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This chapter examines the foreign policies of six key actors in the Persian Gulf in light of middle power rivalries and sectarian tensions. The actors include Iran and Saudi Arabia, which the chapter argues are today perhaps the Middle East’s most significant middle powers, in addition to Turkey of course. There are two other states in the area with aspirations of being middle powers, namely Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, despite their small geographic size and equally small populations.

This chapter turns to the issues of climate change and environmental unsustainability. After an introduction to the international politics of climate change, it explains the two dimensions of vulnerability that the Gulf oil exporters perceive in this matter: climate change itself and international efforts to mitigate it. The Chapter also observes the Gulf Cooperation Council states’ “natural unsustainability” through two broadly used quantitative indicators of environmental sustainability, and elaborates on the impact of authoritarianism on the broader societal context through issues like public awareness and non-governmental organizations. Together, Chapters 1 to 3 serve to provide a general outline of the three principal new energy and environmental challenges of the Gulf Cooperation Council states: rising domestic energy and natural resource demand; the rise of climate change on the international agenda; and the negative environmental consequences of domestic natural resource consumption and climate change.

Chapter 6 analyzes China’s decision to halt intervention into the Syria crisis, issuing repeated vetoes instead in 2011, twice in 2012, and again in 2014 against the P3 advocated intervention calling for verbal censure, sanctions, compliance with peace plans, and referral of the Syria case to the International Criminal Court. The chapter challenges the popular view that these four vetoes were a “given” due to the Libya case, which ultimately had led to regime change. The vetoes were not automatic per se; China reconsidered its position, weighing factors against one another before each landmark vote. However, China’s status concerns were largely discounted in this case: there was no status trigger, and concerns about acting within peer group standards did not come into play. None of China’s peer groups could exact social costs on an unresponsive China. China rejected the great powers position that President Bashar al-Assad was no longer a legitimate ruler, and regional players were in internal disarray preventing them from successfully transmitting status signals to China. This is not to say that China was insensitive to status concerns, but that China reconciled status concerns against other interests. China used rhetorical adaptation to clearly distinguish intervention from regime change, and to modify the normative content of the responsibility to protect.

A number of developments have combined to make the Persian Gulf’s security dilemma intractable and self-sustaining. These have been both structural—a product of the larger geostrategic environment within which the region finds itself—and derived from the policy choices of state actors both within and outside of the region. To begin with, vast geographic discrepancies between much larger, poorer states, alongside small super-rich mini-states have made the Persian Gulf region an enduring conflict zone. The very nature of the phenomenon of security dilemma, namely its self-sustaining and self-perpetuating character, has also been highly consequential. Finally, the region’s security dilemma derives from a basic lack of trust among the actors involved in the region, regardless of whether of not they form alliances over specific issues.

This chapter examines why and how Gulf monarchies have become “naturally unsustainable”. It tracks the increasing unsustainabilities that are being created through the interactions of the Gulf Cooperation Council states’ political economies, political systems and decision-making structures, and establishes the book’s analytical context. The Chapter includes detailed empirical examples and quantitative data. Together, Chapters 1 to 3 serve to provide a general outline of the three principal new energy and environmental challenges of the Gulf Cooperation Council states: rising domestic energy and natural resource demand; the rise of climate change on the international agenda; and the negative environmental consequences of domestic natural resource consumption and climate change.

This chapter provides a theoretical and strategic overview of the U.S. military basing presence in the Gulf from the Second World War to the present. It lays a framework for examining the history of the U.S. military in the Gulf by placing the book within the larger base politics literature, in addition to providing a broad overview on the global evolution of U.S. military basing following the Second World War. Base politics and basing access for military forces is one of the oldest enduring features of international relations among nations and empires. The central question posed here is when and why did base politicization occur in Gulf Arab host nations. External and internal security dynamics linked to a host regime’s survival are the main drivers influencing Gulf Cooperation Council nations either to accept or expel the U.S. military from local bases.

This chapter argues that in each of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the ruling bargain has evolved but has not radically changed since the Arab Spring. It analyzes why GCC countries have had fewer and less severe protests than the rest of the Arab world. While the challenges facing the Persian Gulf monarchies are not fundamentally different than those facing other Arab governments, they faced different degrees of popular protest. The chapter also notes that just as the degree and severity of protests has varied in the GCC, the reactions of their monarchs have also differed—and not always in ways proportional to the nature of the protests. Finally, it examines how citizens in the GCC states view the evolution of their countries’ ruling bargains. While there is growing dissatisfaction with the Persian Gulf monarchies, the discontent is contained. The economic safety net from petroleum wealth has kept the floor from falling out on Gulf citizens. This classic “rentier trade-off” of economic wellbeing in return for political quiescence seems to still hold. On the other hand, marginalized groups in the Gulf are sustaining political activity because of new technologies and greater international interest in Arab activism.

This chapter examines the political construction of a new understanding of how natural resources and security are linked in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The chapter begins with the role of oil in state and class formation and then examines its broader securitization in the Gulf, a trend of particular salience in the last 10-15 years. The study documents the driving forces and motivations behind this process, both regionally and locally, then concludes with some reflections on the links between natural resources, development trajectories, and political outcomes.

This chapter examines Washington’s response to the Arab revolutions. It demonstrates that the Obama administration sought to contain and undermine the 2011-2012 Arab revolutions either directly or through local allies. I compare U.S. foreign policy toward the Arab Spring with the Eisenhower administration’s efforts in response to the 1957-1958 revolutions in the Arab World. The perceptions of American policymakers, I argue, were reproduced in official policy statements and reinforced by leading academics in the mainstream media. Although the Arab revolutions have received significant attention, I conclude that the counterrevolutions were more successful in maintaining the status quo in the region.

