillars of a single historical project.

This project reached its height under Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose influence extended far beyond Egypt’s borders. Nasserism embodied a sweeping Arab aspiration: to build an independent Arab power capable of standing up to Israel and the major powers.

The problem emerged when the military, having seized power in the name of confrontation, failed to deliver on the very mission that underpinned a significant part of its legitimacy.

The 1967 defeat marked a major turning point.

The regimes that had promised to liberate Palestine and achieve Arab unity had failed. Yet the defeat led neither to a fundamental reassessment of the nature of political power nor to greater openness to broader political participation.

In many cases, the opposite happened.

From a Project of Liberation to a Project of Power

The military, initially at the forefront of a project to transform the Arab world, gradually became a key instrument for preserving the existing order.

This marked the beginning of the most dangerous transformation of the modern Arab state.

Rather than seeking renewed legitimacy through political participation, accountability, and the alternation of power, political space gradually contracted. Political parties weakened, the press and civil liberties came under increasing restrictions, and extensive security apparatuses were established.

Instead of serving a national development project, the state devoted a substantial share of its resources to maintaining the regime’s stability.

At this point, it is essential to distinguish between the state and the regime.

The state encompasses institutions, the rule of law, citizens, territory, borders, and the public interest. The regime, by contrast, refers to the way power is exercised at a particular point in history.

Yet in several Arab countries, the two gradually became conflated, to the point that preserving the regime was presented as a condition for the state’s survival.

This transformation came at a considerable cost.

A state that devotes much of its resources to monitoring its own population and protecting the regime cannot invest as much in education, scientific research, industry, technology, and development.

As the world moved through successive phases of the industrial and technological revolutions, much of the Arab world remained absorbed in questions of power: who governs, and who can hold on to power.

The Closure of Political Space and the Rise of Political Islam

But closing political space does not make politics disappear.

As secular, nationalist, liberal, and left-wing parties were weakened, religious institutions, mosques, and the social networks surrounding them remained among the few spaces that the state could not easily shut down altogether.

It was in this context that political Islam was able to gain ground.

Its rise was due not only to the appeal of its religious discourse, but also to the political vacuum created by the regimes themselves.

The more civic participation was restricted, the more political Islam was able to present itself as an organized alternative.

Meanwhile, the decline of the nationalist project, following military defeats and the failure of efforts to achieve Arab unity, left a vast ideological vacuum that Islamist discourse moved to fill.

The Arab world thus entered a new phase, characterized by military and security regimes intent on remaining in power and Islamist movements that had become their main opponents, challenging both the regimes and their ideology.

Caught between the two, civil and democratic forces that might have offered a third way steadily lost ground.

Much of the region’s history can thus be understood as a chain of closely interconnected developments.

The 1948 Nakba triggered a crisis of legitimacy for traditional regimes, helping pave the way for the rise of the military and the establishment of military regimes. Unable to achieve their nationalist objectives, these regimes gradually shifted their focus to preserving their hold on power and closing political space, thereby encouraging the rise of political Islam, which became the main opposition force.

2011: The Eruption of a Long-Deferred Crisis

The Arab uprisings that began in 2011 can only be understood against this backdrop.

They did not erupt suddenly or in isolation from what had preceded them. To a large extent, they were the delayed outburst of a crisis of political, social, and economic participation that had been building for decades.

Yet their consequences exposed an even deeper problem.

When regimes collapsed in some countries, it became clear that state institutions themselves were far more fragile than had been assumed. The regimes had tied these institutions so closely to their own survival that their downfall threatened to bring down the state institutions as well.

In Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere, albeit in different forms, the conflict was no longer simply about who would govern the state, but about the state itself: its borders, institutions, weapons, and identity.

Instead of a smooth transition from authoritarianism to democracy, some countries descended into civil war, foreign interference, and deep internal divisions.

This was the most serious consequence of the old model: when a regime reduces the state to itself, the regime’s collapse puts the state itself in jeopardy.

The Crisis of the Nation-State

Today, the issue is no longer simply the failure of Arab nationalism, but also the future of the nation-state as it took shape over the course of the twentieth century.

The Middle East, in particular, is facing an existential crisis. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine are experiencing, in varying degrees and forms, crises of sovereignty, borders, national decision-making, and the state’s ability to maintain a monopoly on the use of force.

Sudan, meanwhile, is mired in a war that threatens the unity of both the state and society.

But the danger is no longer confined to countries engulfed in civil wars.

The confrontation between the United States and Iran, along with the risk of escalation, is exposing the Gulf states themselves to significant security, economic, and strategic threats. Much of the conflict revolves around the Gulf, its shipping lanes, infrastructure, and resources.

The Arab world as a whole has thus become, to varying degrees, an arena where regional and international agendas intersect.

Who Decides the Region’s Future?

Israel, Iran, Türkiye, and the United States, alongside other international powers, have become key players in shaping the regional balance of power.

In a growing number of Arab crises, Arabs are no longer the sole decisionmakers in conflicts unfolding on their own territory.

