The Gulf States: Geographic Unity and Political Fragmentation

Since the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981, political discourse in the Arab world has often treated the six Gulf monarchies as a coherent strategic bloc. In reality, however, the concept of a unified “Gulf policy” has always been more rhetorical than factual. 

Although the term “Gulf states” commonly refers to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman, the grouping masks deep structural asymmetries. Saudi Arabia alone dominates the Сouncil geographically, demographically, economically, and geopolitically. It constitutes the overwhelming share of GCC territory, hosts most of its citizen population, and possesses strategic depth through its access to both the Gulf and the Red Sea. 

These disparities have translated into political divergence. Saudi Arabia follows its own regional calculations; the UAE has cultivated a separate strategic profile through ties with India and Israel; Qatar maintains an autonomous foreign policy closely linked to Turkey; and Oman traditionally pursues an independent balancing approach. Kuwait and Bahrain often navigate between larger regional actors. As a result, the GCC has remained limited in institutional development. While it has achieved practical gains in trade, mobility, and coordination, it has failed to evolve into a genuine political or military union. Even the Peninsula Shield Force has played only a marginal strategic role. 

Recent tensions involving Iran have once again exposed the absence of a common Gulf doctrine. Member states remain divided between engagement, deterrence, and strategic restraint. For Russia, the key lesson is clear: the GCC should not be approached as a monolithic bloc. A more effective policy would engage its members individually—especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—while encouraging regional de-escalation with Iran and safeguarding stability in global energy markets.

Since 1981—the year the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was established—the Arab world has frequently heard, and still hears, albeit less frequently today, slogans such as “Our Gulf is One.” Likewise, whenever the Gulf region faces a crisis, prominent media headlines routinely ask: “What are Gulf policies?”, “How will the Gulf states confront this challenge?”, or “What will the Gulf response be?” Such formulations, and many similar headlines, are often misleading and fail to reflect the actual political landscape. This perception has also spread to Russia, where it has become common among specialists and experts on Middle Eastern affairs.

Geographically, if the term “Gulf states” is taken to mean the countries bordering the Gulf, then Iran is likewise a major and indigenous Gulf state. If, however, the term is intended to refer exclusively to Arab countries, then Iraq also has access to the Gulf, albeit through a relatively short coastline. In practical usage, however, the term “Gulf states” refers only to the six Arab countries of Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. This is geographically valid insofar as all six possess coastlines on the Gulf, yet it remains only a partial truth, because the term is more political than geographic. It reflects the convergence of outlooks among a group of littoral states that chose to establish a regional cooperative organization among themselves. At the same time, Saudi public discourse has grown increasingly uncomfortable with describing Saudi Arabia merely as a Gulf state.

This Saudi discomfort stems from reasons that appear entirely logical. A comparison between Saudi Arabia and the other five GCC members combined reveals the scale of the structural imbalance within the grouping. Saudi Arabia alone accounts for roughly 80 percent of the GCC’s total land area, while the combined territory of the other five states does not exceed 20 percent.

In demographic terms, Saudi Arabia is home to approximately 20–21 million citizens out of a total of around 28 million Gulf nationals, representing nearly three-quarters of the council’s indigenous citizen population. Economically, Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product stands at roughly $1.1 trillion USD, compared with an estimated $1.1–1.3 trillion USD for the other five member states combined. In effect, the Saudi economy alone is approximately equal in size to that of the rest of the Council taken together.

This disparity is not confined to quantitative indicators alone; it also extends into the vital geopolitical sphere. Saudi Arabia is the only member of the GCC that possesses an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, stretching for approximately 1,800 kilometers, in addition to its Gulf coast.

It is also the only Gulf state with direct land borders with Yemen (shared only with Oman), and the only one with direct borders with Iraq (shared only with Kuwait). Beyond that, it extends northward toward the Levantine strategic space through Jordan, while its maritime frontiers face both Egypt and Sudan on the African side of the Red Sea.

Historically, although ancient civilizations did emerge in some of the other member states, most remained limited in scope and discontinuous in influence, resembling a past only loosely connected to the present. By contrast, Saudi Arabia—following the unification of the Hejaz with its other territories in 1926—acquired a living and enduring historical depth by virtue of hosting Islam’s holiest sanctuaries and exercising direct influence over more than two billion Muslims worldwide.

Even so, Oman remains a relative exception as the Gulf’s most notable civilizational counterpart, owing to its historical legacy as the center of a maritime empire that once stretched from East Africa to the Indian subcontinent.

In light of all the above, describing Saudi Arabia merely as a “Gulf state” appears to be a considerable oversimplification of an entity whose defining parameters extend far beyond the narrow geography of the Gulf, encompassing much broader historical, geopolitical, economic, and human dimensions.

