＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN,AND
THE GULF REGION＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

By
Kent E. Calder
Director, Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies
SAIS/Johns Hopkins University
Washington, D.C.

August, 2015
The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, AND THE GULF REGION
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................................... 2
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................ 4
Foreword ........................................................................................................................................ 5
THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, AND THE ARABIAN GULF................................................. 7
CHAPTER ONE: THE GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARABIAN GULF ....................... 9
CHAPTER TWO: CLASSICAL CONFIGURATIONS: THE U.S. AND JAPAN IN THE
GULF................................................................................................................................................ 26
CHAPTER THREE: THE ENERGY SEA LANES IN GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT ............. 44
CHAPTER FOUR: THE LOGIC OF THE US-JAPAN-ARAB GULF STRATEGICTRIANGLE ..................................................................................................................................... 58
CHAPTER FIVE: EMERGING REALITIES............................................................................... 66
A. DEMOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 67
B. INSIDE THE GCC: CONTINUING CHALLENGES OF COHESION...................................... 70
C. THE CHANGING ENERGY EQUATION ................................................................................... 77
D. IRAN, THE GCC, AND THE STABILITY OF THE GULF ...................................................... 83
E. THE CHINA FACTOR .................................................................................................................. 87

CHAPTER SIX: ........................................................................................................................... 100
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENHANCED TRILATERAL COOPERATION ........................... 100
CHAPTER SEVEN: ..................................................................................................................... 116
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN .............................................. 116

1

LIST OF FIGURESFIGURE 1-1: GULF SHARE OF GLOBAL OIL AND GAS RESERVES.…………………..p.10
FIGURE 1-2: THE CLOSE GEOGRAPHICAL PROXIMITY OF ASIA AND THE
GULF…………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..…………………..p.11
FIGURE 1-3: THE HIGH RELATIVE DEPENDENCE OF ASIAN NATIONS ON THE
GULF………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..……………………..p.12
FIGURE 1-4: RISING ASIAN DEPENDENCE ON THE GULF TO 2035………………..p.14
FIGURE 1-5: A RISING CONCENTRATION OF FINANCIAL RESERVES IN THE
GULF..………..………..………..…………….……..………..………..………..………..……………….…p.17
FIGURE 1-6: COMBINED FINANCIAL RESERVES OF THE GCC AND NORTHEAST
ASIA…………..………..………..………..………..………..…………..……………………………………p.18
FIGURE 2-1: THE CONCENTRATION OF HIGH OIL R/P RATIOS IN THE
GULF..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..……………………p.27
FIGURE 2-2: US-JAPAN ASYMMETRIES IN GULF ENERGY
DEPENDENCE…....................................................................................................................pp.28-30
FIGURE 2-3: NATIONAL SHARES OF ARABIAN GULF EXPORTS OFGOODS………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..…………...pp.31-32
FIGURE 2-4: CONTRASTING PATTERNS OF JAPAN-CHINA TRADE WITH THE
GULF…………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..……………….….p.34
FIGURE 2-5: US REGIONAL ALLIES, 1979-2011: EGYPT, TURKEY, AND
ISRAEL..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………………...p.40
FIGURE 3-1: GEOPOLITICAL PROFILE OF THE ENERGY SEALANES…………………………………………………………………………………………………..…....p.49
FIGURE 5-1: THE “ARC OF CRISIS” AROUND THE ARABIAN PENINSULA………p.69
FIGURE 5-2: IRAN AND THE GULF, INCLUDING THE STRAIT OFHORMUZ..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..…………………….....p.85
FIGURE 5-3: CHINA’S IMPORTS FROM THE GULF: COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVES………..………..………..………..………..………..………..…….....................…….p.89
FIGURE 5-4: CHINA’S EXPORTS TO THE GULF: COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVES…………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………......................p.90
FIGURE 5-5: CHINESE IMPORTS FROM THE GULF: BY COUNTRY…………….……p.91

2

FIGURE 5-6: SECTORAL DISTRIBUTION OF CHINESE GCC INVESTMENTS (20052012)..………..………..………..………..………..………………………………………………....….….p.93
FIGURE 5-7: THE STRING OF PEARLS BETWEEN CHINA AND THE ARABIAN
GULF..………..………..………..………..………..………..………..………………………………………p.95
Figure 6-1: MAP OF ARABIAN PENINSULA AND SURROUNDING ARC OF
CRISIS……………………………………………………………………………………………………….p.108

3

LIST OF TABLESTABLE 1-1: MAJOR SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS OF THE WORLD………………..p.21
TABLE 2-1: JAPAN’S BILATERAL ODA TO MIDDLE EASTERN NATIONS.………..p.42
TABLE 5-1: ARAB YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE……………..………..………..………..………..………..………..…………..………….p.70
TABLE 5-2: ASYMMETRIES WITHIN THE GCC……………..………..………..………….…p.71
TABLE 6-1: MILITARY FORCE LEVELS IN THE ARABIAN GULF (2013)……….p. 102

4

Foreword
Over the past two decades, the US-Japan relationship has grownincreasingly global in a rapidly globalizing world. The bilateral ties of these
two economic super powers remain the cornerstone of their diplomacy andtheir national security in the Pacific. Tokyo and Washington, however,increasingly interact in broader contexts as well.
Nowhere outside the Asia-Pacific region is US-Japan interaction withthird parties more economically and strategically important than in the
Arabian (also known as Persian) Gulf. The Gulf, from which Japan obtains
over 80 percent of its entire oil supply, has well over third of theconventional oil reserves, and a large share of the natural gas on earth. It
also has a tenth of global foreign exchange reserves. Although holding lessthan one percent of world population, the Gulf’s persistent politicalinstability poses a continuing challenges to world peace and security.
This monograph explores the strategic triangular relationship among
the US, Japan, and the nations of the Arabian Gulf, with a special focus on
the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the Arc of Crisis that surrounds
Foundation, sponsor of this research, and to many of its officers,
including Junko Chano, Aya Murata, and Daniel Bob, who have provided
important advice and assistance. The author also owes special thanks to5

Sophie Yang, Yun Han, Alieen McLaren, Luoxi Dao, and Monica Kuo, whohave provided invaluable advice and assistance. Any failures remain the
responsibility of the author alone.
Kent E. Calder
Washington, D.C.
June 2015

6

THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, AND THE ARABIAN GULF

Traditionally the US-Japan alliance relationship has been focusedgeographically on Northeast Asia. Indeed, the stated objective in Article I of
their bilateral mutual security treaty, drafted and signed in the midst of the
Korean War, is to “contribute to the maintenance of international peaceand security in the Far East” and “to the security of Japan against armed
attack from without…”1 When Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru and US
Secretary of State Dean Acheson, together with three US colleagues,2 signedthat treaty at the Presidio of San Francisco, the immediate concern of bothparties was no doubt the future of the Korean peninsula itself, and the very
real threat that North Korean aggression posed to Japan.
The world, however, has changed, and the US-Japan relationship is
inevitably changing with it. The Japan of 1951, with a GDP less than 3.5
percent of the global total,3 has recovered from the ravages of war, tobecome an economic superpower. Today, even after a quarter century of
relative stagnation, it boasts the third largest economy, and the second

1 Article I of the Security Treaty between the United States and Japan, signed September 8, 1951. Available

on-line through the Avalon Project Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, at:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/japan001.asp#art2.
2 State Department special advisor John Foster Dulles, as well as the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Senators Tom Connally of Texas and Alexander
Wiley of Wisconsin respectively) also signed for the US, although Prime Minister Yoshida signed alone forJapan.
3 Japan’s GDP in 1951 was $181 million, while global GDP in 1950 was $5.3 billion in 1950 dollars. See
Maddison Development Center. The World Economy: Historical Statistics, at:
http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/other_books/new_HS-7.pdf.

