The Return of Strong GCC-U.S. Strategic Relations

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Imad Harb

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry poses for a photo with GCC and Regional Partners meeting participants in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in September 2014. Photo: U.S. Department of State.

Numerous recent developments point to a positive and fundamental shift in GCC-U.S. relations. From the U.S. heavy re-engagement in Middle Eastern issues, to the success of the fourth ministerial GCC-U.S. Strategic Dialogue Forum in New York last September, to fighting ISIS, to continuing consultations about Syria, Iraq, Iran and others, it appears that the strategic partnership is being re-established on a different basis than before. This is despite the perpetuation of various disagreements and misunderstandings. Such renewal is bound to have an important impact on the future of bilateral U.S.-GCC relations and many other related issues, especially their joint and respective efforts to effect positive change in the region.

New Dynamics of the GCC-U.S. Relationship

The current state of affairs between the United States and the GCC countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – is a far cry from public comments by Arabian Gulf officials a few months ago. These intimated what some considered irreparable damage to established strategic relations. GCC governments showed grave concern about America’s intention to re-balance to the Asia-Pacific theatre, its attempts to re-habilitate Iran and bring it in from the cold, its abandonment of Iraq to violent extremism and the Islamic Republic, and arguably, its vacillation regarding Syria and its grinding civil war. ((See Abdullah Al Shayji, “The GCC-U.S. Relationship: A GCC Perspective,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XXI, No. 3 (Fall 2014).)) From its part, the United States showed signs of fatigue from its long and costly commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan and produced debatable decisions relating to one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.

From whence did these turns in trends and indications emanate? For one, they can be traced to developments since the June collapse of the Iraqi army in its fight against the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which gave a much-needed jolt to what many critics allege was the lethargic American foreign policy in the Levant. For another, they are rooted in the potential and actual massacres of minority civilians in northern Iraq, mass executions of Iraqi soldiers, and credible threats of overpowering Kurdish defenses. Combined, these developments pushed the Obama administration to re-calibrate its response by sending military advisors to Iraq and initiating aerial bombardment of ISIS positions. ((Chelsea Carter, Mohammed Tawfeeq, and Barbara Starr, “Officials: U.S. airstrikes pound ISIS militants firing at Iraq’s Yazidis,” CNN, August 10, 2014, at http://cnn.it/1AfzFOI))

In reality, America’s change of policy was the start of a “re-balancing of the ‘re-balance’” back to the Middle East, while, fortuitously, the GCC and other countries saw it as the right decision at the right time for the world’s leading superpower.

But, given Washington’s many trepidations about being once again enmeshed in trouble in the Middle East, the American about-face could not be sustained without the effectiveness of willing and capable regional allies. In reality, America’s change of policy was the start of a “re-balancing of the ‘re-balance’” back to the Middle East, ((See Imad Harb, “America’s Full-Fledged Return to the Middle East,” Quest for Middle East Analysis, September 11, 2014, at http://bit.ly/harb-return-middle-east)) while, fortuitously, the GCC and other countries saw it as the right decision at the right time for the world’s leading superpower.

The United States has obviously re-engaged in the Middle East for the long-term. Equally clear, the GCC states have committed to a broader and more assertive role in the region. As geo-political and geo-strategic realities and conditions develop over the next weeks and months, it will likely become increasingly evident that a strengthened U.S.-GCC relationship is the only practical and prudent alternative for the United States, the GCC countries, and the world at large to help attain and maintain a semblance of sustained stability in the Middle East. An important and thus far little discussed component among these developments in U.S. as well as GCC policy and behavior is a renewal and reformulation of an alignment with Egypt that was shaken over the last few years. A successful realignment of the ties between Washington and Cairo, coupled with strategic linkages between Egypt and key GCC member-countries, will doubtlessly do much to cement the overall GCC-U.S. relationship.

