Mr Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, addressed the ORF faculty on developments in West Asia
Non-state actors are increasingly emerging as key players in the geo-political arena, said Mr Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, here on October 28, 2009. He was addressing the ORF faculty members on developments in West Asia.
Referring to the US National Intelligence Council’s study, Global Trends 2025, he said one of the biggest changes in the years, along with the growing status of non-state actors, would be the States gradually losing control of people and geography to these non-state actors.
Mr Halevy, who heads Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said these non-state actors would be of different categories and would test a sovereign State’s response strategy to deal with threats posed by them. For instance, there would be non-state actors within a State; there would be others who would be outside the areas which they control while some would maintain enclaves within a sovereign State.
These non-State actors will be become more and more diverse in years to come. They could be Tribes (Middle East, Pakistan), Criminal Organizations (Russia) and religious groups. These groups, he said, would be increasingly involved in State activity than they were previously.
Such non-state actors were already quite influential in the Middle East, he cautioned, and the phenomenon was likely to spread beyond the region.
During his discussions with the faculty members, Mr Halevy said he was not quite hopeful of a positive outcome of the Middle East peace process. He, however, said there were positive signals in the Israeli-Iran talks. Responding toa question on al Qaida and Osama bin Laden, he said he had a different opinion on the subject. He believed that it was Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian, who created al Qaida and not Saudi Arabia.
The discussion was chaired by Mr Vikram Sood, Vice President, ORF Centre for International Relations. Israel’s Ambassador to India, Mr Mark Sofer participated in the meeting along with ORF’s Lt. General V. Patankar, Mr Surendra Singh, Amb. Dilip Lahiri and Mr Saeed Naqvi.
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