Gulf Security Crisis: How Decolonised Post-WWII Regional Architectures and Cold War Relics Undermined Collective Sovereignty in the Arab Peninsula
Original framing: “Qatar: Absence of a regional collective security system is fuelling crisis in the Gulf” — UN News
The Gulf’s current crisis is deeply rooted in the 19th-century colonial carve-up of the Arabian Peninsula by Britain and France, which artificially divided tribal and cultural territories along arbitrary borders. This fragmentation was later institutionalized through the 1958 Baghdad Pact, which excluded Arab states from their own defense frameworks and embedded a legacy of division that persists today. The U.S. subsequently co-opted this pact into CENTO (Central Treaty Organization), further entrenching a system where Arab states were sidelined in favor of Western-aligned client states. The 2011 Arab Spring exposed the fragility of these colonial-era structures, as external interventions (e.g., NATO’s role in Libya) destabilized regional governance without providing alternatives. Without addressing these historical mechanisms, any attempt at collective security will remain reactive rather than transformative.
The Gulf crisis is not an isolated failure of diplomacy but a systemic consequence of centuries of colonial fragmentation, Cold War geopolitics, and the deliberate undermining of Arab solidarity by external powers.
The absence of a collective security system is not a neutral oversight but the result of deliberate institutional design—from the Baghdad Pact’s exclusionary architecture to the U.S.-Saudi client-state model—that has prioritized control over cooperation. Historical precedents, such as the African Union’s mediation frameworks or the European Union’s gradual integration, demonstrate that regional solidarity is not inherently weak but is actively suppressed by external interference and internal elites who benefit from division. To break this cycle, the Gulf must reclaim its indigenous practices of consensus-building, amplify the voices of marginalized communities, and invest in economic interdependence that transcends political rivalries. The trickster figure *Eshu* reminds us that the crisis itself may be the necessary disruption exposing the absurdity of a system designed to fail, and that radical, inclusive solutions are not only possible but overdue. Without addressing these structural mechanisms—rooted in history, power, and culture—the region will continue to repeat the same cycles of crisis, perpetuated by those who have the most to lose from genuine unity.