7

largest foreign-exchange reserves, on earth. Under Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, who has already visited around fifty nations in his still-short tenure at
the kantei,4 Japan is becoming a major global diplomatic actor as well.
The world itself, of course, is much more interdependent than it wasin 1951. International trade has grown explosively, and cross-borderinvestment has expanded many times over as well. Since the early 1980s,
China has become deeply integrated with the world economy, and with
Russia, Eastern Europe, and Vietnam following it, a decade later, into
interdependence. Veritable revolutions in finance, communications, andsocial relations have created a global village where both intimacy anduncertainty simultaneously prevail.
In this productive, growing, yet volatile and dangerous new world,
the fortunes of the United States and Japan are intertwined on a muchlarger canvas than in past years. Their mutual relationship is no longer
purely bilateral, and no longer solely across the Pacific. For both analyticalreasons and reasons of state, it is crucial to consider concretely how they
relate to one another, and to others, in key regions beyond the Pacific in
our increasingly global world. US-Japan relations have important
expressions in Europe, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and elsewhere.

4 As of September, 2014, Prime Minister Abe had already visited 49 countries since taking office. See

Council on Foreign Relations. “Transcript: A Conversation with Shinzo Abe”, September 23, 2014, at:
http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/conversation-shinzo-abe/p33494.

8

CHAPTER ONE: THE GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARABIAN GULF
With an area of only 251,000 square kilometers, and relatively
shallow waters averaging only 50 meters deep, the Arabian Gulf (known
frequently in the West as the Persian Gulf also) is not an imposing body ofwater in hydrological terms. It does, to be sure, have extensive coral reefs,
abundant pearl oyster beds, and many fishing grounds. A century ago,
those natural endowments were the basis on which it was known.
Yet marine life is not what the Arabian Gulf is known for today. The
seven countries that border its shores—Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, and the UAE-- produce a quarter of the world’s oil. They also
hold nearly half of global proven conventional oil reserves, and over forty
percent of comparable world natural-gas reserves, as indicated in Figure 11. These nations, in short, hold a critical share of the most strategically andeconomically important energy resources on earth.
The individual energy fields beneath the Arabian Gulf are also
mammoth in global comparative perspective. The Safaniya oil field off
Saudi Arabia, for example, is the largest offshore oil field in the world, justas the giant Ghawar elephant field on-shore is the world’s largest in its
category. The massive, integrated gas field beneath the Gulf, known as theNorth Field in Qatar and South Pars in Iran, is likewise the most extensive9

on earth. The Arabian Gulf is quite literally the world’s greatest energy
storehouse.
Figure 1-1: GULF SHARE OF GLOBAL OIL AND GAS RESERVES

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2014.

A Special Gulf-Asia Linkage, with Global Implications
The Arabian Gulf’s energy is uniquely important to East Asia, for avariety of reasons. Some parts of the region, such as Japan, Korea, andTaiwan, are virtually devoid of hydrocarbons. Most, including populous
giants like China and India, are growing rapidly, even as their populations
consume more and more energy on a per capita basis. And all are located,
as Figure 1-2 suggests, on a direct geographic line to the Gulf, across the
Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, with no continent to circumnavigate.

10

Asia is thus much more accessible to the Gulf—and the Gulf moreaccessible to Asia—than is the case for either America or Europe.
Figure 1-2: THE CLOSE GEOGRAPHICAL PROXIMITY OF ASIA AND THE GULF

Not surprisingly, in view of the foregoing, the major nations of Asia
have recently grown much more dependent on the Arabian Gulf for theirenergy supplies—particularly for oil—than has any other major consuming
corner of the world. Indeed, as indicated in Figure 1-3, Japan and South
Korea both obtain nearly five-sixths of their oil supplies from the Gulf, andthat ratio has been rising in recent years. China’s dependence is lower, due
to conscious diversification away from what Beijing appears to see as arisky, geopolitically conflicted region. Yet China’s Gulf dependence is still
significantly higher than that of either America or Europe, and massively

11higher, especially in quantitative terms, than the PRC’s own dependence
was just a decade or two ago.5
Figure 1-3:
THE HIGH RELATIVE DEPENDENCE OF ASIAN NATIONS ON THE GULF

Notes: India figures for the 2000-2004 period were not available.
Sources: Japan, US, and OECD-Europe data: Energy Information Administration,
Department of Energy; China and India data: United Nations Commodity Trade
Statistics and Planning Commission of India, “Integrated Energy Policy: Report of theExpert Committee,” Government of India Planning Commission, August 2006.

Looking into the future, this high relative hydrocarbon dependence of
Asian nations on the Arabian Gulf is likely to continue, and even intensify.
Asian economic growth is more rapid than elsewhere in the world. And
Asian economies stand in a phase of their developmental cycle where their
growth tends to be uniquely energy-intensive. Energy-intensive industries
like steel, shipbuilding, and petrochemicals, after all, are growing rapidly,

5 China, of course, was a net oil-exporting nation until the third quarter of 1993.

12

even as consumer thirst for automobiles, electric appliances, and air
conditioning also expands.
On the supply side, it seems likely that shale-gas production will not
rise nearly as fast in Asia as in North America or even Europe, due totechnology, water, and actual resource-endowment constraints. Muchdiscussed hydro-carbon reserves in Africa and Brazil, including the sub-salt
oil deposits off-shore Rio de Janeiro, will not develop as rapidly as
projected, for political and technical reasons. As a consequence of theforegoing, Asia’s relative energy dependence on the Gulf will most likely
continue to rise, even as that of other regions plateaus or declines. The
magnitude of Asia’s dependence on the Gulf could well, as the BP Energy
Outlook 2035 suggests, be sharply greater by 2035 than it is at present.
Those projections are presented in Figure 1-4.

13

Figure 1-4: RISING ASIAN DEPENDENCE ON THE GULF TO 2035

Source: BP Energy Outlook 2035, February 2015

For Asia, the importance of the Arabian Gulf in energy terms is thus
clear. For Japan, as a Northeast Asian nation virtually devoid of hydrocarbons, the painful economic reality is undeniable. In future years, theenergy import equation may begin to change somewhat with the
emergence of shale-gas imports from North America, and expanded
natural-gas imports from Australia’s North-West Shelf,6 or from Russia. Yet
Japan’s underlying dependence on the Gulf for the bulk of its oil is unlikely
to change significantly in the foreseeable future.

6 The Woodside-operated North West Shelf Project is Australia’s largest oil and gas resource development,

and one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producers. See the Woodwide website, at:
http://www.woodside.com.au/Our-Business-North-West-Shelf/Pages/default.aspx#.VOUV.vnF_ms.

