From Alliance to Union: Challenges Facing Gulf Cooperation Council States in the Twenty-First Century

ISBN-13: 9781845198039 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 364 str.

Joseph Kechechian

Opis

After the conservative Arab Gulf Monarchies--Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Sa'udi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)--joined forces on 25 May 1981 within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), few fathomed that security requirements on and around the Arabian Peninsula would be so precarious and for so long. Several of the monarchies even hoped that coordination on foreign policy issues over which near unanimity existed could, eventually, lead to a full-fledged union as envisaged in the organization's founding charter. In this new study, Joseph A. Kechichian provides an evaluation of GCC States' military institutions to better evaluate whether a stable alliance is capable of enduring over the next few decades, and how civilian leaders perceive the role and influence of their military officers for the task. The volume concludes with an examination of evolving civil-military relations in the GCC States.