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Gulf Cooperation Council: Role in Regional Dynamics – 2014 Arab-US Policymakers Conference

Posted on November 10, 2014 by NCUSAR

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ 23rd Annual Arab U.S.-Policymakers Conference included a session on “The Gulf Cooperation Council: Role in Regional Dynamics” that featured Dr. John Duke Anthony, H.E. Dr. Abdullah I. El-Kuwaiz, Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, Ambassador (Ret.) Stephen A. Seche, Dr. Abdullah AlShayji, and Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla.

An audio and video recording of the session as well as a link to the transcript are available below. Videos of the entire 2014 conference are available on YouTube and podcasts of the conference are available through iTunes and FeedBurner.

Transcript

Audio only:

Fourth GCC-U.S. Strategic Cooperation Forum Ministerial Meeting

Posted on September 25, 2014 by NCUSAR

Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, the Secretary General of the GCC, and the U.S. Secretary of State met today in New York for the fourth ministerial meeting of the GCC-U.S. Strategic Cooperation Forum (SCF). Since its establishment in March 2012, this Forum has served to enhance strategic cooperation and coordination of policies which advance shared political, military, security and economic objectives in the Gulf region. On the basis of today’s important discussions, the GCC and the United States reached consensus on additional concrete steps to combat Da’ish (ISIL), discussed the region’s central challenges, and considered ideas to bolster regional stability and security while further deepening political, security, economic and cultural cooperation.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Gulf Cooperation Council Foreign Ministers in New York City on September 25, 2014. Photo: U.S. Department of State.

Read the complete Joint Communique from the 4th U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum

Dr. John Duke Anthony on the Impact of American Energy Production on Relations with the Gulf

Posted on June 4, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

Q: How might the U.S.-GCC relationship change, if at all, with the United States easing its reliance on Middle Eastern oil in tandem with increases in America’s domestic energy supplies?

Energy consumption in the U.S., China, and India, 1990-2040. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook 2013.

Energy consumption in U.S., China, and India, 1990-2040. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook 2013.

John Duke Anthony: Despite the hyperbolic American rhetoric about decreasing reliance upon Middle Eastern energy sources, there appears to be no major credible United States effort underway to lessen in any significant way the privileged benefits that Americans, more than any of their counterparts among other industrialized economies, continue to derive from the relationship between the United States and GCC countries – despite the economies of the latter being heavily based on oil production and exports.

For these and a host of related reasons, not the least among them being that other countries would willingly and rapidly seek to trade places with the United States were Washington to grow tired of America’s special relationships with the GCC countries and provide them an opportunity to do so, the United States simply cannot afford to lessen its multifaceted strategic relationship agreements with this region’s six member-states.

In the coming decades, while the United States may be less dependent upon the GCC countries’ hydrocarbon fuels in terms of American needs, the same cannot be said for America’s allies and much of the rest of the world. Indeed, America’s lessened energy dependence upon the GCC and other energy-exporting regions is likely to have very little if any significant impact on the continuing needs for hydrocarbon fuels of the 27 European Union countries and those of India, China, and other South Asian and East Asian countries.

In these regions, their respective prospects for economic growth are practically guaranteed to remain dependent upon GCC and other foreign energy resources. Moreover, it is likely that the world’s dependence upon the GCC countries will increase if only because the GCC as a region has the planet’s single largest portion, one-third, of the world’s total proven supply of this resource. And it will likely increase for yet another reason: for the last 41 years and counting, the GCC countries have delivered every single barrel of oil promised. In addition, because internationally exported and traded oil is fungible, as are many other strategic commodities, America’s decreased dependence on the GCC countries for the energy needs of the United States will have no discernible impact on the rest of the world’s overall needs in terms of the levels of these countries’ energy production and exports. Nor, much more importantly, will anything the United States does or does not do with regard to oil and gas fracking likely have an effect one way or another on price. The later dynamic, more than any other variable, will arguably continue to affect the health and valuation not only of America’s stock markets and security exchanges but those of other countries as well.

For these reasons and the numerous strategic advantages and associated material gains the United States in effect has no choice but to maintain as robust and effective an engagement with the GCC countries as possible. A major factor in this regard is the long lead times that would be required for one or the other parties to switch to a different strategic partner.

