Author Archives: John Duke Anthony

Dr. John Duke Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. On June 21, 2000, H.M. King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him the Medal of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, the nation of Morocco's highest award for excellence. His most recent involvement in America's policies toward the Arab region, the Middle East, and the Islamic world was to serve as a Member of the U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy's 12-person Subcommittee on Sanctions (with special reference to Iran).

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC's inception in 1981. (The GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). His firsthand reports of the summits exceed those of any other scholar.

For the past 50 years, Dr. Anthony has been a consultant and regular lecturer on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf for the Departments of Defense and State. He has served as an Associate Professor, Visiting Professor, and/or Adjunct Professor at the American University in Cairo; Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service; the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; the Universities of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas; the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the U.S. Joint Intelligence College; and the Virginia Military Institute. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dr. Anthony continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor at the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (formerly known as the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management).

Dr. Anthony's best-known works are Arab States of The Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum; The Middle East: Oil, Politics, and Development (editor and co-author); and, together with J. E. Peterson, Historical and Cultural Dictionary of The Sultanate of Oman and The Emirates of Eastern Arabia. He has published more than 200 articles, essays, and monographs on a variety of topics related to the Arab region and specific Arab countries as well as America's interests and involvement in the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world. For sixteen years, Dr. Anthony was the annual author of the essays on "Oman" and "Qatar" for the Encyclopedia Britannica Year in Review.

Dr. Anthony's full biography is available at: https://ncusar.org/board-and-staff/john-duke-anthony

Dr. John Duke Anthony on the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum

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Third Ministerial Meeting of the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum in New York City on September 26, 2013. Photo: U.S. State Department.

Yesterday marked another significant event in the evolution of the U.S. relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. GCC Foreign Ministers, GCC Secretary General Dr. Abdul Latif Bin Rashid Al Zayani, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met in New York for the Third Ministerial Meeting of the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum. The forum was established in March 2012 “to deepen strategic cooperation and coordination of policies to advance shared political, military, security, and economic interests in the Gulf region, foster enhanced stability and security throughout the Middle East, and strengthen the close ties between the GCC and the United States.”

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony, the only American to have been invited to each of the GCC’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception in 1981, remarked that: “This meeting represents another significant step toward placing the relationship between the U.S. and the GCC on a more solid and enduring foundation. The growing U.S. awareness of the GCC is vital. It is hard to imagine an organization, geographically significantly larger than all of Western Europe combined, that has a larger global reach — in terms of its internationally-oriented policies and positions, in terms of its actions and attitudes — regarding its members and billions of other people’s issues, regarding its members and billions of other people’s legitimate needs and concerns, and regarding its members and billions of other people’s legitimate interests and national development processes as well as foreign policy objectives.”

Gulf Cooperation Council

Dr. Anthony added that, “[l]est one regard the GCC as a still evolving and relatively insignificant entity when it comes to major matters of importance and interest to the world, one need only ponder the following. For example, the GCC, in cooperation with the League of Arab States, the United States, and NATO, played a formidable transitional role in the situation in Libya in 2011; the GCC countries were the first to pledge billions in economic stabilization support, humanitarian aid, and developmental assistance to Egypt’s massively impoverished people; the GCC’s central role — personally and especially that of GCC Secretary General Dr. Al Zayani — in brokering the peaceful transition in Yemen’s presidential power in 2011; and the GCC’s extraordinary example of monetary, fiscal, and overall financial and economic stability from 2008 onwards despite the economic upheavals in practically every place else in the world.”

Posted below are links to remarks by Dr. Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, GCC Assistant Secretary General for Negotiations and Strategic Dialogue, made at the National Council’s 21st Annual Policymakers Conference on Arab-U.S. relations on October 26, 2012, along with the full text of a Joint Communique issued following the Third Ministerial Meeting for the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum September 26, 2012 in New York.

Remarks from Dr. Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg at the 21st Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference:

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NCUSAR’s 2012 Annual Review

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In the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ 2012 Annual Review one will find a reporting and chronicling of the Council’s most relevant news and views of the past year; coverage of all of the Council’s numerous educational programs, activities, and events made possible by its generous contributors and supporters; a listing of the Council’s leadership, management, and staff; a listing of the Council’s contributors; and a statement of the Council’s vision and mission.

Download NCUSAR’s 2012 Annual Review
(.pdf – 4.9 MB)

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Dr. John Duke Anthony Serves as Dean’s Visiting Chair at Virginia Military Institute

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During the Fall 2012 semester National Council Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony served as Dean’s Visiting Chair in International Studies and Political Science at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia, where he taught Institute’s first-ever course on “Politics of the Arabian Peninsula.” Dr. Anthony is a 1962 graduate of VMI where he was elected president of his class all four years in addition to serving as president of the Corps of Cadets’ General and Executive Committees during his First Class Year.

Dr. John Duke Anthony at the Middle East Policy Council’s 71st Capitol Hill Conference

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Available below are remarks from Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, at the Middle East Policy Council’s 71st Capitol Hill Conference, January 16, 2013, on “U.S. Grand Strategy in the Middle East: Is there One?” Full video of the event as well as an unedited transcript are available at www.mepc.org.

The US‐GCC Relationship

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In the past half century, no Arab sub-regional inter-state organization has been as successful as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), established in May 1981. Next week, Bahrain will host the 33rd GCC Ministerial and Heads of State Summit in Manama (December 24-25, 2012). In an effort to explore how the GCC and its six member-countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) achieved what they have accomplished, the Arabia, the Gulf, and the GCC Blog presents a 2006 article from Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and the only American to have been invited to each of the GCC’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception, which examines some of the dynamics surrounding the GCC’s formation and strategic position.