14

Japan is, by a substantial margin, the largest importer of Gulf oil inthe world, and that has been true for more than two decades. In 1994 it
took over that position from the European Union.7 Since the early 2000s,
however, there has been growing regional competition for Arabian Gulf
resources. Most of that has come from Japan’s immediate neighbors, with
Korea being a significant importer from the Gulf since the 1970s, andChina’s imports growing explosively since the Asian financial crisis of
1997-1998, as we will note in greater detail in the following chapter.
The Geopolitical Implications of a Swing-Producer Role
Apart from the enormous supplies of energy that the Gulf supplies tothe broader world, it has also been important, since the mid-1970s, for thesystemic role it plays in global oil markets. When the price of oil gets sohigh as to encourage development of alternatives, or to cause stagnation in
consuming nations, the Gulf Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, havetypically expanded production. And when oil prices get too low, the Gulf
states have curtailed production. Through astute and self-interested
production and pricing policies for a strategically and economically vitalcommodity, the Gulf producers have perpetuated global dependence onhydrocarbons, while generally also contributing to stable economic growthin their customer nations.
7 BP Inter-Area Total Oil Movements History, 1965-2013.

15

At times Gulf Arab oil production has also, in recent years, arguably
served a fateful global geostrategic function. Following the Soviet invasionof Afghanistan in 1979, for example, and continuing into the mid-1980s,
Saudi Arabia significantly expanded its oil production, even in the face ofstagnant global demand, leading to a marked decline in global oil prices.
This decline had little impact on the Gulf Arabs themselves, due to theirmodest fiscal needs at the time, and their massive reserves. It did, however,
have painful consequences for the Soviet Union, as well as Iran and Iraq—
all of whom were major oil exporters with major military expenditures andconsequent fiscal needs. The low oil prices provoked by Gulf Arabproduction expansion, led by Saudi Arabia, grievously wounded the Soviet
Union, and arguably helped lead to its sudden collapse in 1991.
Once again, in the fall of 2014, as global energy supplies were risingin the wake of the shale-gas revolution, Saudi Arabia took energyproduction steps with a geopolitical implication. Even though oil markets
were soft, it failed to cut production, as a classic stabilizing swing producer
normally would do, leading to sharp price declines, from over $100 per
barrel of crude oil to under $50. The result was severe economic pressure
on fellow petro-states around the world with whom Saudi Arabia and theUnited States had clear differences, including particularly Russia, Iran, andVenezuela.

16

The Gulf and Global Finance
The global significance of the Arabian Gulf goes far beyond energy,
extending also into international finance. Since the Oil Shocks of the 1970s,
and the high-price era for oil which has prevailed for most of the four
ensuing decades, the Arab Gulf states have amassed and retained a major
share of international foreign exchange reserves. By the early twenty-first
century the six nations of the Arab Gulf held close to ten percent of global
foreign-exchange reserves, or more than $1 trillion, as indicated in Figure
1-5.
Figure 1-5:
A RISING CONCENTRATION OF GLOBAL RESERVES IN THE ARAB GULF

Note: “Global Total” was calculated by adding foreign reserves held by Bahrain, Brazil,
China (including Hong Kong), France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, the UAE, the UK, and the US.
Source: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics
17

The Gulf nations have held a position in international finance rivaled
only by the new industrializers of East Asia, especially China. Since 2004
the PRC’s share of world financial reserves has nearly doubled, fromaround 25 percent to fully 45 percent of the global total.8 As is clear from
Figure 1-6, the combined share of the Gulf and East Asia in global financial
reserves has been dominant ever since the 1970s, and shows prospect ofcontinuing to hold that position.
Figure 1-6:
COMBINED FINANCIAL RESERVES OF THE GCC AND NORTHEAST ASIA

Source: IMF International Financial Statistics

8 Central Intelligence Agency. The World Fact Book, 2014 edition, at:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2188rank.html.

18

It is important to remember that, in contrast to Iran, Russia, and mostother petro-states, the nations of the Arab Gulf generally have enjoyed afelicitous combination of endowments: massive hydrocarbon reserves andmodest fiscal requirements, due to their relatively small populations. The
Gulf states thus also enjoyed considerable leeway both in aligning
production to larger long-term national objectives, such as promoting
continued global reliance on hydrocarbons, and also in deciding how to
deploy their very substantial foreign-exchange reserves.
The Gulf nations can potentially recycle petro-dollars in many ways:
through foreign direct investments; by extending foreign assistance; bycontributing to collective global projects; and by expanding their security
and global roles abroad. They can, alternatively, use the petro-dollars
gained from exports to expand consumption at home. Domestic claims on
oil and gas revenue have steadily risen since the Oil Shocks of the 1970s,
and will continue to rise. Yet compared to destabilizing petro-states like
Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, the nations of the Arab Gulf have the flexibility
to play an enlightened global role—a point we will develop later in greater
detail.99 On the distinction between “stabilizing” and “destabilizing” petro-states, see Kent E. Calder. The New

Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First Century Eurasian Geopolitics. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2012, pp. 117-121.

19

The nations of the Arab Gulf use various institutional means to recycle their formidable assets, but one of the most significant vehicles, froma global standpoint, is the sovereign wealth fund (SWF).10 Rather thanmechanically investing government surpluses in key-currency government
securities, as the central banks and finance ministries of surplus nations
have traditionally done, sovereign wealth funds typically deploy theirassets much more broadly, investing in both public and private debt, as
well as a wide range of equities worldwide. As indicated in Table 1-1, theSWFs of the Arab Gulf are some of the largest in the world, together withthose in the Far East. Together, the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf andNortheast Asia include nine of the top ten SWFs worldwide. Significantly,
Japan is the one major surplus nation that does not have a sovereignwealth fund.

10 On sovereign wealth funds, see Gordon L. Clark, Adam D. Dixon, and Ashley H.B. Monk. Sovereign

Wealth Funds: Legitimacy, Governance, and Global Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.

20

Table 1-1: MAJOR SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS OF THE WORLD:THE KEY ROLES OF THE ARAB GULF AND EAST ASIA
Ranking

Country

Sovereign Wealth Fund Name

1

NorwayGovernment Pension Fund-Global

Assets$ Billion$ 893.0

2

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority$ 773.0

SAMA Foreign Holdings$757.2

4

UAE-Abu
Dhabi
Saudi
ArabiaChina

China Investment Corporation$652.7

5

China

SAFE Investment Company$567.96

KuwaitKuwait Investment Authority$548.07

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Investment Portfolio$400.28

ChinaHong
Kong
Singapore$320.09

Qatar

Government of Singapore Investment
Corporation
Qatar Investment Authority

10
11
12
13

National Social Security Fund
Temasek Holdings
Australian Future Fund
Abu Dhabi Investment Council$240.0$177.0$95.0$90.0

Reserve Fund
Korea Investment Corporation

$88.9
$84.7

National Welfare Fund
Samruk-Kazyna JSC
Revenue Regulation Fund
Kazakhstan national FundInternational Petroleum investment
Company
International Petroleum Investment
Company
Libyan Investment Authority