The ability to procure the necessary economic, political, financial, marketing, logistical, operational, and maintenance arrangements presents yet another set of challenges. For example, negotiating such arrangements to the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned in any attempt to switch effectively from one Great Power deterrence cum defense commitment to another would entail a lengthy and costly process with ultimately uncertain consequences. This factor alone makes it difficult to foresee the GCC countries’ leaders being able to obtain an alternate international protector in the short run. Certainly it would be difficult to obtain a protector as vital as the region’s present one is to their respective domestic stability, security, and potential to attract and sustain continuous flows of direct foreign investment, important as such investments are to these countries’ prospects for prosperity.

What one also needs to recognize is the formidable power of the vested interests that exist at both ends of the GCC-U.S. relationship spectrum. These are determined not only to maintain the status quo. Each party to a current vested interest understandably intends to strengthen and expand the relationship if only to further their respective objectives regardless of what Washington officialdom does or does not do to recalibrate various dimensions of the relationship.

Only partially illustrative of the reality and prevalence of these factors is the human resources dimension of the situation. For example, tens of thousands of Americans live and work in the region. Of additional significant importance is that Americans have entered into more joint commercial ventures with GCC country companies than the citizens of any other non-GCC country. Finally, the level of American investment in these countries’ economies is second to none.

Also indicative is the growing nexus of GCC-U.S. financial arrangements and undertakings between and among American and GCC investors and bankers. These are deemed by both sides as essential to the prospects for sustained economic growth regionally as well as globally.

Beyond these factors is, on one hand, the profusion of GCC students – more than 85,000 from Saudi Arabia alone enrolled in American universities. On the other hand are the implications of the establishment of entire four-year campuses in various GCC countries of high-profile American universities. The intricacies and dynamics of these little reported on realities practically ensure an ongoing continuously robust and expanding GCC-U.S. relationship.

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.

Dr. John Duke Anthony on U.S.-GCC Cooperation

Posted on June 2, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

Q: What aspects of U.S.-GCC cooperation are looked upon favorably by citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (the GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates)?

President George W. Bush and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah meeting at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, April 25, 2005.

John Duke Anthony: GCC citizens, almost without exception, are aware of and deeply grateful for the effective United States external defense umbrella over the GCC’s member-countries. The 1979 Access to Facilities Agreement between the United States and Oman, the four separate Defense Cooperation Agreements (DCAs) between the United States and Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and the much older and more multifaceted defense undertakings and understandings between the United States and Saudi Arabia have arguably proven effective.

Rather than accept such a statement at face value, one would be right to ask, “By what standard?” If asked, an accurate response would be “if measured against the fact that there has not been an attack on any of the GCC countries since the agreements, understandings, and undertakings were entered into following the restoration to Kuwait of its national sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity upon the reversal of Iraq’s aggression in February 1991.”

In concept and enactment, the DCAs were not entirely original. They built upon earlier British protected-state treaties dating from the first half of the 19th century that lasted until their abrogation in 1971. Viewed together – tellingly, despite the absence of such arrangements in the period spanning two decades from December 1, 1971 to Iraq’s August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which was the one exception – the two successive international arrangements have succeeded in deterring adversaries while simultaneously strengthening and expanding the defense capacities of the GCC countries against external intimidation and attack.

In addition, the older and lower profile educational, commercial, and other private sector dimensions of the GCC countries-U.S. relationship are not only intact. In spite of general impressions implying the opposite, they are at their most robust level ever. Youth and adults alike, and especially the hundreds of thousands of GCC country graduates from American colleges and universities, remain partial to U.S. science and technology, and eager to be ongoing beneficiaries of the fruits of North American education, research, and development.

Examples include the continued provision of advanced medicines, the administration of quality health care systems and facilities, the transfer of state-of-the-art technology in the realms of information and telecommunications structures, systems, and equipment, and the utilization of American-manufactured aircraft and automobiles as well as trade in a broad range of goods and services.

