Dr Bader Mousa Al-Saif
The Gulf states should embrace transparent communications, publish national security strategies and use bilateral forums to minimize the risk of future intra-Gulf disputes.
The recent dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over Yemen is a stark reminder that the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) each have their own foreign policy approaches and interests, despite often being lumped together.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE tend to be more assertive, Bahrain and Kuwait less so, with Qatar and Oman in between. Since the Arab Uprisings, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha in particular have attempted to claim a more central role in shaping the regional order.The returns have been mixed. There have been some successes: the slow but steady return of Lebanon and Syria to the Arab fold, normalization with Iran and Turkey, and the recognition of Palestinian statehood by several key western countries following an international push in which Riyadh in particular played a key role.
But both Israel and Iran launched attacks at targets within the Gulf in Qatar last year. Gaza is in ruins, the conflicts in Yemen and Sudan are unresolved and the regional order remains fragile. Within this dangerous context, sporadic disputes between Gulf states have flared up as they assert their own interests.
To pursue their national objectives effectively and cement the Gulf’s regional leadership, the Gulf states need to enhance their statecraft. While the Saudi-UAE disagreement over Yemen is an alarming development, it has also provided a curious opening for a promising new approach to conflict resolution.
This approach centers on Gulf states transparently sharing their interests and worldviews, ideally by publishing national security strategies and institutionalizing their foreign policies and wider statecraft. This would strengthen bilateral conflict resolution between Gulf states, which has historically proven more effective than relying on the GCC.
The benefits of transparency
Intra-Gulf conflicts are not new. But the Saudi-UAE disagreement over Yemen has taken an unprecedented public turn. Alongside military action in Yemen – with Saudi Arabia conducting air strikes in the south of the country – there has also been an exchange of extensive public statements.
The escalation of the dispute to this point indicates misaligned threat perceptions, mismatched expectations and ambiguously communicated redlines, including the associated costs of crossing them. The subsequent release of detailed official statements is an attempt by each state to clarify their positions and validate their actions in Yemen. They also aim to sell their ideas and worldviews to a wider public.
However, putting aside some unofficial inflammatory social media interactions, the official statements and associated actions have been calibrated. This reveals a mutual regard and a dose of realism about Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s long-term converging interests, dissuading them from further escalation even when they are at odds in Yemen and other hotspots. In practice, they have been able to compartmentalize the dispute over Yemen while working together on other issues since, including issuing a joint statement on Gaza and conducting joint GCC drills in Riyadh.
The transparency of interests displayed in the recent exchange of statements is rare in intra-Gulf disputes. It should be institutionalized and extended. To minimize the potential for future conflict, the Gulf states should publicly share their worldviews and redlines and better articulate their changing perceptions of threat in a fast-moving region.
National visions, such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, are popular in the Gulf and reveal elements of each state’s national security concerns. The first GCC Vision for Regional Security (2024) does the same on a regional level. However, these documents fall short of directly spelling out the range of redlines and threats in the candour that both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have recently expressed.
The Gulf states should also issue and routinely update national security strategies. This would allow them to have a better understanding of each other’s worldviews and help to mitigate second-guessing. Making these strategies public could also help to elevate the quality and maturity of the public discussion among some Gulf citizens and others during times of disagreement.
Much-needed institutionalization
The Gulf states should also look to further institutionalize the way they conduct policy.
Moving from personalized to institutionalized politics has been one of the main governance challenges in the Gulf. While a total shift is not imminent, institutionalization of strategy and policymaking should be a priority. It should be accompanied by streamlined processes across the relevant state institutions. This should start with clear mandates, organization charts, job descriptions, reporting structures, escalation processes, rules of engagement, intragovernmental coordination and performance indicators.
Currently, various state institutions across the Gulf suffer from opposing or multiple workplace cultures, nebulous or contradictory policies and drained manpower.
Establishing efficient conflict resolution mechanisms, or at least a clearer modus vivendi among the Gulf states, frees up resources to address other challenges. A transparent and institutional approach makes achieving ambitious aspirations more likely.
The GCC and bilateral approaches
The GCC boasts various, albeit measured, achievements over its 45-year history. But dispute resolution has not been its forte. It took individual states like Kuwait and the US to help resolve the 2017-2021 Gulf Crisis. It may take another such mediation to settle the current Saudi-UAE dispute, if the two countries do not manage it directly.
The GCC Charter has a mechanism for settling disputes (Article 10) that has not been meaningfully activated yet. But Article 9 states that decisions on ‘substantive matters’ require unanimous approval of the six GCC states. In this case, that appears to be lacking; the GCC Secretariat has refrained from commenting on the dispute while simultaneously highlighting a busy roster of other ‘events of the week.’
Whether the GCC can become more effective at conflict resolution through reform remains to be seen. For now, the bilateral route is the more immediate and pragmatic approach to resolving intra-Gulf disputes.
The Gulf states have well-established bilateral higher committees and coordination councils, including the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council. These councils meet regularly to advance both countries’ interests.
State elites need to tweak the mandate of these councils to include conflict prevention and de-escalation. They should also name a trusted point of contact per country and form a crisis resolution subcommittee to manage tensions. This would help to cultivate a network of experts to tackle mounting issues and build an institutional memory that withstands leadership transitions.
A new chapter in Gulf statecraft?
The Gulf promotes itself at the forefront of development, energy, trade, technology, tourism, culture and sports. The Gulf states will find it harder to sustain their national transformation plans or assume a regional leadership role without first resolving internal differences.
They have more pressing challenges on which to expend their energy, such as managing their external security, including potential threats from Israel and Iran and the ongoing crisis in Yemen. They also face the task of keeping the region’s inherent climate, water and food insecurities under control.
The current dispute is not the region’s first and will not be its last. But elements of the way it has unfolded mean it could be a blessing in disguise. It is an invitation for the Gulf states to tweak their approach and introduce transparent and institutional conflict management tools.If the Gulf states adopt these elements, they could usher in a new chapter in Gulf statecraft and better position the region to realize its potential in a changing global order.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/amid-yemen-tensions-how-can-gulf-states-avoid-another-rift