Whereas Morocco and Algeria managed to navigate quite calmly through the troubled waters of the Arab Spring, three other North-African countries, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, experienced varying degrees of upheaval. The aim of this study is to highlight the distinct roles played by the armed forces of the latter three states in this tentative political transition by analysing the interests that effectively determined their level of involvement during and after the revolts, postures which in turn impacted on the orientation of this potentially groundbreaking political transformation. The main argument developed in this study is that the three militaries, as a rule, did not side with the revolution per se but acted according to their own institutional interests.

In drafting its Middle East policy, the Trump administration appears to depart from the soft power rhetoric of the Obama years, seemingly favoring a more hawkish, hard power approach to dealing with America’s most important interests in the region: the defeat of ISIS and the containment of Iran. While many regional partners hope for a radical U.S. foreign policy shift after years of perceived American disengagement, Trump seems to be constrained by path dependency. He inherits a region in turmoil, a public adverse to regional military engagements for peripheral interests, and a major strategic discrepancy between ambition and capability. Consequently, the new White House will be forced to continue Obama’s policy of delegation and multilateralism.