Security in the Gulf: Historical Legacies and Future Prospects

Security in the Gulf: Historical Legacies and Future Prospects
Author: Matteo Legrenzi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317986377

This book examines Gulf Security in a holistic way seeing past the narrow military aspect and also trying to debunk the conventional narratives propagated by regional and external actors. In particular, the emphasis is be on the historical legacy of Gulf security and the fundamental domestic and international vulnerabilities of the various states in the region. This approach proves important in light of the recent efforts by Gulf states to recast their position in the international arena trying to peddle an image of self-assertiveness and autonomy in the security sphere. These new diplomatic stances do not seem to be borne out by their current security policies that are marked by apparent continuity with past practices. In particular, the new Gulf-Asia nexus and the claims by Gulf monarchies that regional confidence building measures are appearing on the horizon are placed under critical scrutiny. This is done by a sobering examination of the balance of threat in the region, the historical amity/enmity patterns and the evolving American stance. A shorter, modified version of this book was previously published as a special issue of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

Security in the Gulf: Historical Legacies and Future Prospects

Security in the Gulf: Historical Legacies and Future Prospects
Author: Matteo Legrenzi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317986369

This book examines Gulf Security in a holistic way seeing past the narrow military aspect and also trying to debunk the conventional narratives propagated by regional and external actors. In particular, the emphasis is be on the historical legacy of Gulf security and the fundamental domestic and international vulnerabilities of the various states in the region. This approach proves important in light of the recent efforts by Gulf states to recast their position in the international arena trying to peddle an image of self-assertiveness and autonomy in the security sphere. These new diplomatic stances do not seem to be borne out by their current security policies that are marked by apparent continuity with past practices. In particular, the new Gulf-Asia nexus and the claims by Gulf monarchies that regional confidence building measures are appearing on the horizon are placed under critical scrutiny. This is done by a sobering examination of the balance of threat in the region, the historical amity/enmity patterns and the evolving American stance. A shorter, modified version of this book was previously published as a special issue of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

The Changing Security Dynamics of the Persian Gulf

The Changing Security Dynamics of the Persian Gulf
Author: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190911379

The contradictory trends of the 'post-Arab Spring' landscape form both the backdrop to, and the focus of, this volume on the changing security dynamics of the Persian Gulf, defined as the six GCC states plus Iraq and Iran. The political and economic upheaval triggered by the uprisings of 2011, and the rapid emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 2014, have underscored the vulnerability of regional states to an intersection of domestic pressures and external shocks. The initial phase of the uprisings has given way to a series of messy and uncertain transitions that have left societies deeply fractured and ignited violence both within and across states. The bulk of the protests, with the notable exception of Bahrain, occurred outside the Gulf region, but Persian Gulf states were at the forefront of the political, economic, and security response across the Middle East. This volume provides a timely and comparative study of how security in the Persian Gulf has evolved and adapted to the growing uncertainty of the post-2011 regional landscape.

The Gulf monarchies after the Arab Spring

The Gulf monarchies after the Arab Spring
Author: Cinzia Bianco
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2024-01-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526170833

The post-Arab Spring collapse of decades-old regimes inaugurated a decade of re-shaping for the geopolitical order in the Middle East and North Africa region. A multipolar disorder ensued, solidified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Amid general bewilderment, the small monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spent the decade between 2011 and 2022 trying to re-shape regional equilibria as protagonists. This book applies an original theoretical framework to unpack the threat perceptions and strategic calculus driving the behaviour of these new impactful regional players. Six chapters look at the six GCC monarchies individually. The author challenges commonly held narratives and goes beyond attention-grabbing headlines and thus provides reading keys to the past, present and future of policy-making in the Gulf monarchies, middle powers destined to play an oversized role in the new multipolar world.

International Relations of the Middle East

International Relations of the Middle East
Author: Louise L'Estrange Fawcett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2016
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0198708742

Now in its fourth edition, International Relations of the Middle East provides a thematic overview of the subject, combining a history of the region with analysis of key themes, actors, and conflicts, as well as topical material and perspectives.

International Relations of the Middle East

International Relations of the Middle East
Author: Louise Fawcett
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2013-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 019960827X

Leading scholars of Middle East politics and international relations present comprehensive coverage of the international politics of the Middle East, a region at the forefront of international attention.

