Plenary session 2

They examine policy across a broad agenda of social, economic and political topics. The GCC is a testament to the principle – and acknowledgement of the reality – that few of the region’s problems are amenable to resolution through individual, disaggregated action. Its creation and sustenance are marked accomplishments for a region in which formal multilateralism is decidedly the exception rather than the rule; a complicated history, in which the strategic preoccupations and alignments of its constituent states have altered over time and have often been at some variance, has strewn many obstacles in the path leading towards collective endeavour.

However, not all of these problems have disappeared even among GCC members. Their traces can be found in dissonances within the otherwise polite and amiable grouping not simply over aspects of internal affairs, but more particularly about the conduct and the ordering of relations with external powers – both near and remote – which pose threats or offer protection. Indeed, to many outside observers, it is striking that the magnified dangers to security that have emerged in the region in the last few years, sometimes spectacularly so, have not noticeably produced tighter links or more expansive action in the fields of security and defence policy – either within the GCC or between the GCC and other multilateral security organisations.

The new dangers and dilemmas are plain enough. The American-led invasion of Iraq has, at best, proved a mixed blessing. That the threat posed by the militaristic and temperamentally expansionist regime of Saddam Hussein has now finally been crushed is welcomed by all, but many question – and are intimidated by – the price of this audacious act. For Saudi Arabia in the northern Gulf, the prospect of an Iraq politically dominated by and projecting Shi’ite power has aroused fear of sedition. In the lower Gulf, Qatar, the UAE and to some extent Oman have watched with anxiety as Iraq, which had been a strategic counterweight (albeit an unsavoury one) to an increasingly assertive and nuclearising Iran, has been gravely weakened and become an incubator of terrorists who may in due course cast their eyes on those Gulf states that are deemed by some ‘apostate’ and have come into ever closer association with the United States. Indeed, it is to America, rather than to each other, that the GCC members have turned for shelter and protection as their predicaments have deepened over the years.

With the exception of Saudi Arabia, all have concluded defence agreements with the United States. These have littered the Gulf with American air and naval facilities, bases and depots for pre-positioned supplies of materiel. Arms have been purchased and forces trained. This process has done much to create a patchwork of strong bilateral alliances – both Kuwait and Bahrain have been accorded the status of ‘US Major Non-NATO Ally’ – but little to encourage consideration among GCC members of the possible advantages of common doctrine, defence procurement, interoperability, burden-sharing, joint planning and command-and-control mechanisms. At times the impression given has been one of what might be called ‘competitive bilateralism’. All of this has been a source of some irritation to Saudi Arabia in particular, which has disapproved of what it sees as the tendency of individual GCC members to preference and privilege relations with outside powers over those with each other. Yet this tendency may, in part at least, owe something to the desirability perceived among the smaller GCC states of balancing against the largest by means of cultivating powerful external sponsors and allies.

It was against the backdrop of these complex issues that the IISS dedicated the second plenary of the Summit to the subject ‘Perspectives on GCC International Security Relationships’. The panel for this session was constructed with the objective of providing a view from within the region, but also from other regions of the world – Europe and Asia – that have grappled with similar dilemmas in their own experiences, which have lessons to share about the elaboration of collective security institutions, and which, in their own ways, are eager to make a contribution to the security of the Gulf.

At the outset of his remarks, and perhaps with the above-mentioned issues in mind, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, noted that it was ‘not an easy matter’ to pronounce on this subject. It would be necessary to extract from all of its attendant complexities basic concepts of security and develop organising principles through which it might most efficiently be pursued. He proceeded from two initial observations: firstly, that the strategic significance of the Gulf region was, by virtue of its geographic location and its resource endowments, self-evident; and, secondly, that the foundation of the GCC had been about the creation of mechanisms in whose absence the will for cooperation and integration – such as it was, and where it was to be found – would be hard to translate into action. Security had to be conceived of in its internal and external as well as its economic and political dimensions – all of which irresistibly and ineluctably affected and conditioned each other.

At home, and within the confines of the GCC, political security would be achieved through democratic reforms and constitutional guarantees to underpin the rule of law. Civic responsibility, a regard for human rights and sense that people held stakes in the political and social systems would thus be encouraged. None of this would easily result, however, unless proper regard were also given to ‘economic security’; the room for extremism, terrorism and transborder crimes would be enlarged if economic development were to stall. Regionally, conflicts and tensions placed a premium on developing better security and defence capacities, even while these would all divert resources and attention from the objective – and the political necessity – of economic development. A balance would have to be struck. Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim noted that GCC member states, while ‘generally having scored several successes’ on security matters ‘within the framework of the Council’, and in particular having endorsed a common strategy to deal with ‘terrorism-linked extremism’, still had ‘a long way to go’.