This geographic reality, combined with the vast disparities in size, population weight, historical depth, and political influence, has been reflected in the political sphere. As a result, the member states of the GCC can be seen as politically divided into four principal blocs.

The first is represented by Saudi Arabia, which maintains its own regional outlook and military partnerships with states such as Pakistan. In contrast stands the United Arab Emirates, which has developed a strategic partnership with India—Pakistan’s principal rival—and maintains distinct relations with Israel, with which Saudi Arabia has no formal diplomatic ties.

The third bloc is Qatar, which pursues an independent political line alongside a regional alignment with Turkey. Meanwhile, Oman has consistently preserved its own parameters and outlook on security and geopolitical questions. As for Kuwait and Bahrain, they have generally oscillated between alignment with Saudi Arabia, alignment with the UAE, or attempting to mediate between the two.

Accordingly, in practical terms, the GCC has, since its inception, remained largely frozen at the level of limited achievements, such as freedom of trade, movement, and residence among its member states, without succeeding in evolving into a broader and more integrated framework.

Even the Council’s unified military command, commonly known as the Peninsula Shield Force, has played little notable role beyond responding to the unrest witnessed in Bahrain in 2011, in the aftermath of the color revolutions that swept the region. Nor has it demonstrated an effective role in the current U.S.–Israeli war against Iran.

That conflict has also exposed the existence of a shared strategic challenge represented by Iran, yet without producing any clear collective policy on how to address it. The positions of GCC member states continue to diverge between those favoring direct negotiations andunderstandings with Iran, those advocating military confrontation, and those who regard caution and the highest degree of restraint as the preferable course.

The establishment of the GCC in 1981 marked the first departure from the overarching framework of the Arab League, which had been founded in 1945 At the time, it appeared that the League no longer exercised the same role, and that each regional sub-group within the Arab world would need to follow the example of the six Gulf states by creating its own bloc.

This impression was reinforced by the fact that the GCC did not pursue understandings or agreements with the rest of the Arab states as a collective Arab grouping. Instead, it defined for itself a distinct political and social identity, its own military capability, and a separate vision of national security. This, in turn, prompted the states of the Maghreb to establish their own regional entity in 1989 under the name of the Arab Maghreb Union, bringing together Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania. At the same time, the Arab Cooperation Council was formed, comprising Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Yemen, after these states came to feel increasingly isolated amid the emergence of new regional alignments. Neither organization, however, endured. The first was hindered by chronic disputes between Algeria and Morocco, while the second collapsed in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

Despite this, when the region faced its greatest challenge since independence—namely, the aggression of one Arab state against another—it became clear that none of these regional entities could substitute for the Arab League. The League alone proved capable of providing legitimate political cover for the international coalition led by the United States to liberate Kuwait from the occupation imposed by Saddam Hussein in 1990.

This brings us to what may be described as the present “moment of truth,” in which the GCC appears unable to formulate a common political or military position, while the Arab League suffers from profound paralysis and institutional incapacity. This condition stems from its neglect since 1990, compounded by the earlier emergence of rival regional organizations, the absence of any serious effort to amend its charter, and the failure to establish binding institutional rules for Arab collective security.

Moreover, because the broader majority of Arab states have shown little willingness to bind themselves to any meaningful framework of joint action, fundamental issues have repeatedly been sidestepped through populist debates over the League’s headquarters or the nationality of its Secretary-General—an impoverished reduction of the real causes of the problem.

Finally, the GCC appears to stand at a decisive crossroads: it can either move toward developing its current framework into a genuine federal union under the leadership of Saudi Arabia, as the largest and most capable member state, or gradually recede into strategic irrelevance. In any case, until it becomes clear whether such a transformation will materialize, the reality continues to reflect divergent—and at times conflicting—policies among the member states, thereby negating the notion that there exists any truly unified “Gulf policy.”

Such an understanding would be of clear value to analysts, researchers, and decision-makers in Russia seeking to assess the positions of the six states in a manner closer to political reality than to media-driven formulations, while avoiding the waste of effort that comes from assuming the existence of coherent collective coordination.

Accordingly, it may be more prudent for Russia to engage the Gulf states as individual actors rather than as a cohesive bloc, particularly given the expanding shared interests with several of them—most notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—whether in coordinating energy markets or in the sphere of economic cooperation.

Russia may also be well positioned to encourage a framework of understanding with Iran rather than allowing the region to slide into wider conflict. The recent military escalation, including intervention alongside Israel, has only deepened the crisis, threatened maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz, and created direct repercussions for energy flows to Asian markets.