1. Introduction

This chapter is intended to provide a framework for discussion for analysis, making use of theoretical and comparative literature to suggest what options are available for resolving issues of security in the Gulf region – while at the same time making a recommendation as to which approach may prove most productive.

The Gulf region has, over the past 45 years, been bedevilled by security issues. The Gulf states have, in effect, been caught in a vicious circle of insecurity and conflict. Attempts they make to protect their security have tended to create dynamics which intensify regional divisions and tensions, thereby creating an enhanced need for security protection. This then gives rise for a new round of security measures and further enhanced tension. The parties to conflict have changed over time, but the confrontational environment has remained.

External powers have played a central role in this process. Their engagement has, not surprisingly, been motivated mainly by their economic interests in Gulf hydrocarbons. At the same time, however, their policies and strategies in the Gulf are inevitably shaped by their wider global concerns. Within this context, Gulf issues become subject to those wider concerns, adding a new dimension and some extra intensity to existing tensions.

The resolution of conflict within the Gulf is not necessarily the priority for external powers. The opposite may in fact be the case, and indeed often has been. A country or movement within the region which is perceived as a threat to a global power's interests, perhaps by virtue of its alliance with a Cold War opponent or by espousing a challenging ideological position, needs to be confronted rather than conciliated. Attempts to bridge differences may be seen as not only ill-conceived but also potentially damaging to the external power's global interests. External security support, therefore, has often foreclosed options for negotiation and conciliation around the Gulf. This is most evident when external sanctions (bilateral or multilateral) have been imposed on a Gulf country, when even the maintenance of equable relations between key Gulf countries may be perceived negatively. Sanctions regimes of one kind or another have in fact been in force on either Iran or Iraq (and sometimes both) for most of the past four decades.

The cost to the Gulf states of the ongoing conflicts has been immense. The energy and inventiveness of the peoples of the region have been distracted, and the resources diverted, from the more edifying tasks of nation-building, economic development and the construction of socially-inclusive and societies and polities. Expenditure on weaponry, caused by the perceived need of regional states to protect themselves from eachother, has ranked among the highest in the world, wasting resources which are needed for the sustainability of the populations in the post-oil era. This paper starts from the premise that new ways must be found to move beyond the confrontational policies and approaches of the past. It will be contended that new structures of interaction and cooperation are needed in order to break out of this pattern of confrontation and conflict.