ABSTRACT
In 1980 six states on the Arabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) formed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). For 20 years the impact of this event barely registered on the world’s media antennae. But since the beginning of the twenty-first century these states have been making the headlines with increasing frequency and not only because of their geographic proximity to Iraq and Iran or their position as the world’s key supplier of oil and gas. A string of high-profile overseas acquisitions – including P&O and Madame Tussaud’s – and the region’s unprecedented construction boom have also contributed to a worldwide perception that some kind of tectonic shift is taking place in the world’s economic and strategic geography. And while Western observers look on with a mixture of admiration, disdainful hauteur and not a little anxiety, such ‘excesses’ as the Emirate of Dubai’s man-made palm tree-shaped islands, the world’s tallest building and ski-slopes in the desert, nevertheless add further conviction to the view that ‘something of massive proportions’ is happening in the Arabian Peninsula.