$79.9
$77.5
$77.2
$77.0
70.0

22

China
Singapore
Australia
UAE-Abu
Dhabi
RussiaSouth
Korea
RussiaKazakhstan
Algeria
Kazakhstan
UAE- Abu
Dhabi
UAE- Abu
Dhabi
Libya

23

Iran

National Development Fund of Iran

$62.0

24

UAE-Abu
Dhabi
US –Alaska

Mubadala Development Company$60.9

Alaska Permanent Fund

$51.7

3

14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21

25

Note: East Asian SWFs are in bold and Arab Gulf SWFs in bold plus italics.
Source: Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.
21$256.0

$68.4
$66.0

The Arab Gulf and Global Policy Agendas
Until the early 1970s, the nations of the Arab Gulf played only
marginal roles as global agenda setters. Pax Americana was strong--in all
its military, political, economic, and financial dimensions—and Western
institutions dominated global media as well. To the extent that alternate
agendas existed, they came from the Soviet Union or broad groups of nonaligned nations based outside the Islamic world, such as the Bandung
Conference or the Group of 77.
Events conspired over the ensuing decades, to create a much morediverse global agenda-setting process, in which the Arab Gulf has come toplay a significant role. First, the break-up of the Bretton Woods system,
ensuing currency realignment, and the Oil Shocks of the 1970s magnified
the leverage of surplus countries, such as Germany, Japan, and the oil
producers. Iran was marginalized by its 1979 revolution, but the Gulf Arabs
remained in the global mainstream, with rising resources—both physicaland financial-- to deploy. The Afghan conflict of the 1980s; the Gulf War of
1991, in which American superpower and its allies intervened on theirbehalf; and the ensuing collapse of the Soviet Union all enhanced the global
importance of the Gulf Arab states, and their leeway to play a moreproactive and substantial role on the international stage.

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Following “9/11”, the credibility of the Arab Gulf on global issues wasthrown into question in some quarters by the suspect role of their civilsocieties, especially that of Saudi Arabia, in fomenting Islamic
fundamentalism. Later in the decade of the 2000s, however, the proactiverole of Gulf Arab elites in contributing to global education, communication,and cultural advance became clear. Major trans-regional linkages between
Western universities, art museums, mass media, and sporting events, on
the one hand, and Gulf benefactors on the other began to emerge, bringing
the Gulf into an increasingly central role within the world community.
Over the past decade, fiscal constraints in the West have alsoenhanced the leverage of the Arab Gulf. Burdened by interminable wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and a resulting mountain of debt totaling $4-6 trillion,
or around 30 percent of US GDP,11 the United States became moreamenable—and indeed insistent—on regional burden-sharing. The
proactive roles that Qatar, and recently the UAE have begun to play since2011, on security issues ranging from Libya and Syria to combatting theIslamic State, have demonstrated the Gulf’s rising regional influence andinterdependence with the West.

11 Figures from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s 2013 report on the cost of the

Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, as follows: Global Research News, “US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6
trillion”, September 20, 2013, at: http://www.globalresearc.ca/us-wars-in-afghanistan-Iraq-to-cost-6trillion/5350789. According to the Harvard report, a $5 trillion war cost would represent roughly 20
percent of the total amount added to the US national debt between 2001 and 2012.

23

On the world stage, the Gulf nations, as well as Gulf civil institutions,have also become more proactive in their agenda-setting efforts. Al Jazeera,
based in Qatar, has emerged as a major global media outlet, with asignificant presence in the United States, since buying Current TV from its
founder, former Vice President Al Gore, in January, 2013.12 The UAE has
also substantially expanded its public diplomacy in Washington, D.C.,
ranking as the fifth-most active lobbying nation in the US national capital in2014,13 and unveiling the Emirates Leadership Initiative at Harvard
University’s Kennedy School of Government.14 Similarly, Qatar developed amajor strategic partnership with the Brookings Institution in Washington,
D.C.15 Both countries also successfully invited major American universities
to establish campuses on their soil.
In Conclusion
A century ago, the Arab Gulf was known mainly for its pearl oysters
and abundant fishing grounds. Five decades ago its global role was still
marginal. Yet spurred by the historic transformation of world affairs since
12 The reported sale price was $500 million for Current TV, in which Gore held a 20 percent interest. See“Al Gore sells Current TV to Al-Jazeera, nets reported $100 million”, FoxNews.com, January 3, 2013, at:
http://www.foxnews.com.
13 Kent E. Calder. Asia in Washington: Exploring the Penumbra of Trans-National Power. Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution Press, 2014, p. 91.
14 The Emirates Leadership Initiative provides full-tuition scholarships at the Kennedy School, plus healthinsurance and a living stipend, for up to ten candidates a year from the UAE and other Arab countries. It
was funded by a gift of $15 from the government of the UAE. See Emirates News Agency, “HKS launches
Emirates Leadership Initiative”, November 10, 2014, at:https://www.warm.ae/en/news/emirates/1395290700925.html.
15 The Qatar Brookings project involved a $14.8 million donation, over four years, to Brookings, which
also has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a major project on US relations with Islamic world.

24

the early 1970s, due to the breakup of Bretton Woods, two tumultuous Oil
Shocks, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and other momentous
developments, the Gulf has gained greatly enhanced centrality in world
affairs.
The Arab Gulf has a naturally potent role on the global energy stage,
flowing from its dominant share of world hydrocarbon reserves. As global
growth proceeds, fueled by the rise of the teeming populations of China,
India, and Southeast Asia, energy demand will almost inevitably surge, and
the Gulf, as low-cost producer, will no doubt benefit greatly. Most nations of
the Arab Gulf have low populations and massive reserves, so they shouldgrow even more wealthy, although the scale of their future windfalls will belimited by rising domestic needs as well.
As the Gulf’s affluence rises, its global significance naturallytranscends energy alone, and moves into finance. The Gulf has alreadybecome one of the two great creditor regions of the world, and that pattern
has solidified. Over the past decade the role of the Gulf has expanded evenbeyond finance and energy into global policy cooperation and global
agenda-setting. Although the Gulf’s future contribution in that complex
realm remains uncertain, it is a topic of major importance for all the world,
and a major focus of the research to follow.

25

CHAPTER TWO:
CLASSICAL CONFIGURATIONS: THE U.S. AND JAPAN IN THE GULF
The world needs oil, and the ultimate source of hydrocarbons is in
the Gulf. So the Arabian Gulf has self-evident global geo-economic
importance, as we saw in Chapter One. The Gulf also, as will see in Chapter
Two, has particular importance for the United States and Japan, although indifferent ways for the two countries. We will explore the contrasting
importance of the Gulf for the two countries along three dimensions:energy, security, and development assistance. Through this inventory, we
will gain deeper insight into the complementary capabilities of the US andJapan in the Gulf, and into how those unilateral capabilities might bemobilized or realigned to support emerging common needs.
EnergyAs we have seen, a remarkable share of the world’s conventionalhydrocarbon reserves are concentrated in the Arabian Gulf—roughly halfof the conventional oil and two fifths of the conventional gas provenreserves on earth. The massive scale of reserves, and the limited scale oflocal demand in the Gulf mean that reserve to production ratios are
extremely high. As indicated in Figure 2-1, so-called “R/P ratios” in the Gulfare extremely long. At current rates of production, the reserves of Kuwait

