Q: How is it that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries retain good relations with the United States despite regional anti-American sentiment?

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council Defense Ministers at a Defense Ministerial Meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 14, 2014. Hagel spoke about regional threats and challenges including Iran and Syria, and the importance of maintaining close cooperation on these and other issues in the region.

John Duke Anthony: Respectable poll after poll has revealed the extraordinary and overwhelming unpopularity of numerous American foreign policies throughout the Arab world, including the GCC region. (The GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). In the GCC countries, however, neither the nature nor extent of this unpopularity thus far has reached such a magnitude as to be crippling to either side.

A major reason has been the effective accommodation by the member-states’ leaders to the international and global geopolitical realities in play. Compelling the accommodation has been, on one hand, the ongoing joint dependency of the GCC country leaders and the vast numbers of allies and followers they maintain within their extensive and multifaceted support networks. On the other hand, the same dynamic has been in play simultaneously and to a similar degree among their American counterparts. In effect, both sides remain reliant upon the governmental and private sector goodwill of their respective citizenries regarding various strategic, economic, political, commercial, and defense issues. This fundamental and pervasive interdependency dimension of GCC-U.S. relations is what really continues to hold the two together and yet is seldom noted in published reports within the mainstream media.

Three among many interdependency examples – of the GCC countries’ reliance on and benefit from their relations with the United States, and examples simultaneously of America’s reliance on and benefit from its relations with the GCC countries – are:

1. The longstanding and continuing denomination of the GCC countries’ exports not in their own currencies, which would be their right, but the American dollar. This self-determined policy by all six of the GCC countries’ governments is in and of itself an incentive for these governments not to enact, administer, or otherwise engage in actions that could harm the American economy, injure its worldwide financial and banking systems (together with theirs, too), and vitiate the value of their investments in and commercial relations with the United States.

2. The GCC countries’ acknowledgement and admiration of America’s huge lead over all other countries in terms of investment in science, technology, research, and development, accounting for nearly a third of such spending globally.

3. A twofold defense linkage between the GCC countries and the United States.  One linkage is reflected in the GCC countries’ dependence upon the unrivaled superiority of American-manufactured defense structures, systems, technology, and equipment. The other linkage is illustrated by their reliance upon America’s commitment not only to their deterrence against possible threats, attacks, and intimidation by their real and potential adversaries but also to their defense should deterrence fail. Viewed from either end of the GCC-U.S. relationship interdependency, such multifold and multifaceted benefits are mutual.

   In spirit and in letter, many of these and related benefits to the GCC countries are enshrined in the numerous official and de facto bilateral defense cooperation agreements between them and the United States. They are embedded also in:

   1. the massive amounts of GCC country arms purchases from the United States,
   2. America’s and their militaries conducting periodic joint maneuvers,
   3. pan-GCC approval for the prepositioning of American defense supplies, and
   4. American preferential year-round enrollment of senior GCC country military officers in United States armed forces command and staff colleges’ education, training, and leadership development programs.

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony periodically responds to questions posed by friends of the National Council for the Arabia, the Gulf, and the GCC Blog. Find Dr. Anthony’s full biography here and read more from Dr. Anthony here.