The Persian Gulf: Geo-Economic, Geostrategic, and Geopolitical Importance
The Persian Gulf has particular geo-economic, geostrategic, and geopolitical important situation. The Gulf region also hosts one of the worldâs most important strategic choke points for global trade, the Straits of Hormuz, through which some 35% of global seaborne oil passes, in addition to natural gas and other trade goods.1 The region forms an essential component of the strategies of superpowers who desire to maintain control of the seas and straits of this important geographical area. Great Britain, for instance, dominated the Arabian Gulf (from 1820 to 1971), using it as a crucial link to its colonies in India.2 For British naval strategy, the harbors of the Gulf have always played a crucial geopolitical role in containing the great Eurasian land power, whether Russia or the USSR, by blocking access to the sea in order to prevent that land power from gaining control of the high seas and thus achieving global hegemony.3 The United States has employed the same strategy since it became the regional security provider in order to prevent the Soviet Union from achieving global hegemony. Economically, almost 65% of the proven oil reserves in the world and 40% of the global natural gas reserves are located in the Persian Gulf region. Nearly 27% of global production of oil are produced daily by the Persian Gulf States.4 Saudi Arabia alone responsible for roughly 15% of the global production of oil,5 21% of the worldâs proven reserves, while Iran and Iraq have 10% each, and the rest of the Gulf countries 6â8%.6 Furthermore, more than half of the oil needs of the Western World and Japan are met by supplies from the Arab Gulf States7 while only around 15% of American oil imports come from the Persian Gulf.8 Moreover, the region produces 14% of the worldâs natural gas.9 Iran has 17% of the worldâs proven gas reserves and nearly 10% of its oil reserves10 while Qatar 14%.11 Qatar and Iran will be the top Middle East gas producers between 2010 and 2040.12 In fact, 61% of the Middle Eastâs gas deposits are situated in a single giant field shared between Qatar and Iran known as the âNorth Fieldâ in Qatar and the âSouth Parsâ in Iran.13 Additionally, in 2013, with an aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.62 trillion, the combined economy of the GCC states was ranked twelfth in the world in terms of size. In terms of foreign trade in 2013, the GCC economy was rated fifth in the world, with US $1.42 trillion worth of trade exchange. At US $921 billion in 2013, the GCC was the worldâs fourth largest exporting nation after China, the United States and Germany.14 However, most of the region exports are oil and natural gas.
Security speaking, the Persian Gulf is a prone-conflict region. The region is one of the âhottest spotsâ on earth because of ethnic, religious, and political differences among the riparian states of the region.15 Throughout history, warfare has been common, and hostilities continue to flare even today. During the last thirty years, three wars have taken place in the region, resulting in regional and global instability: the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War of 1990â1991, and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein regime. Likewise, Iran nuclear missile and nuclear programs marked a potential arms race in the region. Iran revisionist policies can destabilize the regional balance without having the nuclear capabilities and it can destabilize the regional balance even more if it controls nuclear weapons.
Security Definition and Scope Between Minimalists and Maximalists
Gulf security is defined here as focusing on the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), also termed the Gulf States, but also including Yemen (which occupies the southwestern flank of the Arabian Peninsula), as well as Iraq and Iran.16 In fact, there has never been consensus or universal definition of security at any time. There have been differences between those who minimize the concept and the scope of security: traditionalists, minimalists, or adherents of the realist school of thought, and those who maximize such concept and scope: maximalists, or adherents to Copenhagen School of thought, established after the Cold War. For traditionalists, the concept of security has been associated with military and defense security, and international balance of power, especially in terms of military power. According to such school of thought, security is a freedom from any objective military threat to the state survival in an anarchic international system. A leading scholar of such school, Stephen Walt, defines security studies as âthe studies of the threat, use, and control of military force.â17 Based on such conceptualization, security has taken a military conception and its main source as external factor. Therefore, the tools for providing security are investment in the military and strategic sectors.18 However, for Copenhagen School, the concept of security has become much more multifaceted.19 According to Buzan, âSecurity is taken to be about the pursuit of freedom from threat and the ability of states and societies to maintain their independent identity and their functional integrity against forces of change, which they see as hostile. The bottom line of security is survival.â20 According to this conceptualization, Barry Buzan suggested a broader framework of security, instead of that too narrow framework developed by traditionalist, including societal and environmental security and economic security, and the like.21 Currently, the Copenhagen School has now five security sectors: military, political, societal, economic, and environmental. However, it is important to note that â[E]conomic security, environmental security, identity security, social security, and military security are different forms of security, not fundamentally different concepts.â22 Equally important, these five sectors do not operate in isolation from each other, however, but all are woven together in a strong web of linkages.23 Recently, the Copenhagen School non-military issues, including environmental, water, food, energy, economic, transitional terrorism, have taken a prominent position in the security-related discussions and analysis.24
The Persian Gulf Regional Security Complex
Cantori and Spiegel define region as an âarea of the world that contains geographically proximate states forming, in foreign affairs, mutually interrelated unitsâ.25 In this context, âregional security is seen as consisting of diverse but integrated security sectors.â26 According to such conceptualization, the region is divided into four parts: âthe core or centre sector, a peripheral section, and intrusive player(s)â.27 The core or the core center consists of the most powerful state or group of states of ...