When experts discuss the Middle East and North Africa, they often begin with the Shi’a–Sunni divide, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, or the prevalence of Islamic terrorism. We’d like to add another dimension. We know these conflicts have and will persist. But as the papers presented in this volume attest—and as the roundtable discussion confirmed—the individual countries in this region are also affected by the broader forces we have been studying throughout this project: demographic change, emerging technologies, and weakening governance.