As regards outside powers, such as the United States, it was inevitable that these would take a strong strategic interest in the region. The American military presence in the Gulf was a matter of necessity as well as a fact of strategic life. It had provided protection during regional conflicts. And in an apparent appeal for greater activism from the Gulf states, particularly as it concerns energy security, he said that the devising of security strategies ‘should not be completely left to the discretion of the consumer countries’. A more extrovert policy approach was also warranted by the capacity of globalisation, with all its multiplying complexities, to produce challenges to security at home. Such a perspective, he said, need not detract from the principle that the upkeep of Gulf security should ultimately – and primarily – be a matter for the states of the region and one depending on ‘mutual confidence and self-reliance’.

 

Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim then noted the transformation that NATO had undergone since the end of the Cold War. The Alliance was giving greater regard to contingencies and operations outside its own borders and was developing an interest in playing ‘a practical role in the Middle East’. It would not be unthinkable, he said, that NATO might involve itself through plans and training to ‘serve either the already existing security relations within the GCC member states or between them as a grouping and the rest of the world as per the binding security agreements’. International security mechanisms, however, need not always take a purely military form, nor need they inevitably involve the deployment to the Gulf of foreign military forces. They could instead be constituted as regular consultations, information-sharing exercises and common threat-assessment efforts. These would embrace ‘in addition to the traditional allies of the region, the neighbouring countries, the permanent member states of the Security Council and the Asian states which are directly involved in the circumstances of the region’. Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim’s view was, then, expansive: it featured a vision of a Gulf region which maintained an open and flexible security architecture that could adapt to changing circumstances and challenges.

 

Michèle Alliot-Marie, France’s Defence Minister, said her presence at the summit was ‘a token of the importance granted by France to this part of the world’. Noting that the Gulf seemed to many to ‘be an exclusive preserve of the United States’ – and certainly a central preoccupation of American foreign policy – she went on to investigate what France and Europe as a whole might have to contribute to the security of the region. She framed her remarks in the context of the long tradition of social, economic and scientific interaction between Europe and the Gulf. A number of French educational establishments had recently received students from the Gulf and planned to open offices there. The European Union was the Gulf region’s principal trade partner. But ties also abounded in the area of defence and security, with France and Britain both having fashioned military agreements (in the case of France with Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar), deployed forces and sold arms (especially in the French case to Qatar, where a French military presence was maintained, and the UAE). Defence ties with Saudi Arabia were also strong. French naval vessels regularly put in at Gulf ports. Europe’s collective contribution to Gulf security, meanwhile, was already manifest in the efforts of the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) to arrive at a satisfactory diplomatic solution to the question of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Beyond such practical and current forms of collaboration and engagement, Mme Alliot-Marie offered up the experience of the creation and evolution of the EU as a model for building confidence and stability in other regions of the world. Conceding that circumstances in the Gulf and Europe were not identical, she nevertheless felt that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, at least, was a success that could be emulated as a means of anticipating conflicts and dealing with the aftermath of regional crises that might have flared up. The GCC, she argued, was the basis for this kind of structure. It would be in the interests of all that Iraq be eventually admitted to such a construct.

 

If the European model provided a rough guide as to how the region’s security architecture might be organised in the future, there were also European defence resources that might more immediately be brought to bear in the interests of stabilising the region. Although the defence minister did not anticipate the circumstances, contingencies and terms under which they would be deployed, she stressed that European battle groups of 1,500 troops, pooling contributions from 20 participating states, could now be despatched in fewer than 15 days to theatres of operation. In addition, the European Gendarmerie Force would be launched in early 2006, providing scope for ‘every aspect of public security missions during the various phases of a crisis’. As testimony to its defence extroversion, the EU had also begun to establish regional military cooperation mechanisms in Africa and the Arab Maghreb.

 

In all of these fields of activity and experience lay the basis for deepening dialogue and cooperation between the institutions of the EU and the GCC. The French minister emphasised that, for this to come about, it was desirable that the relationship be imprinted with a stronger strategic mark. This would create the necessary circumstances in which views on common security interests could more fulsomely be exchanged and expertise shared, leading over time perhaps to joint military and other exercises. The time had come, she felt, to take cooperation to a higher stage.

Mme Alliot-Marie noted that it was ultimately for each region to arrange its security architecture as it wished. Yet there was, internationally, clearly a trend to be observed in which new structures and forums were proliferating: the African Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and East Asian Summit were cited as examples. The process in the Gulf, as it had been in Europe, would no doubt be gradual and deliberate, and mindful of history. But account would also have to be taken of new realities. To be counted among these was the emergence of a multipolar world in which Europe was a political force and a major actor in the field of security that had much to offer the Gulf.

 

Professor S. Jayakumar, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security, turned to broader themes. Singapore, he noted, had initiated the Asia–Middle East Dialogue to capitalise on and further animate what he described as a ‘renaissance in relations’ between the two regions, which shared as many security concerns as commercial and cultural interests. Asia, too, was afflicted by international terrorism: there was the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiah, sprawled across the breadth of Southeast Asia; and the Abu Sayyaf Group and Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines. If it was to be defeated, this terrorism, being international, would by definition demand ever greater and more elaborate cross-border and inter-regional cooperation among states. Prof. Jayakumar outlined three forms of action that needed particular attention.