Divided Gulf

Divided Gulf
Author: Andreas Krieg
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811363145

This book discusses the various critical dimensions of the Qatar Crisis as a development that has fundamentally reshaped the nature of regional integration for the near future. It represents the first academic attempt to challenge the commonly propagated binary view of this conflict. Further, the book explains the Gulf Crisis in the context of the transformation of the Gulf in the early 21st century, with new alliances and balances of power emerging. At the heart of the book lies the question of how the changing global and regional order facilitated or even fuelled the 2017 Crisis, which it argues was only the most recent climax in an ongoing crisis in the Gulf, on that had been simmering since 2011 and is rooted in historical feuds that date back to the 1800s. While contextualizing the crisis historically, the book also seeks to look beyond historical events to identify underlying patterns of identity security in connection with state and nation building in the Gulf.

Armies of Arabia

Armies of Arabia
Author: Zoltan Barany
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-09-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190866225

Armies of Arabia is the first comprehensive analysis of the Gulf monarchies' armed forces, including their political, social, and economic characteristics, foreign relations, and battleground performance. The Arabian Peninsula is among the most strategically and economically important areas in the world, but its militaries remain terra incognita. In Armies of Arabia - the first book to comprehensively analyze the Gulf monarchies' armed forces - Zoltan Barany explains their notorious ineffectiveness with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Drawing on over 150 interviews and meticulous multidisciplinary research, Barany paints a fascinating portrait of Arabia's armies from Ibn Saud's Ikhwan to the present. He explores the methods ruling families employ to ensure their armies' loyalty, examines the backgrounds and career trajectories of soldiers and officers, and explains the monarchies' reliance on mercenaries and the enduring importance of tribal networks. Even though no other world region spends more on security, Arabia's armies remain ineffective because of an absence of meritocracy, the domination of personal connections over institutional norms, insipid leadership, a casual work ethic, and training that lacks intensity, frequency, and up-to-date scenarios. Massive weapons acquisitions are primarily pay-offs to the US for protecting them and have resulted in bloated and inappropriate arsenals and large-scale corruption. Barany explains why the Gulf Cooperation Council has been a squandered opportunity and examines the kingdoms' military relationships with the Arab world and beyond. The performance of the Saudi-led coalition's disastrous war in Yemen starkly illustrates the Gulf armies' humiliating combat record. The book concludes with thoughts on waste (of human potential, resources, institutions) as a dominant theme of Gulf military affairs, considers likely changes in response to long-term weakening demand for oil, and suggests ways in which the armies' effectiveness could be raised. Chock-full of insights and stories from the field and written with a general audience in mind, Armies of Arabia will be essential reading for anyone interested in military affairs and Middle Eastern politics, society, and international relations.

Shifting Geo-Economic Power of the Gulf

Shifting Geo-Economic Power of the Gulf
Author: Bessma Momani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317055411

Bringing together for the first time distinguished Gulf experts to analyse the renewed geo-economic prominence of the Gulf states, this volume investigates some of the 'new power brokers' in the world economy: the oil-exporting states of the Gulf. The Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) members: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, collectively have the largest proven oil reserves in the world and are among the world's largest oil-exporting states. Gulf Arab states are actively pursuing a variety of foreign investment strategies. Some of these investments are being managed by sovereign wealth funds, government investment corporations, and government-controlled companies. This renewed geo-economic status has received a lot of media attention but there has been a dearth of academic study on what this shift in global economic power means for the international economic system. This volume aims to fill this gap with a rigorous scholarly analysis based on primary sources and raw economic data. It brings together the expertise of academics who have devoted their career to careful study of the region and of renowned scholars of international political economy.

The Role, Position and Agency of Cusp States in International Relations

The Role, Position and Agency of Cusp States in International Relations
Author: Marc Herzog
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2014-06-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317666542

This work seeks to develop a new concept with which to analyse the actions and activities of states that tend to be relatively ignored by the discipline of International Relations (IR). As a discipline, IR has a tendency to lean towards the analytically safe. Given the current and recent dynamism of the international system that is both surprising and undesirable. Arranged around the concept of the idea of the Cusp State (and cuspness more generally), the book consists of empirical analysis of eight different countries Brazil, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, Turkey and Ukraine, defined as ‘states that lie uneasily on the political and/or normative edge of what is widely believed to be an established region’. By focusing on the importance of comparing groups of states, like states with high degrees of ‘cuspness’, this book argues that it is possible to categorise the world in a fresher and more original way, and one which covers more of the globe than either a systemic or regionalist approach would do. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Geopolitics, International Security and Regionalism.