The conclusion assesses the current and future U.S. military Gulf presence following its Saudi departure, as well as the present challenges ushered in by regional violence since 2011. The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic where most GCC countries have begun to diversify their political, military, economic, technological, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States. Many GCC nations have turned in recent years to the East to emerging powers such as China, Russia, and India to assist with their national security and economic needs. Nonetheless, understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a host nation remains important today and studying base politics more broadly helps explain when and why basing access may go awry for future policymakers and scholars of the region.

This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the energy dimension of “natural unsustainability”. It covers the broadening scope of energy security-related challenges of the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states. Also included are detailed empirical examples and quantitative data. Together, Chapters 1 to 3 serve to provide a general outline of the three principal new energy and environmental challenges of the Gulf Cooperation Council states: rising domestic energy and natural resource demand; the rise of climate change on the international agenda; and the negative environmental consequences of domestic natural resource consumption and climate change.

This Chapter examines the Gulf Cooperation Council states in the international climate regime (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC), with a special emphasis on the evolution of the United Arab Emirates’ and Qatar’s perceptions, policies and positions. The chapter tracks the two states’ policy positions from the mid-1990s to demonstrate how they have changed (in the case of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates since 2009) or remained stable (in the case of Qatar until 2012), and in which ways the shifting domestic agendas and priorities have impacted on these external agendas.

Chapter 5 analyzes China’s response to the 2011 Libya crisis. In the space of three weeks, China would vote on two landmark resolutions at the UN Security Council: a yes vote for a unanimous referral of a sitting head of state to the International Criminal Court, and shortly after, an abstention vote permitting sanctions and a “no-fly zone plus” over Libyan territory. China’s votes were largely a surprise—many analyses had predicted that China and Russia would cast tandem vetoes. Status is key to understanding China’s response. China was particularly sensitized to status due to a well-publicized speech by Colonel Gaddafi citing his domestic repression as a parallel to the Tiananmen Square Incident of 1989. Against this status trigger, the great powers (the “P3” of the United States, the United Kingdom, France) came out forcefully for intervention, and representatives of China’s Global South peer group—the African Union, the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Gulf Cooperation Council—were among the first to call for a strong response. China was able to reconcile its concerns regarding an International Criminal Court referral of the Libya case as China prioritized status; China was socially isolated from its great powers peers at the UN Security Council and from its Global South peers in regional organizations. When the Global South reference group disagreed about the call for a no-fly zone, China viewed the next most feasible option as an abstention vote, so as to offend no peer.

This chapter describes immigration policies in the Middle East region. The Middle East is the world’s third most important migration hub, after Europe and the United States. It draws two-thirds of its immigrants from Asia. The region, comprising six oil-exporting Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—became a major importer of migrant workers during an infrastructure build-up that followed the “oil boom” of 1973. The chapter traces this upward trend, followed by restrictive immigration policies as economic development projects experienced completion. It also outlines why Asian workers are preferred. The chapter finds that the segmented structure of Middle Eastern labor markets and concern over abusive practices like “visa trading” have led to some policy challenges and some cross-country cooperation, including the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and the Colombo Process, both collective policy initiatives between the destination and origin countries.

AMONG THE WORLD’S largest producers of oil and natural gas, the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—have experienced rapid economic development since the discovery of oil therein. In this context, economic outcomes for young citizens of the Gulf countries have largely been ignored in previous studies focused on issues of youth exclusion. Indeed, when compared with youth in other parts of the Arab world, youth in the Gulf countries have enjoyed opportunities unimaginable to their regional peers, particularly in regard to educational opportunities, access to well-paid, stable employment, and consumption subsidies. This chapter explores the labor market outcomes and institutional failures that hinder Arab Gulf youth from becoming fully integrated into society despite these states’ wealth.

This chapter argues that small states such as Qatar and the UAE can break the mold of small-state classification, but that the tipping point to middlepowerhood for Qatar came and went during the Morsi presidency in Egypt. Furthermore, as a result of the backlash against an active and interventionist Qatari foreign policy, it could yet become an outlying state on the fringes of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The UAE is found to be approaching a “tipping point” to middlepowerhood due to a combination of factors that are generally enhancing its influence in international affairs.

This chapter examines the collective action dilemma at the heart of GCC states’ security policies in chapter seven in view of the startling eruption of ISIS as a regional security threat. Nussaibah Younis documents the internal disarray among GCC states in the months prior to the ISIS takeover of Mosul and declaration of a Caliphate in June 2014. While the early shock provided by the ISIS advance in Iraq compelled GCC rulers to put aside their differences temporarily and revisit stalled plans for a shared defense architecture, Younis demonstrates that their commitment to the multinational anti-ISIS coalition proved short-lived. GCC skepticism about the limited U.S. role in tackling ISIS and opposition to Iran’s perceived role of interference in regional flashpoints combined to refocus the renewal of GCC security cooperation on countering Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf rather than supporting the international fight against ISIS in Iraq and in Syria.

This introductory chapter outlines where and how this book contributes original research to the existing scholarship on politics of rentier states in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the academic work on political Islam through a brief literature review. This book will demonstrate that political Islam serves as a prominent voice critiquing social policies, as well as promoting more strictly political, and often populist or reformist, views supported by a great many Gulf citizens. As laid out in this chapter, this book demonstrates that the way that Islamist organizations operate in the unique environment of the super-rentiers is distinct. It also presents information about the methodology and sources used, as well as a detailed explanation for the use of country cases chosen. The chapter closes by describing the format of the book.