 

 

Firstly, in order for acts of terrorism to be prevented, intelligence and other associated capacities would have to be enhanced. The international counter-terrorism conference hosted by Saudi Arabia in February 2005 had been a sound and commendable step in this direction. In Southeast Asia, it had been the experience of states that multilateral approaches were certainly to be encouraged at all levels, but that in matters of intelligence, where there is often much sensitivity about the information and thus a greater concern about leakage, it was as a practical matter better to focus on bilateral channels of exchange. Secondly, it was important to find means of intervening, in both a physical and ideological sense, to stem the rise in extremism among those appropriating Islam for their own ends and/or misconceiving its true precepts. The final area in which experiences could profitably be exchanged, he said, concerned the communication of ‘lessons learned’ in the aftermath of successful terrorist attacks. Future intelligence efforts might thereby be improved, while disaster response strategies might also be more effectively formulated to allow societies to better deal with attacks.

 

But Prof. Jayakumar’s assessment was not encouraging; in fact, it was bleak. It would not be wise to set too much store in the operational aspects of counter-terrorism alone. These might contain but never eliminate the danger. The key to defeating terrorism lay in gaining a much better appreciation of the ideological dynamics that permit and inspire violence, and the process by which radicalisation takes effect. He dwelt at length on the unshakeable – and eerie – fanaticism that many terrorists had exhibited during interrogation in custody in Singapore or in videotaped footage to their families. Radicals would only be amenable to suasion from recognised religious authorities that could argue for the alternative and accurate interpretation of scripture and doctrine. Non-Muslims lacked legitimacy here.

 

Professor Jayakumar’s insightful remarks on the nature of the struggle against terrorism were to be developed and discussed in much greater detail in the next session (see chapter 4). Indeed, they set the tone for an important theme that developed throughout the Dialogue: that the problem of terrorism needed to be tackled at its roots. The question of how best to do this is being asked well beyond the region – for example in Britain following the London bombings of 7 July 2005, where three of the bombers were born and brought up in Britain. The challenge of halting and replacing the rhetoric that foments extremism – as some put it, changing the ‘narrative’ – is a key one for international strategists and policymakers. It goes far beyond the realms and communities that are normally concerned with security in the traditional sense.

 

Delegates, however, understandably chose in this discussion session to make points about regional security structures, and the relationships of those structures with the outside world – and particularly Europe.

 

Abdulla Bishara, Chairman of United Real Estate Co., Kuwait, and former Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United Nations, remarked that the Gulf region had a role in global stability. Because of its energy resources, it had the power of scarcity, and the power of finance. It could also inject rationality into regional issues such as Middle East peace and the fight against terror. Robert Hunter, former US Ambassador to NATO, called for a regional security system that involved all regional countries, not just those of the Gulf. It would be one in which matters affecting Israel–Palestine, as well as Syria and Turkey, could be addressed. ‘I think it is going to be far easier and more beneficial and also more likely to be supported by the American people if there is a regional security system that [the US] can support rather than supplant.’ Abdulaziz Sager, Chairman, Gulf Research Center, also picked up on the theme of regional security structures and presented several options for GCC members, including a broader GCC membership as well as NATO membership.

 

 

In response, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim argued that before choosing a security regime for itself, the Gulf would need to focus in more detail on the form and credibility of threats. This would also determine the need and scope for collaboration with foreign powers. He was disappointed that Qatar’s proposals for a joint regional threat assessment mechanism had not met with any response; nor had its idea of a ‘GCC security unit’ elicited a reaction.

 

Mme Alliot-Marie’s declaration of French and European interest and willingness to be involved in Gulf affairs met with scepticism from the floor. Ambassador Bishara commented that as GCC Secretary General, he had sought to rally European interest in security in the Gulf, but had failed with the exception of the United Kingdom. ‘The Gulf has been Americanised because of the indifference of the international community’, he said. But in fact, the security of the Gulf was inseparable from the welfare and stability of Europe. Abdulaziz Sager asked Mme Alliot-Marie why Europe did not involve the countries of the Gulf in the negotiations on nuclear issues with Iran. And perhaps most pointedly, Jim Hoagland, Associate Editor and Chief Foreign Correspondent of The Washington Post, asked the French minister what she thought about Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim’s suggestion that NATO could expand its presence and training activities in the region; and in what kind of crisis in the Gulf could the European Union’s 1,500-strong rapid reaction battlegroups be involved?

 

In response, Mme Alliot-Marie reiterated that France did place importance on Gulf countries, and urged the Gulf not to ignore Europe. In what France calls a ’multipolar world’, security would depend on dialogues between the ‘poles’, and these included the the Gulf. On Iran’s nuclear programme, she welcomed Gulf nations’ expressed concern about proliferation. NATO, she said, was a military alliance which had extended its activities into theatres outside Europe – but it was just one military alliance, and there were other organisations available, including the United Nations. EU battlegroups, though small, were intended as a crisis prevention tool. Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim, however, appeared doubtful on this; the resources that Europe could offer did not appear to be in hailing distance of regional needs.