Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, And The Uae

Challenges Of Security

Anthony H Cordesman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780813332390
• eBook ISBN: 9780429981777
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique du Moyen-Orient

This volume examines the changing economic and internal security challenges faced by the Gulf countries and the problems they face with Iran, Iraq, and other Gulf states. The special military and security needs of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are analyzed here in detail, as are their growing demographic problems and export plans.

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The Southern Gulf States

This volume of the CSIS Dynamic Net Assessment of the Middle East provides detailed studies of four Southern Gulf countries: Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. The choice of these countries, however, is a matter of publishing convenience, and not an indication of the fact that the smaller Gulf countries can be treated as if they had common interests or are similar in character.

It may be tempting for many in the West to divide the Gulf into three parts: Iran, Iraq, and the Southern Gulf, and then describe the Southern Gulf in terms of strategic short hand—using the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a synonym for all the Southern Gulf states. Any net assessment of the Gulf, however, must focus on the fact that the differences between the Southern Gulf states are as important as the similarities.

Table One shows how great the differences are between the Southern Gulf states in terms of size, population, wealth, and military forces. These differences are only part of the story. Each Southern Gulf state has different strategic interests, politics, economics, demographics, ethnic structures, religious practices, internal security situations, and military capabilities.

While the six Southern Gulf states are loosely allied within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), each Southern Gulf state is dependent on the strength of its own individual military capabilities and the power projection capabilities of the US and other Western states. The GCC is not NATO. Its efforts at unity are more rhetoric than reality, and this is particularly true of its military efforts. The Southern Gulf has made only limited progress towards developing effective collective economic and security arrangements, and the Southern Gulf states are deeply divided over how best to strengthen the role of the GCC in creating integrated military forces, defense plans, and procurement efforts.

Problems in Economics, Demographics, and Social Development

The Southern Gulf states are all oil and gas exporters, but they are scarcely an economic bloc. Table Two shows that they differ radically in oil and gas resources—the main measure of economic power in the Gulf. While there is no question that the Gulf states have a common Arab identity, their economic identity is tied largely to trade with developed oil importing states outside the Arab world. All of the Southern Gulf states get well over 85% of their imports from outside the Arab world, and over 90% of their imports from outside the Gulf. Well over 80% of all Gulf foreign investment is in the Western developed world, and there is little chance that this will change significantly in the foreseeable future.

TABLE ONE The Size, Economy, and Military Capabilities of the Gulf States in 1996

Source: Estimated by Anthony H. Cordesman using CIA and World Bank data.

TABLE TWO Gulf and World Gas Reserves and Production

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from estimates in IEA, Middle East Oil and Gas, Paris, OED/IEA, 1995, Annex 2 and DOE/EIA, International Energy Outlook 1995, Washington, DOE/EIA, June 1995, pp. 26–30. Reserve data for Bahrain and Oman estimated by author based on country data.

At the same time, each Southern Gulf state must find its own path to increasing the legitimacy of its regime, and to providing for its social and economic development. The Gulf states have already undergone several decades of massive social change, converting from small coastal city states and / or largely tribal societies to heavily urbanized states that are dependent on oil wealth for many of the benefits provided by the economies of developed nations. In most cases, this process has weakened or broken up traditional ties or relationships between groups and individuals. It has often created a serious gap in wealth between ruler and ruled—although Western educated elites and technocrats have usually benefited in the process. In several cases, social and economic change have also exacerbated ethnic and religious tensions.

Each Southern Gulf state faces serious internal challenges. Table Three shows that each state remains dependent on oil and gas revenues. The native population of each Gulf state has more than doubled since the early 1970s, and this has had a major impact on Gulf economies, and Chart One shows that export income has remained or declined since the mid-1980s, when oil wealth had already dropped sharply below its peak.

Oil wealth can decline quickly in relative terms. Table Four and Chart Two show that oil wealth is only about one-third to one-half of the per capita level the Southern Gulf states reached when peak oil prices peaked in the 1970s. Most estimates indicate that the Southern Gulf states will only experience a slow growth in real export revenue during the coming decade. Given the fact that most Southern Gulf states have a current net population increase in excess of three percent, this means that oil wealth per capita may well drop by another 30% to 50% by the year 2010.

Cuts in oil wealth are already creating major problems for each Gulf state in terms of budget deficits and are making their efforts to fund both “guns” and “butter” increasingly difficult. Many states have had to cut back on the subsidies and welfare payments that underpin their internal unity and make up the informal “social contract” they developed in the 1970s and 1980s. Many states have been forced to cut educational benefits, social services, as well as subsidies.

In spite of some recent reductions in population growth rates, Chart Three and Table Five show that the Gulf will suffer a population explosion during 1995–2030, and one that will lead to growth that states like Iran, Iraq, Oman, and Saudi Arabia will have great difficulty in dealing with. Furthermore, Chart Four shows that the Southern Gulf countries have exceptionally young populations—roughly 40% of the native population is under 15 years of age. They also have massive disguised unemployment. At least two, and sometimes four, native males are unemployed in each government job for every male that is needed to perform a real job. In most cases, there is also growing direct unemployment of native males.

TABLE THREE Economic Dependence of Middle Eastern States on Oil Production

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from World Bank, Claiming the Future, Washington, World Bank, 1995, p. 17.

CHART ONE Real Export Income of the Gulf States ($93 Millions).

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from ACDA, World Military □ Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1993–1994, Table II.

This combination of economic and demographic forces will have a growing impact. Well over 20% of the Gulf’s young population will reach an age where it would normally leave its extended family during the next six years. Yet, no Gulf state has any prospect of creating more than a third of the real jobs required to employ its youth and correcting the level of disguised unemployment that already exists. Every Gulf state will be confronted with new challenges in trying to find careers and jobs for its youth, and there is little chance that most states can give their youth the same level of personal wealth or rapid promotion as their parents or provide all their job seekers with m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Southern Gulf States
• 2 Bahrain
• 3 Oman
• 4 Qatar
• 5 The United Arab Emirates
• Sources and Methods
• Notes
• About the Book and Author