26

will last 115 years, those of the UAE almost 108 years, and those of Saudi
Arabia nearly 75 years.
Figure 2-1: THE CONCENTRATION OF HIGH OIL R/P RATIOS IN THE GULF

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2014

Given the heavy concentration of conventional oil reserves in the Gulf,
the relatively low level of local demand, and its substantial accumulated
financial resources, the largest of the Gulf producers, Saudi Arabia, hastraditionally wielded considerable leverage over global oil prices. Ever
since the early 1970s, when the United States became a major oil importer,
Saudi Arabia has wielded formidable market power over crude oil prices,
forcing them upward by curtailing production, and downward by
expanding production. Saudi production decisions have, through their27

impact on global oil prices, also had major geopolitical consequences—helping to bankrupt the oil-exporting Soviet Union in the late 1980s, forexample, leading to its ultimate collapse at the end of 1991.
Japan and the United States contrast sharply in their relative
dependence on both oil and gas supplies from the Gulf. Japan has virtually
no domestic oil or gas reserves. It imports well over 80 percent of its total
oil consumption, and 30 percent of its natural gas, from the Arabian Gulf
alone, as indicated in Figure 2-2a.
Figure 2-2: US-JAPAN ASYMMETRIES IN GULF ENERGY DEPENDENCEa) Japanese Energy Dependence on the Gulf

Source: Crude oil data: International Energy Agency, Oil Information, 2014; LNG data:
International Gas Union, World LNG Report, 2014 Edition.

28

The United States, by contrast, imports only 15 percent of its oil. Of
that import share, only 19 percent comes from the Arabian Gulf, as
indicated in Figure 2-2b. Furthermore, the US is virtually self-sufficient ingas.16 Indeed, the U.S. will begin exporting shale gas from Louisiana early in2016.
Figure 2-2: b) America’s Diversified Energy Supplies

Source: Crude oil data: IEA, Oil Information, 2014; LNG data: IGU, World LNG Report,
2014 Edition.

Overall, Japan imports well over 90 percent of its energy, as indicatedin Figure 2-2c, whereas the US imports under 10 percent. And US importdependence has been declining steadily, thanks to expanding shale gas andshale oil production, since around 2005. Meanwhile, since 2011 Japanese
import dependence has been rising sharply, due to the closure of nuclear
plants following the Fukushima accident. Japan, in short, is growing
16 Statistics from the World Bank and the International Energy Agency.

29

increasingly Gulf-dependent in energy since Fukushima, even as the US
moves in the opposite direction.
Figure 2-2:c) US-Japan Energy Dependence in Comparative Perspective (1960-2012)

Source: World Bank, “World Development Indicators”

Japan’s Prominent Role as a Gulf Customer
As a consequence of Japan’s heavy Gulf dependence, and the massive
size of its economy, that country also enjoys remarkable yet poorly
understood market preeminence in the Arabian Gulf. Overall, at the end of2013 it remained the largest importer in the world from the Gulf, as
indicated in Figure 2-3a. Its imports of goods from the Gulf, almost allhydrocarbons, were larger than those of China, India, the European Union,or the United States. On the Arab side of the Gulf, Japan’s preeminence was
especially pronounced, since China’s imports were much more heavily
oriented toward Iran than those of Japan. This is demonstrated in Figure 230

3b. The gap between Gulf exports to Japan and exports to China remains
large when Iran and Iraq are excluded from the calculation.
Figure 2-3: NATIONAL SHARES OF ARABIAN GULF EXPORTS OF GOODSa) Arabian Gulf Exports of Goods, including Iran

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics

31b) Arabian Gulf Exports of Goods, Japan vs. China

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics

Gulf exports (mostly oil and gas) to Japan and China have evolved inrather different and strategically important ways, as indicated in Figure 2-4.
Total Japanese and Chinese imports from the Gulf have correlated very
closely ever since the early 1980s. Japanese imports, however, are drawn
much more heavily from the six GCC nations, while China has imported
more extensively from Iran and Iraq. The gap in low Japanese and highChinese reliance on Iran and Iraq has deepened sharply since 2010, due to(1) sanctions against Iran (which Japan has observed more rigorously); and32

(2) Iraq’s decision to grant new oil leases, from which China has benefited
more extensively than Japan.
There is some significant variation in Japan’s reliance on particularoil producing nations—a variation which has broader geopolitical
implications. Despite Tokyo’s longstanding friendly relations with Iran,which date back to the days of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Japan
has cut back sharply on oil imports from Iran since 2008-2009, in solidarity
with Western sanctions against the Iranian nuclear program. It does,
however, retain heavy dependence on Saudi Arabia (34 percent); the UAE(24 percent); and Qatar (11 percent) in oil; and Qatar (18 percent) inliquefied natural gas.17
Japan is a particularly important customer for Qatar (LNG) and theUAE, taking 31 and 24 percent respectively of national exports in the twocases, as indicated in Figure 2-4. As Figure 2-4 also suggests, Japan is amore important market than China for most of the Gulf Arab states—except
Oman, where the reverse is true. For Saudi Arabia, the importance of Japanand China as markets is almost evenly matched, although Chinese oil
imports from Saudi Arabia have been growing very rapidly of late, due tosanctions against Iran.

17 BP. Review of World Energy, 2014 edition.

33

Figure 2-4:
CONTRASTING PATTERNS OF JAPAN-CHINA TRADE WITH THE GULF

Source: Observatory of Economic Complexity by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

American energy relations with the Gulf are much simpler than thoseof Japan or China. Fundamentally, the only Gulf nation from whom the US
imports significant amounts of oil or gas directly is Saudi Arabia. The US
military, however, does have more significant energy relationships with theGulf, through its non-US operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Indeed, the Gulf has been a major supplier of US military operations abroad
ever since the Korean War.18

18 On US military reliance on Persian Gulf oil, see Michael A. Palmer. Guardian of the Gulf: A History ofAmerica’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992. New York: The Free Press, 1992, p. 45ff.

34

Security
In the security realm, it is the United States which has traditionallyplayed the preeminent role in the Gulf, even though its energy imports
from that region have been modest, especially compared to Japan. It began
playing a significant role in Gulf security during World War II, when it
funneled substantial Lend-Lease supplies into the Soviet Union via Iran,and provided financial assistance to the Iranian government. It was British
and Soviet forces that actually occupied Iran, beginning in August, 1941,
but the United States played a significant role behind the scenes.19
On the Arab side of the Gulf, the US security role began with thehistoric meeting between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdul Aziz,
aboard the frigate Quincy, in the Great Bitter Lake segment of the Suez
Canal during February, 1945.20 Shortly thereafter the US opened a SAC
airbase at Dhahran in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and in 1947 asmall naval base in Bahrain, with Manama ultimately becoming theheadquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. Britain, however, remained thepreeminent outside political-military power in the Gulf until after the
independence of Kuwait (1961); and Oman (1964); as well as Qatar,

19 On World War II US and Anglo-Russian involvement in Iran, see Nikki R. Keddie. Modern Iran: Rootsand Results of Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003, pp. 105-131.
20 “Today in History: King Abdulaziz, and President Roosevelt Meeting”, at: http://susris.com.

