America's Security Strategy in Tunisia Is Failing

Peter Kirechu

Security, Middle East

Without a major change, the terrorists win.

As the international community narrows its focus on Islamic State’s burgeoning sanctuary in war-torn Libya, neighboring Tunisia is caught in a precarious security environment that threatens to unwind its fledgling democratic progress. As the lone success story in the post–Arab Spring era, Tunisia is teetering on a knife’s edge as it balances the demands of a nascent democracy with the growing challenge of domestic and foreign militancy.

Tunisia’s worrying security condition has spurred an increase in U.S. counterterrorism aid and assistance, though current evidence suggests that a strict focus on the security domain obscures the underlying socioeconomic and political pressures that imperil Tunisia’s fragile democracy. As U.S.-Tunisian security engagement deepens, policy makers must remain wary of the existing impulse to overly prioritize security-based solutions over the meaningful governance investments required to secure Tunisia’s democratic experiment.