Also, many GCC citizens believe the American education system, together with its related training and human resources development components and programs, are likely destined to retain their preeminent status for some time yet to come. This is in spite of the American reaction to the trauma of September 11, 2001, of course, which dealt a severe but not fatal blow to this key component of the relationship. That the worst did not occur is thanks largely to the 2005 meeting between Saudi Arabia’s then-Crown Prince Abdallah and then-U.S. President Bush in Crawford, Texas, which led to the easing of U.S. visa issuance process for students from GCC countries seeking admission to American institutions of higher education.

Dr. John Duke Anthony on U.S.-GCC Relations & Anti-American Sentiment

Posted on May 29, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

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:

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.
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.
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.

The Gulf Cooperation Council: Deepening Rifts and Emerging Challenges

Posted on May 22, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

On May 22, 2014, the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress conducted a hearing. The hearing was the Congress’ first-ever on The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The title of the hearing was “The Gulf Cooperation Council: Deepening Rifts and Emerging Challenges.” The hearing examined the implications for key U.S. foreign policy objectives and developments in America’s strategic relations with the GCC countries.

The GCC is a six-nation alliance comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Among the issues the Subcommittee discussed were various frictions among the GCC countries that have surfaced in recent months, the policy differences between some of the members and the United States with regard to Egypt, Iran, and Syria, and the potential, once Americans reach a greater degree of self-sufficiency regarding their energy requirements, for a waning of U.S. interest and involvement in the GCC region.

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony, who also serves as Secretary of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee, submitted the statement below for consideration by the Subcommittee. Dr. Anthony is 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.

Statement from Dr. John Duke Anthony to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Representatives, United States Congress

May 22, 2014

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Madame Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit a written statement for the record. I commend you, Ranking Member Deutch, and your fellow Subcommittee Members for your and their interest in what is arguably one of the least understood and most misunderstood sub-regional organizations on the planet – the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

I am pleased to be asked to identify GCC-related opportunities that are largely overlooked by the rest of the world and especially by many in the United States. Among these opportunities are ones that will continue to have an extraordinary impact on U.S. national security, economic, and geopolitical interests and the interests of America’s allies worldwide.

The Gulf Cooperation Council.

Such an opportunity is the little known but growing and increasingly formalized American relationship with the six GCC member-countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Let me be forthright and state at the outset. This opportunity has come about as a result of the multifaceted range of the cooperation between these countries and the United States since the GCC’s establishment in1981. Much the same can be said about a similar range of benefits that have accrued to the GCC countries during this period from the multifaceted range of their cooperation with the United States.

The context for my statement about the U.S.-GCC relationship is my privilege of having been the only American invited to attend every one of the GCC’s annual Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the organization’s formation 33 years ago this month. In addition, since 1986 until the present, I have had the personal privilege of accompanying, at their request, more than 200 Members of Congress, their chiefs of staff, defense and foreign affairs advisers, and legislative and communications directors on fact-finding missions to the Arab world, with a particular emphasis on the six GCC countries.

Hardly Marginal

The GCC member states are hardly marginal to the overall strength, health, and material wellbeing of a large swath of humanity. For example, the GCC member-states represent one third of the world’s proven hydrocarbon fuels, one fifth of the world’s natural gas, and an increasing percentage of the world’s petrochemicals. Their proven oil reserves alone are more than 15 times the proven reserves of the United States.

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Dynamics of U.S.-GCC Defense Cooperation

Posted on February 19, 2014 by NCUSAR

February 13, 2014 briefing in Washington, DC on “Dynamics of U.S.-GCC Defense Cooperation.”

On February 13, 2014, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee hosted a briefing on “Dynamics of U.S.-GCC Defense Cooperation” featuring Ambassador (Ret.) James Smith, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2009-2013) and Senior Counselor, The Cohen Group; Professor David Des Roches, Senior Military Fellow, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University and Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies to Syria; and Professor Paul Sullivan, Professor of Economics, National Defense University and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University. Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President & CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, served as moderator.

A podcast of the program is available through the link below as well as in iTunes with recordings of other National Council programs: http://bit.ly/itunes-ncusar.

“Dynamics of U.S.-GCC Defense Cooperation” podcast (.mp3)

KSA2 Report on Program