35

Bahrain, and the UAE in 1971.21 It was not until Saddam’s invasion of
Kuwait in August, 1990 that the US significantly expanded its direct
military presence in the Gulf and its environs.
The low profile of the United States in the Arabian Gulf until 1990
may seem paradoxical, given the large American investments in the Aramco
oil consortium in Saudi Arabia, and the growing importance of Gulf oil andgas to American allies in Europe and East Asia. Yet it was not accidental.
For many years, especially during the Nixon and Ford administrations(1969-1977), US security interests were represented by proxy through the
Shah of Iran. This was complemented by powerful carrier-based naval
forces in the Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea.
After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the US accelerated developmentof its important air and naval base at Diego Garcia, 2500 miles south of the
Gulf in the Indian Ocean. It also created a Rapid Deployment Force, based in
the continental United States, which was explicitly tasked with responding
to Middle East contingencies. Yet Washington did not expand its basing
network in the Arab Gulf region until 1990, in part due to the delicacy of
positioning US forces in the heart of the Arab world, while the US also still
maintained strong relations with Israel.

2121 Shohei Sato, “Britain’s Decision to Withdraw from the Persian Gulf, 1964-1968: A Pattern and a

Puzzle”, at: http://koochehcdn.33.amazonaws.com.

36

Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait showed the apparent need for amore immediate and direct American presence in the Gulf. Following the
Gulf War of 1991, the US expanded its local basing network to include US
Army facilities in Kuwait; a new US Air Force base at al-Udeid in Qatar; anddiscreet use of Prince Bandar Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia; together withintensified use of Incirlik AFB in Turkey, in support of the northern Iraq nofly zone, intended to inhibit Saddam’s suppression of the Kurds.22
Responding to local fundamentalist backlash in Saudi Arabia, the US
relocated from its sprawling facilities at Prince Bandar, but has maintained
its expanded presence elsewhere in the Gulf.
Japan has not had an extensive military presence in the Gulf, but thepresence that it does have, both in the Gulf and in its environs, has
increased remarkably since the end of the Gulf War. Japaneseminesweepers deployed to the Gulf in the spring of 1991, moving west of
the Strait of Malacca for the first time in Japanese post-World War II history.
Following the “9/11” terrorist attacks on the United States, Prime Minister
Koizumi sent Maritime Self Defense forces to the Indian Ocean on an
ongoing basis, where they remained until January, 2010. Japan has also
actively participated in anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean and the
Gulf of Aden since 2009, and operates a de facto naval base at Djibouti, near
22 On Arabian Gulf-related basing of the US military, see Kent E. Calder. Embattled Garrisons, p. 29 and pp.

51-52.

37

the entrance to the Red Sea, which involves Japan’s first status of forces
agreement (SOFA) of the postwar era. Other political-military options are
emerging for Japan in the environs of the Gulf that will be discussed infuture chapters. Suffice it to say here that Japan’s security involvement in
the Middle East is highly dynamic, with public support rising, following thebrutal murder of two Japanese citizens, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, inJanuary, 2015.
Diplomatic Engagement and Overseas Development Assistance
As in the political-military field, US diplomatic involvement in the
Gulf has historically been much more intense than in the case of Japan. The
key political driver of this involvement has for at least four decades no
doubt been the security of Israel. It is important to remember also,
however, that in the early days of Israel’s existence the US was distinctly
ambivalent about supporting it; the major arms supplier in Israel’s 1948
war of independence, for example, was Communist Czechoslovakia. 23
During the 1956 Suez conflict it was Britain and France that conspired with
Israel to attack Egypt, which had nationalized the Suez Canal; and it was theEisenhower administration that pressured the Israelis to withdraw. The US
did not formally recognize Israeli gains in the Six Day War of 1967,
23 Czechoslovakia provided assistance to Israel in the name of the USSR-, and its instructions. See Aryeh

Dayan, “The Communists who saved the Jewish state”. Czechoslovakia provided assistance to Israel in thename of the USSR, and under its instructions! See also Aryet Dayan, “The Communists who saved theJewish state”, Haaretz, May 9, 2010.

38

including the unification of Jerusalem, and pressed the Israelis to surrendertheir gains on the west side of the Suez Canal in 1973 as well. So although
the US has armed and re-supplied Israel at crucial moments, in a pattern ofintensified defense cooperation since the late 1960s, it has also pressured
Israel for concessions, and striven to keep open lines of communication to
key leaders in the Gulf.
For more than three decades, from the Iranian Revolution of 1979
until the Arab Spring (2011), American diplomacy in the Middle East
focused on securing the support of Egypt, Turkey, and Israel—consequential nations along the Mediterranean coast, as noted in Figure 25. In Turkey and Egypt, Western-oriented militaries were powerful, andoriented toward close ties to the West; they turned a blind eye to close USIsraeli cooperation, and even at times engaged in tacit cooperation with
Israel themselves, since all had strong anti-terrorist concerns. Indeed,
Turkey, the US, and Israel engaged regularly in joint military exercises until
2009.24

24 Following Israel’s December 2008 invasion of Gaza and subsequent occupation and blockade of that

territory, Turkey cancelled the international component of “Anatolian Eagle”, in which Israeli forces were
to have exercised alongside, and NATO forced. It did not invite Israel to observe Anatolian Eagle 2010 orsubsequent maneuvers. See Chris Zambelis, “Sino-Turkish Strategic Partnership: Implications ofAnatolian Eagle 2010”, Jamestown Review, January 14, 2011, at: http//www.jamestown.org.

39

Figure 2-5: US REGIONAL ALLIES, 1979-2011: EGYPT, TURKEY, AND ISRAEL

Following the Arab Spring of 2011, these dynamics significantly
changed. Egypt and Turkey, with Islamist governments, dropped out of theimplicit US-oriented coalition, isolating Israel. Saudi Arabia, alarmed atuprisings around its periphery, including Bahrain, as well as the rise of Iran,increased military spending, and intensified pressure against liberalelements, as in Qatar. Ultimately a military coup in Egypt during July, 2013,
together with the rise of the radical fundamentalist Islamic State inhibited
liberal tendencies across the Arab world, except Tunisia, although theyfailed to restore the US-oriented trilateral coalition of the previous several
decades. Although the Obama administration has prevailed variously on
the UAE, Jordan, and Qatar, among others, in its search for diplomatic40

cooperation, the stability and predictability of earlier years has been fading,while US relations with Israel have eroded as well.
Japan has of course not been as involved with the Gulf andsurrounding areas diplomatically as has the United States. And it has lacked
the military presence that has given leverage to US policy. Yet Japan has
built on a positive heritage of goodwill in the region. Its stable, predictablerole as a large-scale energy consumer; its lack of imperialist pretensions;and its generous development-assistance program, all provide building
blocks for a more substantial and proactive future role.
Japanese diplomacy and overseas development assistance have notgenerally focused directly on the Gulf, except during the Gulf War of 1991,
when they provided important support to US forces and those of allied
Arab nations.25 Yet Japanese development assistance has neverthelessplayed an important role in stabilizing poorer nations around the peripheryof the Arabian Gulf, in whom both the US and the Arab Gulf states havespecial strategic interest. As noted in Table 2-1, the largest Japanesebilateral grants have gone to Afghanistan, Morocco, Palestine, Turkey, andYemen, in that order. Three of these five (Afghanistan, Palestine, andYemen) are potentially unstable, and therefore countries where Japanesepeace-building efforts can be particularly constructive. Conversely, Japan
25 Courtney Purrington, “Tokyo’s Policy Responses During the Gulf War and the Impact of the ‘Iraqi Shock’on Japan”, Pacific Affairs, Volume 65, No. 2, Summer, 1992, pp. 161-181.

