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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Dr. John Duke Anthony on “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux”

Posted on April 11, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

On March 11, 2014, Dr. John Duke Anthony spoke to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs on “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux.” A video recording of the program is available below, and a podcast of the program is also available below as well as in iTunes with recordings of other National Council programs: http://bit.ly/itunes-ncusar.

Dr. John Duke Anthony – “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux” podcast (.mp3)

Dr. John Duke Anthony on Al Youm (Al Hurra TV)

Posted on March 27, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

On March 25, 2014, Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President & CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, appeared on Al Youm on Al Hurra TV. The discussion touched on Iran, Syria, and President Obama’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia. [Program in Arabic.]

Post by ‎Al Youm Show برنامج اليوم‎.

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From Arabia to Asia: Does a Policy Shift Make Sense?

Posted on February 18, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

President Obama’s Coming Visit to Saudi Arabia in Perspective

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That the foreign policies of various governments often appear to be contradictory is because they frequently are. Certainly of late, this seems to characterize aspects of the Obama administration’s relations with the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

President Barack Obama walks with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and members of the Saudi Arabian delegation during the King’s visit to the White House on June 29, 2010. Photo: White House.

This ambiguity and the confusion and uncertainty that accompany it are among the things that President Barack Obama will need to dispel and clarify in the course of his upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia. As this essay seeks to demonstrate, what he will have to contend with in terms of background, context, and perspective will not be easy of resolution, amelioration, or even abatement.

Despite the many largely unreported positives there are numerous negatives that need to be addressed lest a situation that is seen by many within this globally vital region as increasingly tendentious and quarrelsome become the more so, for no good reason.

On one hand, Washington has strengthened and extended its overall position and influence in the GCC region. For example, the multi-year, multifaceted U.S.-Saudi Arabia Strategic Dialogue has been elevated for the past three years to a GCC-U.S. Strategic Dialogue, and there have been strategic, reassurance-themed visits to multiple GCC countries by U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.

Additionally, there have been continuing sales to GCC countries of tens of billions of dollars of U.S.-manufactured defense and security structures, systems, technology, and arms. ((“$10.8B U.S. Arms Sale Reassures Gulf Allies at Touchy Time,” United Press International. October 18, 2013. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2013/10/18/108B-US-arms-sale-reassures-gulf-allies-at-touchy-time/UPI-92581382116294/.)) Americans have also signed long-term contracts with these countries for the provision of munitions, maintenance, repairs, spare parts, and equipment sustainability, all of which have translated into the generation and extended life span of millions of American jobs.

Yet, simultaneously, signals from Washington and the mainstream U.S. media indicate that the Obama administration is recalibrating the strategic focus of its international priorities. Great emphasis, for example, is being placed on the Asia-Pacific regions.

Affecting the need to recalibrate are major budget reductions and their impact on strategic concepts, forces, and operational dynamics. At issue and under examination, according to the Secretary of Defense in advance of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) are America’s assumptions, ambitions, and abilities. ((Richard L. Kugler and Linton Wells II, Strategic Shift: Appraising Recent Changes in U.S. Defense Plans and Policies. Washington, D.C: Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2013. p. vii.)) Understandably, the GCC region’s reaction to these trends and indications has been mixed.

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Dr. John Duke Anthony on Iran’s Exclusion from the Syria Peace Conference

Posted on January 24, 2014 by John Duke Anthony

Q: Was the exclusion of Iran from the Syria peace talks taking place in Montreux, Switzerland inevitable? What are some possible implications?

Bashar Ja’afari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations, speaks to the media during the Geneva II Conference on Syria, in Montreux, Switzerland. Photo: UN.

John Duke Anthony: The exclusion of Iran may be the price the conference conveners believe they had to pay to have any talks at all in keeping with the advance hype about there being a January meeting. I believe the rebel groups we want represented would have gone under any circumstances. Certainly the price for their not doing so would have been high, perhaps prohibitively so. The global image of their being irresponsible and refusing to engage in the give and take of discussion, debate, and negotiations may well have proved ruinous. It would have practically guaranteed that the Syrian government’s image would correspondingly improve, as indeed would Iran’s, Russia’s, and everybody else’s. In an echo of Shakespeare’s “Beware the wrath of a rejected suitor” and “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Iran, having been provoked, antagonized, and told to stay home, will be tempted to extract a price for being excluded. By leaving no fingerprints — so as not to add further fuel to American Congressional threats to increase the sanctions against Iran — Tehran could instigate here or there, and possibly here and there, violent attacks or other harm to American and/or other prominent conference attendees’ interests by groups or individuals it controls.