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.

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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