ABSTRACT
Regardless of current political tensions in the Southern Gulf, Qatar must rationalize its military procurements and eliminate the waste of defense funds on: non-interoperable weapons and systems; and new types of equipment which increase the maintenance, sustain-ability, and training problem, or layer new types over old. Although Qatari officials feel that a major coup attempt was underway, and that assassination attempts were planned against Qatar's leaders, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deny that such a coup attempt ever reached the point where Sheik Khalifa bin Hamad assembled any significant forces on their soil and deny that a major recruiting effort ever took place. Qatar has negotiated an off-shore boundary with Iran, but Iran has made claims to offshore areas that contain a large part of Qatar's North Field gas reserves in the past, and Iran is developing offshore gas fields which share at least one reservoir with Qatar's North Field.