41

has been recalling loans in Iran and Syria--countries where theinternational community, including the United States, has been counsellinga retrenched position, involving sanctions. Japanese ODA to the Middle Eastis thus supporting major Western geopolitical ends.
Table 2-1: JAPAN’S BILATERAL ODA TO MIDDLE EASTERN NATIONS, 2012
Recipient Country
Afghanistan
MoroccoWest Bank and Gaza
TurkeyYemen, Rep.
Iran, Islamic Rep.
Syrian Arab Republic

Amount of ODA (current US$)873,580,000
76,420,000
73,050,000
33,500,000
24,670,000
17,540,000
6,320,000

Source: Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Japan (current US$), World Bank,
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DC.DAC.JPNL.CD

IN CONCLUSIONThe United States and Japan interact with the nations of the Arab Gulfalong three dimensions: energy, security, and diplomacy/development
assistance. As we have seen, their respective roles are contrasting in eachof the three. Japan is deeply interdependent with the Gulf in energy—
indeed, at the end of 2013, Japan was the largest customer in the world for
Gulf nations, in both oil and liquefied natural gas. For its part, Japan
imported well over 80 percent of its entire oil consumption from the Gulf,
while the US got only a tenth of its oil from that source.

42

In the security and diplomatic spheres, a different, and paradoxical,
asymmetry appears. Despite Japan’s heavy energy reliance on the Gulf, it
has a remarkably low diplomatic profile there. Tokyo’s political-militarypresence in and around the Gulf has been increasing steadily since the Gulf
War of 1991, when it was virtually non-existent, with the MSDF’s new baseat Djibouti being a major element thereof. Japanese development assistanceto unstable areas such as Afghanistan, Palestine, and Yemen does
contribute significantly to peace-building in the region, but the imbalance
between Japan’s massive energy security stakes and its limited politicalmilitary presence in and around the Gulf still remains.

43

CHAPTER THREE:THE ENERGY SEA LANES IN GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT
Today the sea lanes from the Strait of Hormuz, across the Arabian Sea
and the Indian Ocean to the Strait of Malacca and beyond to Northeast Asia
carry fully one third of the oil and LNG moving in international trade.26 And
that substantial share will doubtless rise still higher in coming years. Yet
the massive Asian sea-borne energy trade, invested with geopoliticalconsequences of increasing global import, was virtually non-existent sixty
years ago.
Hydrocarbons began rising in industrial and strategic importanceearly in the twentieth century, as the Motor Age, and the era of oil-fueled
steamships, began.27 The Arabian Gulf began emerging as a promisingsource of hydrocarbons not long after, but there was little intercourse with
Asia until well after World War II. The Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia,
was a major energy exporter within the East Asian region, and its
seemingly plentiful reserves appeared sufficient for the limited needs of astill economically stagnant part of the world.
The US military, during the Korean War, provided the first
substantial energy link between East Asia and the Middle East. The United
26 Charles Emmerson and Paul Stevens. Maritime Choke Points and the Global Energy System: Charting a

Way Forward. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, January , 2012, at:
http://www.chathamhouse.org.
27 On the early history of energy usage in modern industrial society, including the Asian dimension, see
Daniel Yergin. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Free Press, 1991.

44

States itself imported only insignificant amounts of Middle East oil until the
1970s, and sources less than 20 percent of its overall imports from the Gulfeven today. Yet the US armed forces, with their necessarily global
orientation, were much quicker to capitalize on Gulf supplies. From 1946 to1950, for example, between 30 and 42 percent of the petroleum products
moved by the US Navy originated in the Arabian Gulf.28
When war suddenly came to Korea in June, 1950, there was thus
already an established tradition of US military supply from Gulf
refineries—mainly in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. That proclivity wascompounded by rising post-World War II civilian demand within the US
itself for State-side supplies. Furthermore, the Arabian Gulf was closer tothe war zone than State-side suppliers; the Iranian side of the Gulf, whileconveniently situated, was controlled first by the British, and then the antiUS Mosaddegh regime. Thus, the Korean War became the first conflict inAmerican history where the energy supplies for US forces were sourced
outside the mainland United States. And those off-shore supplies cameoverwhelmingly from the Arabian Gulf itself.29

28 See US Navy. Logistics Summary Reports, Logistics Reports, Command Files, OA, cited in Michael A.

Palmer. Guardian of the Gulf: A History of America’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992. New
York: The Free Press, 1992, p. 270.
29 For additional details, see James A. Field. A History of United States Naval Operations in Korea.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962, especially pp. 383-384.

45

The original catalyst for Asian dependence on the Arabian Gulf camefrom the US military, to be sure, and American forces have continued torely heavily on the Gulf for oil supplies ever since the Korean War. Yet the
deep structural dependence of Asia’s economy on the Gulf was created by
US and Japanese firms during the 1950s and 1960s, under the watchful eyeof MITI, Japan’s trade ministry.30 Some early steps were taken byindependent, entrepreneurial Japanese firms like Idemitsu Kosan, whichbroke the Western embargo on oil imports from Iran, after Mosaddegh
nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951; and the Arabian Oil
Company, which landed important concessions in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
during 1958 and shortly thereafter. Major Western multinationals
participating in the Aramco joint venture in Saudi Arabia, particularly
Mobil Oil and Esso of New Jersey (now amalgamated as Exxon-Mobil), also
helped to deepen the energy relations between Northeast Asia and the
Middle East, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s.
Japanese energy ties to the Arabian Gulf expanded rapidly in the
1960s, since Japanese energy demand was growing at double-digit rates,with both heavy industries like petrochemicals and consumer sectors like
autos expanding rapidly. MITI was also encouraging domestic Japanese
30 MITI, of course, stands for “Ministry of International Trade and Industry.” On this development, see

Chalmers Johnson. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982, p. 297; andChalmers Johnson. Japan’s Public Policy Companies. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute,1978. The formal appellation “MITI” was changed to “METI” (Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry)in 2000.

46

reliance on Middle Eastern oil, which was cheap and seemingly easy toobtain. Such reliance on far-away sources also stimulated the growth ofother priority sectors of the day, such as shipping and shipbuilding.
Korea followed along much the same path of Middle East oil relianceas Japan, with the ROK’s economy also growing rapidly following theinterest-rate reforms and Korea-Japan normalization of 1965. Rapidly
rising demand from Japan and Korea together helped to tighten global oil
markets during the late 1960s, contributing to the Oil Shocks of the 1970s.
The flow of hydrocarbons eastward from the Strait of Hormuz, however,
did not decline. From the third quarter of 1993, China also became an
importer, with its oil supplies from the Gulf rising rapidly after the Asianfinancial crisis of 1997-1998. Today the PRC imports slightly over three
million barrels daily from the Gulf; together with Japan’s three million plus,
India’s 1.5 million; and Korea’s one million, energy flows to Asia havebecome the Arabian Gulf’s most important single economic undertaking.31

Geopolitical Profile of the Energy Sea Lanes
As indicated in Figure 3-1, the sea lanes that bring invaluable energy
supplies from the Arabian Gulf and other distant suppliers to the nations of
31 At the end of 2013, Japan was still, by a small margin, the largest importer of Gulf oil, at 3.310 million

barrels/day, compared to 3.262 million barrels/day for China.

