The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has amassed a level of military hardware, financial weight and diplomatic reach unmatched anywhere else in the Middle East. Its member states share borders, threats and economic destinies.
Yet they continue to pursue conflicting geopolitical agendas that routinely undermine each other, especially in crises that have struck regional countries in the last fifteen years.
For instance, recent developments in Sudan and Yemen show that despite messages of unity, Gulf capitals are far from constituting a bloc that can act in unison.
This fragmentation naturally stems from individual states' own considerations but has been exacerbated by the absence of an overarching mechanism to coordinate foreign policy.
The cost of fragmentation
The GCC is not institutionally empty on foreign policy. Its Supreme Council, Ministerial Council and Secretariat General provide regular forums for consultation, while ad hoc mediation remains embedded in its charter.
But these bodies function as platforms for dialogue, not instruments of alignment.
Consensus rules, non-binding outcomes and the absence of a permanent mechanism for shared threat assessment or policy follow-through mean coordination is episodic and personality-driven.
When crises erupt, Gulf states consult but they do not cohere.
This structural weakness explains why GCC coordination appears in moments of acute pressure yet collapses under competitive strain.
The problem is not a lack of shared interests, but the absence of a standing tool capable of translating convergence into sustained strategy.
As such, bilateral backchannels still run supreme in Gulf policy-making, leaving GCC forums as formalities rather than opportunities to craft a united policy.
Short-term alliances form to counter another Gulf state's actions, creating internecine conflicts across regional arenas.
Layered atop is a dual-track policy-making process in each Gulf capital, whereby formal institutions like foreign ministries operate parallel to informal networks built around ruling families, commercial elites and security services.
This dichotomy often produces contradictory messaging and sudden policy reversals that further complicate intra-GCC policy coordination.
Not only have GCC foreign policy differences had a severe human cost, they have effectively redrawn various regional states’ maps, empowered non-state actors and influenced parallel governance models.
Without a common approach and threat assessment, well-resourced and often well-intentioned regional actors have pulled in opposing directions, inflaming war rather than resolving conflict.
For instance, Gulf patronage of army and paramilitary groups in Sudan have since 2023 inflamed rivalries, contributed to the collapse of civil society peace efforts and broken the country into two militarised political spheres.
In Yemen, Abu Dhabi's ties to southern separatists have undermined Riyadh's strategy of backing a unified state viewed as crucial to the Kingdom's security by informally reviving the South Yemen state of the Cold War.
Similarly, following Libya’s 2011 revolution, competing Gulf agendas cancelled each other out, entrenching a sub-optimal status quo in which the country remains effectively divided and lacks a unified Gulf approach that could stabilise it and help it apply a developmental model (well suited to Libya’s resource base and demographics) that has thrived in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Political Islam divide
These patterns of fragmentation are not merely tactical, but rooted in competing threat perceptions and strategic framings.
Since the Arab Spring, the Gulf's core ideological cleavage has revolved around political Islam, with debate centring on Qatar's support for Muslim Brotherhood-aligned movements in conjunction with Turkey.
