Follow us on social

Secretary_pompeo_meets_with_saudi_vice_minister_of_defense_prince_khalid_bin_salman_48871385123

The potential dark side of the militarization of Gulf societies

The coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout calls into question Gulf states’ ability to fund a brewing, costly regional arms race.

Analysis | Middle East

The coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout calls into question Gulf states’ ability to fund a brewing, costly regional arms race. That in turn could not only reshape their geopolitical posture but also efforts to make the military a pillar of a new national identity at a time that they are forced to renegotiate outdated social contracts.

A significant drop in revenues, as a result of the collapse of oil and gas prices and vastly reduced global demand, raises the question whether countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, can maintain huge military expenditures that rank them among the world’s foremost arms buyers.

Saudi and UAE expenditure was driven by a perceived need to counter Iranian advances in the development of ballistic missiles and drones as well as a potential nuclear military capability and Iranian-backed Arab proxies. Qatar joined the race more recently in response to the three-year-old, Saudi-UAE-led economic and diplomatic boycott of the Gulf state.

The expenditure positioned the military as a driver of an identity grounded in nationalism rather than religion or tribal heritage and was intended to help lay the groundwork for eventual, potentially painful, transitions to more diversified and streamlined post-oil economies.

Male conscription introduced in the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait and a Saudi decision to open volunteering for military service to women over the last decade served that purpose as well as government efforts to expand citizen participation in the workforce at the expense of migrant and expatriate labour, including in the armed forces.

The moves constituted a break with a past in which Arab rulers largely distrusted their militaries and employed multiple ways to shield themselves against feared military-backed attempts to remove them from power.

Saudi and Emirati rulers expected that their military intervention in Yemen and the UAE’s involvement in the Libyan war would boost the military’s prestige with quick and decisive victories.

Five years later, the ill-conceived intervention in Yemen has produced at best mixed results. So has the more recent effort to topple the internationally recognized, Islamist Libyan Government of National Accord.

The UAE, dubbed Little Sparta by former US defense secretary Jim Mattis, withdrew partially from Yemen in a bid to cut its losses. UAE forces, moreover, suffered the deaths of tens of Emirati citizens, a high number for a population of only 1.4 million nationals. As a result, the UAE relies increasingly on proxies and mercenaries.

Nonetheless, the UAE may have fared better than the Saudi military whose image, at least internationally, has been severely tarnished.

Recently, the kingdom appears to implicitly acknowledge that it cannot win the Yemen war militarily. Media reports suggested that the Saudi government was cutting back on funding of the internationally recognized, largely Saudi-based Yemeni government headed by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi conduct of the war has involved multiple attacks on civilian targets, devastated the country’s economic and civilian infrastructure and turned it into one of the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophes.

Similarly, UAE-backed Libyan rebels led by self-appointed Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar have suffered a similar fate. Mr. Haftar’s promise more than a year ago to launch a blitz conquest of the Libyan capital Tripoli has not only proven to be an illusion. Turkish-backed government troops have put his rebels on the defensive.

Saudi and UAE rulers are betting that their emphasis on values associated with nationalism and armed forces such as patriotism, sacrifice, discipline, duty and concepts of heroic model citizens will reinforce public appreciation of the military despite its chequered track record. For now, that appears to be a winning bet.

Saudi Arabia has successfully garnered popular support for the armed forces and the Yemen war, despite widespread international criticism, by eulogizing patriotic sacrifices of Saudi military casualties, generously compensating families of permanently disabled or fallen soldiers and creating multiple institutions to ensure veterans’ rights. The UAE has institutionalized the honouring of military martyrs.

Ultimately, however, the Saudi and UAE military’s mixed track record raises questions about the degree to which they can be unqualified standard bearers of new national identities.

It also begs the question whether populations in countries such as Saudi Arabia that were forced to introduce painful social spending cutbacks with no indication that elites are sharing the burden will continue to endorse massive military expenditure at a time of austerity.

If social media are anything to go by, many Saudis praise the government for ensuring the return to the kingdom of Saudi nationals abroad at the beginning of the pandemic, funding their quarantining to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, and subsidizing private sector salaries impacted by a lockdown for up to 60 percent.

A fair number, however, expressed concern that the middle and lower classes would shoulder the brunt of the economic fallout of the pandemic and questioned continued investment in trophies like English soccer club Newcastle United by the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Military expenditure has so far not been called into question.

Potentially complicating issues is the fact that a majority of Emirati and Saudi casualties in Yemen hailed from less privileged emirates in the UAE and provinces in the kingdom, some of which are home to religious minorities with a history of feeling disadvantaged, As a result, it remains to be seen whether military service will ultimately narrow or broaden social gaps.

“Militarization bolsters regime security, thereby serving national security twice over… However, rising nationalist feelings are likely to enhance regional polarization,” warned Gulf scholar Eleonora Ardemagni.

Ms. Ardemagni’s caution focused on the risk of militarization entrenching differences among Gulf states. The question is whether militarization’s so far successful boosting of domestic cohesion could have a flip side that in more dire circumstances polarizes rather than unites.

This article has been republished with permission from The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.


Deputy Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in October (State Department photo)
Analysis | Middle East
Pope Francis
Top image credit: Fabrizio Maffei / Shutterstock.com

Pope Francis was often mocked for railing against current wars

Global Crises

No Pope had ever kissed the feet of leaders, begging them to bring peace to their country. But in April 2019, Pope Francis surprised South Sudan and the entire world when he did just that to President Salva Kiir, Vice President Riek Machar, James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai, and Rebecca Nyandeng De Mabior; a gesture that clearly expressed his belief that the Pontiff of the Catholic Church must be a committed and unwavering peacemaker.

Pope Francis spoke about peace until his very last breath. In his brief message before the Urbi et Orbi blessing on April 20, Easter Sunday, he mentioned peace 10 times, remembering the Holy Land and the gift of all Christians celebrating Easter on the same day, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, the Southern Caucasus, the Balkans, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, and also Myanmar.

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Xi Jinping
Top image credit: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

US-China trade war: Escalate to de-escalate to escalate?

Asia-Pacific

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump is considering a significant reduction of the extraordinarily high tariffs on China that followed a dizzying tit-for-tat spiral between the two countries in early April.

China was the only country to immediately retaliate against Trump’s draconian “liberation day” tariffs, and Trump’s intolerance for that self-assertion led to 145% tariffs on the U.S. side and 125% tariffs on the Chinese side — tantamount to severing economic relations overnight between the world’s two most important economic powers.

keep readingShow less
King Abdullah Jordan
Top photo credit: King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman. (Ahmad A Atwah/Shutterstock)

Was Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood ban a bid to please Israel, Saudi?

Middle East

On Wednesday, the Jordanian government declared that it had banned the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that has long been active in the kingdom.

The announcement followed arrests last week of 16 members of the group for allegedly plotting an attack inside Jordan. The interior minister stated that the group and all its affiliated activities were illegal.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.