This is one of the most serious consequences of the current situation.

The region has vast oil and gas reserves, strategic maritime routes, and a pivotal geographic position. Yet it does not always exercise commensurate control over the political and strategic decisions that shape the future of these resources.

Legal ownership of resources is not enough to guarantee sovereignty. True sovereignty means having the power to decide how resources are used and how the revenues they generate are allocated, within the framework of a national project that serves society.

Is Arab Nationalism Coming to an End?

In light of this reality, it may be tempting to declare Arab nationalism dead. But such a conclusion would be premature.

What is probably coming to an end historically is the old form of Arab nationalism, which held that unity necessarily entailed the creation of a single, centralized Arab state.

Yet the shared Arab space, defined by linguistic, cultural, economic, and geographic ties, has not disappeared.

On the contrary, global transformations are making closer cooperation among Arab states more necessary than ever.

We are entering a world in which major economic, political, and technological blocs are competing with one another. In an age of artificial intelligence and economic giants, small and medium-sized states will find it increasingly difficult to compete on their own.

The future of Arab nationalism may therefore lie not in abolishing the nation-state, but in rebuilding it first and then fostering greater cooperation among states.

The goal is not to create a single Arab state, but to build an Arab space founded on cooperation among strong nation-states.

This would require a broader Arab market, interconnected energy and transport infrastructure, scientific and technological cooperation, common policies on water, food, energy, and artificial intelligence, as well as more effective collective security mechanisms.

Arab identity would thus no longer be a substitute for the nation-state, but its strategic extension.

Can the Existing Regimes Endure?

This, however, raises the most sensitive question: what about the Arab regimes currently in power?

The model built on a trade-off between political participation and stability has become increasingly difficult to sustain in the twenty-first century.

Societies have changed. Knowledge can no longer be monopolized. Social media has broken the traditional control of information. Artificial intelligence will transform the relationship between citizens, the economy, the state, and political power even more profoundly.

Preserving the state, therefore, cannot mean keeping the political system frozen in place.

Perhaps the opposite is true.

The state’s ability to endure depends on the regime’s ability to change.

The alternative need not be the collapse of regimes or a repetition of the turmoil and civil wars of the past. It could instead be a gradual transition that broadens political participation, strengthens the independence of institutions and the judiciary, gives civil society and political parties a greater role, and redefines the relationship between citizens and the state.

The New Nation-State

Saving the Arab nation-state requires a shift from a state that protects the regime to one that protects its citizens.

This calls for redefining security itself.

Security is not limited to an army, borders, and weapons.

It also encompasses quality education, healthcare, job opportunities, an independent judiciary, food and water security, social protection, and the ability to cope with technological and climate change.

The challenge is to move from a concept of security centered on the regime to one centered on human security.

Citizens who feel that the state protects their dignity, their rights, and their future become its staunchest defenders.

A state that invests in its citizens is better equipped to protect its borders and sovereignty than one that spends its wealth keeping them under control.

The New Arab Project

After more than seventy years of experience, three major projects appear to have reached the limits of what they could achieve, albeit to varying degrees.

Arab nationalism, in its traditional form centered on unification, failed to bring about the creation of a single Arab state.

The military state failed to establish a sustainable political model.

Political Islam, in both its Sunni and Shia currents, has likewise faced major difficulties in translating its slogans into a modern state capable of governing complex societies and contemporary economies, whether after coming to power or when coming close to it.

But the failure of these projects does not mean the end of Arab history.

It may instead signal that the time has come for a new beginning.

The task is neither to revive the empires of the past nor to reproduce the military state, let alone establish a religious state or perpetuate regimes that fear change.

It is to build a strong, democratic, and productive nation-state founded on citizenship, participation, and the rule of law – one that recognizes the value of experimentation and the right to experiment and cooperates with other Arab states within a shared economic, political, and strategic space.

The Arabs and the New Middle East

The Middle East is being reshaped, whether or not the Arabs have a hand in that process.

The real question is not simply who will emerge victorious from the current wars, but who will help shape the rules of the new order that follows them.

If Arab states remain preoccupied with protecting their regimes and managing their internal conflicts, other powers will determine the region’s configuration and balance of power.

But if the Arabs succeed in rebuilding the nation-state on the foundations of citizenship, development, and participation, and in transforming Arab identity from an ideological slogan into a project of economic, political, and strategic cooperation, an entirely new form of Arab identity could emerge.

Arab nationalism would then no longer seek to abolish borders, but to lessen their impact on the movement of people, economic exchange, and the circulation of knowledge.

The goal would no longer be to build a single state, but to forge a common power.

And the aim would no longer be to protect regimes from their own people, but to build states that their citizens defend because they regard them as their own.

In the twentieth century, the Arabs lost the dream of a single Arab state.

In the twenty-first century, the challenge is far more serious: to avoid losing the nation-state itself.

The alternative would be a Middle East whose balance of power, borders, future, and decisions on the use of resources are determined by others, while the Arabs, once the bearers of a project, become mere inhabitants of a geographic space whose fate is decided by other powers.