 

Click to access 2006.12.15-JDA-US-GCC%20Relations.pdf

 FURTHER READING:

‘HOW’ Questions for the 2012 Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference

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October 25-26, 2012

Before the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations launched its first Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers conference in 1991, we asked numerous American policymakers a single question:

“What bedevils you the most in your tasks to recommend effective policies?”

The answers differed only slightly from one person to the next. A common theme running through all the responses was, and I paraphrase, the following. The “W” questions are ones that policymakers deal with all the time. In and of themselves, they are difficult enough. They include the following:

“What” needs to be done;
“When” does it need to be done;
“Why” does it need to be done;
“Where” will we likely be if we do this or if we do not;
“Who” needs to do what; and, sometimes even,
“Whether” something needs to be done.

But the most difficult questions of all, the ones policymakers inform us they find most vexing, are “How” questions, for these, unlike most of the others, cannot be answered with a yes or no. Rather, the answer to each comes with a cost.

Background, Context, and Perspective

  • Sometimes the cost is political, as when leaders of an administration’s political party or a government’s most important advisers or constituents are certain to put their foot down and say no.
  • Sometimes the cost is financial, as when it is pointed out that there are no funds allocated, authorized, or appropriated for that which is recommended.
  • Sometimes, as for examples in rejecting the requests of senior armed forces officers in the field for the mobilization and deployment of more troops, the cost lies in having to admit that the requisite competent human resources to implement a policy recommendation simply do not exist.
  • Sometimes, as for example in countering Improvise Explosive Devices used against U.S. and Allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the cost is one of technology, equipment, and/or structures or systems that do not exist or, if they do, would have to be transferred from where they are to where they are needed more at what, arguably, would be a prohibitively high cost in terms of time, effort, and money.
  • Sometimes the cost is in credibility, as when an administration or government is on record as being strongly opposed to exactly what someone has just recommended as a solution or a palliative.
  • Sometimes, as for example in the case of Immediate Past President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, a country that had not attacked the United States, the cost is moral in the sense that it clearly violates the Golden Rule of Do not do to others what you would not have others do to you.
  • Sometimes, as for example in the aftermath of one of the recent presidential debates between President Barack Obama and his Challenger, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the cost could be a sharp downturn in the public approval rating of a president, premier, or head of state.
  • Sometimes the cost might be a definite setback to the country’s image and the degree of trust and confidence it seeks to cultivate and maintain among its allies.

A Public Service as Well as Food for Thought

With this as background, context, and perspective, there follows a series of questions relating to contemporary Arab-U.S. relations with which policymakers on one side or another, and sometimes both sides, grapple daily. They are provided in the spirit of a public service not only to the policymakers entrusted to improve Arab-U.S. relations and not make them worse. They are also offered as food for thought for intellectuals, scholars, teachers, students, analysts, investment strategists, and specialists in public policy research institutes in addition to many others eager to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the state of play in Arab-U.S. relations.

John Duke Anthony
Founding President and CEO
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations

 

Eight Categories of “ HOW” Questions

DEFENSE COOPERATION DYNAMICS: Enhancing Regional Security.

ENERGY:Policymaking Dynamics of Sources, Supply, and Security.

POLICYMAKING CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING REIONAL GEOPOLICAL DYNAMICS: Iraq and Syria.

POLICYMAKING CONCERNS RELATED TO REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS: Arab North Africa.

POLICYMAKING CHALLENGES PERTAINING TO REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS:The Palestinian Future.

POLICYMAKING OPPORTUNITIES AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM REGIONAL GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: The Arabian Peninsula (GCC Countries and Yemen).

POLICYMAKING OPPORTUNITIES REGARDING BUSSINESS, FINANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT.

AMERICAN AND ARAB POLICY SUCCESSES AND SHORTCOMINGS REGARDING THE REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS OF IRAN.

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Saudi Arabian-U.S. Relations on the Kingdom’s National Day: A Personal Perspective

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Yesterday marked Saudi Arabia’s National Day. To be sure, much has happened since the last one in 2011. In that light, it may be worth revisiting some of the lesser known — or unknown and/or un-remembered — sinews between the Saudi Arabian and American governments as well as our respective peoples. The following essay by National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony re-emphasizes not only much of what all too many are unaware of and tend to take for granted. It notes that many of those who acknowledge the strategic advantages and economic gains that have long accrued to both peoples would give a lot to exchange places if only they could obtain the same range of rewards. At the end of the essay are links to other essays that Dr. Anthony has written on Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabian-U.S. relationship.

“Saudi Arabian-U.S. Relations on the Kingdom’s National Day:
A Personal Perspective”

by Dr. John Duke Anthony

September 25, 2012

At its core, the relationship is solid. Three of its key components — cooperation in the areas of energy, economic development, and defense — are strong and healthy. In each of these areas, reciprocity of respect for each other’s needs, concerns, and interests remains a hallmark. In each, too, the quest for mutuality of benefit stands out. This is not only normal and natural. It is as it should be. In each, also, the range and diversity of the excess longstanding interdependence between our two countries is the envy of the leaders of practically every other nation in the world.

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War with Iran: Regional Reactions and Requirements

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On June 20, 2008, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony addressed the Middle East Policy Council’s (MEPC) 53rd Capitol Hill Conference on “War with Iran: Regional Reactions and Requirements.”

Following, courtesy of MEPC, is an unofficial transcription and revised version of Dr. Anthony’s presentation together with additional commentary and responses to questions asked during the discussion that followed, edited for written publication.

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