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Think tanks and government agencies including the National Intelligence Council have confirmed strong correlations between countries with large youth populations and those susceptible to civil strife. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, over the past 30 years “80 percent of civil conflicts occurred in countries where 60 percent of the population or more was under the age of thirty.” Recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and protests in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, and Yemen are profound expressions of this pattern.

The Middle East is the youngest region of the world. Nearly two-thirds of its 380 million people are under twenty-six years old. In some countries the populations are much younger. The median ages in Yemen, Iraq, and Egypt are 18, 20, and 24 respectively. It’s going to get worse. By 2050, the population of the region is expected to double. This youth bulge poses difficulties of a Malthusian scale, particularly in employment and education, but also in all manner of social and physical infrastructure.

The biggest challenge is employment, and not only because it was the number one concern in a recent Gallup survey of 50,000 Muslims from 35 countries. The Middle East has the world’s highest unemployment. Regional averages are above 30 percent. This is problematic as are current apprehensions about regional stability but the real challenge will come steadily over the next 40 years. Just to maintain current employment levels, the Middle East will have to create between 80-100 million jobs during this period, a daunting task in this economic clime in which the world’s largest and most diverse economy managed to add a meager 36,000 jobs last month.

Despite its own economic concerns, the US will play an important role in the Mesopotamian revitalization. Specifically, to aid the region, the US should work with the UN to establish enforceable contract laws and then foreign investment to increase regional opportunities for skilled workers. Increased credit should also be made available for young men and women, particularly for entrepreneurial enterprises. Clear criteria for credit applicants that go beyond academic pedigree should be adopted. If steps such as these and others aren’t taken to create jobs, apart from inciting regional unrest, the opportunity costs to young men of joining militias and radical theological or insurgency movements will become lower, and the threat to regional and international security greater.

Unemployment concerns are linked to educational ones. While 70 percent of the region’s population receives secondary schooling and significant sums are expended annually on education – on average 5 percent of GDP compared to 3 percent in East Asia and Latin America – the quality of that education remains poor. In addition to strong religious influences in some areas, a core of the problem is that schools and universities teach to standardized tests, an educational myopia well known in the US. And, despite supportive, well-intentioned parents who invest billions in private tutoring, this educational model in the Middle East doesn’t produce well-rounded young people able to compete in a global marketplace. Foreign aide and NGOs must fill the educational void at great expense. Navtej Dhillon, director of the Middle East Youth Initiative, makes the argument that their system would be better served, “if parents had the incentives to invest in broader skills, rather than governments and donors undoing the investment of parents.” Middle East policy initiatives to this end should place more weight on extracurricular and community service activities in evaluating students for admission, the same way US colleges and universities do. The US should also amend its Foreign Assistance Act to earmark funds for youth development and education in Middle Eastern countries facing youth bulges. And because it’s vital to long-term regional stability and would help to shore up domestic support for this plan, the US should consider specifically designating a portion of this funding for the education of young women.

Despite other looming challenges such as increased demand for food imports, potable water, and electricity, in addition to high demand for affordable housing and flagging marriage rates, there is a silver lining. Arab youth remain optimistic about their futures. According to a June 2008 Gallup survey, ninety-two percent believe their life has “an important purpose or meaning.”  And, according to a Cairo University political science professor, his students have a higher level of political awareness than their parents.  More so than their progenitors, the youth of the Middle East have seen the world. Satellite dishes airing everything from MTV and CNN are legalized in most Arab countries. Many also have friends and family living abroad, and a plurality have internet access. They’ve seen a better way of life, want a more substantive existence, and have the population clout and social networking savvy to shape their ambitions into reality.

Historical precedent gives reason to hope. Following similar youth-driven political and economic tumult in the 80s, Latin America emerged with relatively stable democratic, free-market institutions. If we lose this generation and the human capital they represent, we lose a historic gift, an opportunity to transform a potentially explosive international security threat into a regional economic partner.