The ‘David’ in a Divided Gulf: Qatar's Foreign Policy and the 2017 Gulf Crisis

Abstract

This article analyzes how Qatar strategically utilized its foreign policy to overcome the implications of the 2017 Gulf crisis. Using neoclassical realism, it investigates the ways in which Qatar used its foreign relations to mitigate the impact of a crisis that barred Qatar from aerial, naval, and land corridors in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, henceforth referred to as the Quartet. The impacts are threefold. Starting from a macro-level perspective, Qatar leveraged its status as a crucial energy supplier, alongside the resultant financial boon, to prevent an international consensus supporting the claims of the Quartet. From a micro-level perspective, the likelihood of military escalation was circumvented by Qatar's ties with Turkey and the United States. Finally, the economic impact of the crisis was largely absorbed by Qatar's ties with Iran.The biblical story of David and Goliath presents a case in which the strategic use of resources can be effective in overcoming a larger threat. For the tiny David facing the gigantic Goliath, a slingshot was all that was needed to win the battle. In this article, we treat Qatar's foreign-policy making as that slingshot, which was able to resist and, arguably, emerge more resilient from the sudden effects of the 2017 Gulf crisis.On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, known as the Quartet, cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a land, sea, and air closure on the country. While such an act was unprecedented, the source of discontent is not new. In fact, the crisis was an escalation of events in 2014 when the Quartet alliance cut diplomatic ties with QatarThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Qatar's foreign aid and political strategies in the Horn of Africa: The case of Somalia

“…In this case, crisis management resulted from the interplay between international and internal structures. Coordination with Turkey and Iran and the ability to influence the Trump administration on the one hand, and the effort to liquefied natural gas, sports and humanitarian diplomacy on the other, prevented the crisis from escalating further (Al-Eshaq & Rasheed, 2022).…”

“…Moreover, neoclassical realism's focus on elite perceptions is important in the case of Qatar, where foreign policy decision‐making is highly centralised, making elite perceptions crucial to understanding foreign policy (Al‐Eshaq & Rasheed, 2022: 31). Reflecting the role of elite perceptions in policy‐making towards the HoA and aid allocation, the high degree of centralisation in the decision‐making process and the top‐down approach to resource allocation have influenced Qatar's humanitarian behaviour in Somalia.…”