Hampson: If 9/11 defined the last decade, will the Arab Spring define the next?

By:

, /

12 September, 2011

Director of the Global Security program and Distinguished Fellow at CIGI and Chancellor's Professor at Carleton University

The melting waters of the Arab Spring are fast turning into an uncontrollable flood. Authoritarian regimes are being swept away and the banks look ready to burst and drown those that remain. When the flood waters finally recede there will no shortage of challenges to build a new order in the Arab world. Alas, there is no master plan here and no master builder. The Arab Spring has already marked this decade, but its definition is unclear.

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