ABSTRACT
In the conclusion to Chapter 3 it was asserted that the anarchical society in the Persian Gulf remained fragile. Whilst the demise of transnational loyalties (pan-Arabism, Iranian revolutionism) and the presence of the United States as a status quo power diminished the likelihood of an all out regional war, regional states reserved – and periodically exercised – the right to use violence to advance their interests. Since culture and identities consist of relatively orderly, internalised sets of classifications which allow states to interpret international life, the fact that the past had an impact on the present should not be surprising. Once the rival cultural formation was in place, actors in the Persian Gulf had a shared knowledge that they were rivals which helped constitute their identities and interests. In turn, regional states acted upon their internalised identities in ways that confirmed to the ‘Other’ that they were a threat, reproducing the regional culture of anarchy. This said, the tendency towards cultural reproduction does not leave us with the a-historical determinism of neo-realist theory (i.e. eternal self-help Anarchy). Cultures are not monolithic systems, immune to external and internal transformations.
