A Common Enemy
Arabs and Jews have always had a great deal of tension between each other. The best example of this constant fight would be the conflict between Palestine and Israel. Their close proximity and stark religious differences have caused for years of animosity. However, this may all soon change as time progresses and other countries develop.
Iran is a country that could definitely be considered an enemy to both Arabs and Jews. It has for a long time been a threat to Israel, and now has extended its potential impact region to many other states in the Middle East. Through taking control of the media as well as various community activities across the region, the Iranian operation is becoming a threat to be reckoned with. Numerous Arab states throughout the Middle East have received aggression of some sort from Iran, and they not pleased. Thus, there is a consensus that Iran has finally crossed the line, and that something must be done. As a result, there has been a move towards working together against Iran.
This type of situation is representative of an unbalanced network that slowly shifts towards a balanced one. Each Arab country, Israel and Iran all initially have three negative edge labels with each other, if we are to visualize individual triangles between the different combinations of trios. However, due to Iran’s increasing threat in the region, there is now a force motivating Arabs and Jews to come together and team up against Iran. This happens because there is incentive for both parties to band together against the third. They can mutually protect each other, while if they did not, they probably would not be able to defend themselves alone. This alliance against a common enemy makes the individual networks now have one positive edge and two negative edges, a balanced network! Thus, this is a real life example of when an unbalanced network shifts towards becoming a balanced one.
This kind of situation occurs all the time in everyday life. Networks are prevalent in a multitude of real life situations, and provide explanation for why certain behaviors are more common than others. Using ideas such as balanced and unbalanced networks allow us to be able to understand why countries tend behave in certain ways, and also give us the ability to predict what countries will do. If there are trends that are always followed, then planning for the future is much easier as one now knows what to expect. So the next time the US and two of its enemies all have mutual hatred towards each other, we should think to either make an alliance with one of our enemies, or prepare to have to deal with them both fighting alongside one another.