Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-oil Era Revised, Updated Edition, Kindle Edition

by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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ISBN-13: 978-0190241575

ISBN-10: 0190241578

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Insecure Gulf examines how the concept of Arabian/Persian Gulf 'security' is evolving in response to new challenges that are increasingly non-military and longer-term. Food, water and energy security, managing and mitigating the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, addressing demographic pressures and the youth bulge and reformulating structural economic deficiencies, in addition to dealing with the fallout from progressive state failure in Yemen, require a broad, global and multi-dimensional approach to Gulf security. While 'traditional' threats from Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation and trans-national terrorism remain robust, these new challenges to Gulf security have the potential to strike at the heart of the social contract and redistributive mechanisms that bind state and society in the Arab oil monarchies.
Insecure Gulf explores the relationship between 'traditional' and 'new' security challenges and situates them within the changing political economy of the GCC states as they move toward post-oil structures of governance. It describes how regimes are anticipating and reacting to the shifting security paradigm, and contextualizes these changes within the broader political, economic, social and demographic framework. It also argues that a holistic approach to security is necessary for regimes to renew their sources of legitimacy in a globalizing world.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

'A fascinating, gritty, and the state of the art overview of the security environment that the resource rich Gulf states must now operate in, whether they like it or not.' -Dr Christopher Davidson, author, Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond

'Insecure Gulf provides the first detailed assessment of the developments in the Persian Gulf sub-region in the post-oil era. It is the one of the few books of its kind not to be obsessed with the sub-region's energy riches, and in looking to highlight the uncertainties of a future from which oil income may not provide sufficient protection, warns of the sub-region's impending demographic, economic and environmental crises. Sympathetically written and meticulously researched, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen draws our attention to the dangers of a perfect storm forming in the Gulf Arab countries in which domestic challenges could combine with externally-induced security or economic shocks to expose these societies to crises of such magnitude that could test their very socio-political foundations. This is a must read.' - Anoush Ehteshami, Professor of International Relations at Durham University

'Kristian Coates Ulrichsen's absorbing book is rich in detail and profoundly incisive. It is brilliant in its analysis and masterful in scope, tackling the most important and toughest questions on security in the Gulf region. Fascinating, fluently written and insightful, Insecure Gulf offers a genuinely original perspective on this important subject. This is compulsory and highly engaging reading.' - Dr Steven Wright, Department of International Affairs, Qatar University

'Insecure Gulf offers a broad-ranging yet consistently cogent survey of the major trends that threaten the stability of the Arab Gulf states at the present moment and in the foreseeable future. It highlights not only the concrete, material challenges that confront regimes in this part of the world but also the ideational dynamics that shape how strategic realities get interpreted and prioritized. And the book accomplishes this while remaining accessible to non-specialists. An enlightening tour d'horizon.' - Fred H. Lawson, Professor of Government, Mills College

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and an associate fellow on the Middle East North Africa Programme at Chatham House. He is the author of Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era and The First World War in the Middle East, both published by Hurst. Kristian is a regular contributor to openDemocracy.
--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN : B00RM4XB62
Publisher : Oxford University Press; Revised, Updated edition (January 4, 2014)
Publication date : January 4, 2014
Language: : English
File size : 1449 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 266 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 184904127X
Lending : Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #358,805 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #166 in Political Freedom (Kindle Store)
- #259 in National & International Security (Kindle Store)
- #263 in Military Science History

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Jim Krane

The Big Come Down

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2011

The Gulf Arab countries have been riding high for the past decade. High oil prices have driven hyper growth on several levels: economically, and in terms of population (and the sheer size of cities like Dubai) and in consumption of energy. To most of us, these metrics make the Gulf look like a consumer's paradise, an emerging market worth investing in.

Ulrichsen takes a contrarian look at the Gulf's progress and, rather than heralding it as the next big thing, warns that the convergence of several worrying trends means the Gulf monarchs are painting themselves into the corner.

As the title implies, the Gulf countries have serious security issues. The region's main protector, the US, is a fickle ally; the Gulf militaries themselves, ineffectual. And with Iran just 90 miles across the sea, and a serially unstable Iraq right next door, it's a rough neighbourhood. Worse, neighboring Yemen is imploding, with a huge potential population of refugees.

But most interesting are the internal security worries in these ostensibly safe and stable countries. Gulf rulers are simply too generous for their own good. Because they deny their citizens the opportunity to vote, they must seek legitimacy through gifts. Ruling families give their citizens far more lucrative packages of benefits than any westerner could imagine. This, says Ulrichsen, is unsustainable. Cheap - or free - water, electricity, gasoline, education, housing, land, food and an overpaid government job for nearly every citizen. It just can't go on.

Ulrichsen says the rulers understand they need to reform, but fear they will be ousted in the furore that would result. But if they don't reel in these giveaways, they undermine the basis of their economies - energy exports - and set up a scenario of violent conflict. It's a touchy situation, and Ulrichsen lays it bare.

Those who should read this book are investors and financial analysts, policymakers in the Gulf and outside, those involved in intelligence and the military, diplomats, and anyone with an interest in the endgame of the rentier state.

My only regret is that Ulrichsen's book wasn't available as a reference when I was researching my own book on the region City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism .

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