47

Asia are lengthy, with the distance from the Gulf to the furthest major
import points (Pusan and Yokohama) being almost 10,000 kilometers.32 Yet
those sea lanes are not homogeneous in geopolitical terms. Analysts
normally speak generically about the “energy sea lanes”, to the extent thatthey focus on those important economic arteries at all. Yet it is important todistinguish much more precisely among different sub-units of these longtrade arteries, since different sections raise very distinct geopolitical andpolitical-military issues that need analytical separation.
Figure 3-1: GEOPOLITICAL PROFILE OF THE ENERGY SEA LANES

32 Yokohama is 9656 kilometers from the Strait of Hormuz. Mumbai is only 1100 kilometers from Hormuz,

while the US East Coast is around 13,000 kilometers away. On the details, see Kent E. Calder. The New
Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First Century Eurasian Geopolitics. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2012, p. 34.

48

It seems appropriate to distinguish five geopolitically distinct segmentsof the sea lanes between Northeast Asia and the Arabian Gulf, which might
appropriately be called “theaters”. These segments can be differentiated interms of their geographic distance from the large Asian powers (China andIndia); and the political-military capabilities in each theater of the major
powers that bring forces to bear in the sea lanes (China, Japan, Korea, India,
and the United States). As will become clear through concrete analysis, therelative leverage of the major powers, including the United States, varies
sharply with the geopolitical terrain, and it is difficult to generalize
sweepingly about either influence in the sea lanes between Northeast Asiaand the Gulf, or conditions for maintaining and enhancing such influence.
(1)

The East China Sea. This is the portion of the energy sea lanes

closest to China itself, lying immediately offshore its most populated
centers, including Shanghai, its largest city. Taiwan is also close by,
only 180 kilometers across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China’s
economic heartland. This is the portion of the energy sea lanes from
Northeast Asia to the Gulf that is most sensitive to China, from asecurity standpoint, and also the portion where Chinese power
projection capabilities are strongest, through its brown-water navy;49

its land-based Second Artillery Force; and its missile-centric areaaccess denial capabilities.33(2)

The South China Sea. This is marginally less central to Chinese

security than the East China Sea, as it is further removed from the
Chinese heartland. Yet it is nevertheless an area close to China where
Chinese presence, power projection capability, and territorial claims
have been expanding rapidly of late.34 Chinese land-based
capabilities, oriented toward missile-intensive area-access denial
against US naval assets, come into play, as in the East China Sea.
Additionally, one of China’s major naval bases is located at
Zhanjiang in southern Hainan. China has also built a major airfield in
the Paracel Islands, taken from South Vietnam in 1974, andestablished all-weather, semi-permanent structures atop small atolls,
to strengthen its claims on Scarborough and Mischief Reef, also
claimed by the Philippines.35 In early 2015, it also moved
aggressively to reinforce its claims through large-scale land-fill

33 Greg Chaffin. Building an Active, Layered Defense: Chinese Naval and Air Force Advancement.

Washington, D.C.: National Bureau for Asian Research, September 10, 2012, at: http://nbr.org.
34 See Robert D. Kaplan. Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. New York:
Random House, 2014.
35 In 1995 the PRC built makeshift structures on Mischief Reef, and upgraded them in 1999. In 2012 thePhilippines conceded a ten-week military standoff to China by withdrawing its naval vessels from waters
surrounding Scarborough Reef, although it has not retracted its territorial claims. In March, 2014, theChinese Coast Guard began disrupting access by the Philippines to its naval outpost on Second Thomas
Shoal. See Ely Ratner. Learning the Lessons of Scarborough Reef. Washington, D.C.: Center for a New
American Security, at: http://www.cnas.org; and US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Report to the Congress, November, 2014, at: http://origin.www.uscc.org.

50

operations on at least five tiny reefs, including Fiery Cross.36
Emerging Chinese air power and amphibious capabilities, including
para-military and coast guard, as well as PLA-N, are well-suited to the
topography of the South China Sea, as are US Wasp-class amphibious
assault ships, as well as the Japanese Hyuga and Izumo-classhelicopter-destroyers.
(3)

The Indian Ocean. This portion of the energy sea lanes to theGulf is a region of un-assailed American geopolitical dominance, due
to overwhelming US blue-water capabilities. The United States has
eleven full-scale carrier battle groups, one of them deployed in Japan,
while none of the other powers of the region have any at all. China
has recently done sea trials on its single carrier, the Liaoning, but the
PLA-Navy still lacks critical support capabilities for its carrier, or
adequate training for its carrier pilots. China does have rising
submarine capabilities that could pose an increasing asymmetricchallenge to US blue-water capabilities, but its own lack of carriers
will be a continuing weakness for several years to come, in the view

36 China is apparently converting tiny reefs, once barely visible above water, into islands large enough tohandle military hardware, personnel, and recreation centers for workers. On Fiery Cross Reef, it isbuilding a runway expected to be around 10,000 feet long. See, for example, Helene Cooper and Jane
Perlez, “U.S. Flies Over a Chinese Project at Sea, and Beijing Objects”, New York Times, May 22, 2015.

51

of many specialists.37 India also has a small carrier, like the Chinese,but is similarly lacking in support capabilities.
In addition to its carriers, the United States also has theadvantage of a major base at Diego Garcia, in the depths of the Indian
Ocean, with major integrated naval and air capabilities, as well as
pre-positioned equipment and munition stores. Diego is a principal
supply facility of the Maritime Sealift Command (MSC). The MSC
supports the US Rapid Deployment Force in the Middle East, and isused jointly by the US Navy and US Air Force, although formallylocated in the British Indian Ocean Territory. Diego is also one of fivecontrol bases worldwide for the Global Positioning System, operated
by the US military.
The facilities at Diego were built during the late 1970s and the1980s, with construction accelerated by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
It will likely require little incremental capital expenditure for many
years to come.38 These bases allow the United States to project power
four-thousand kilometers northward, into the heart of the Middle
East, at remarkably low cost; neither China or India, nor any other

37 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Report to the Congress: Executive Summary andRecommendations, November, 2014, at: http://origin.www.uscc.gov.
38 On Diego Garcia strategic capabilities, and their historical evolution, see Kent E. Calder. Embattled
Garrisons, pp. 183-187.

52

major power, have equivalent facilities in the Indian Ocean, or theprospect of gaining them.
Although the Chinese lack a military strong point analogous to
Diego Garcia, they have built a series of communications andrefueling stations popularly known as the “string of pearls”. These
outposts help to provide logistical support, as Chinese forces move toproject political-military power westward across the Indian Ocean
toward the Gulf. China has, for example, established acommunications station offshore Myanmar; as well as port facilities
in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, about which more will be said in
Chapter Seven.
(4)

The Arabian Sea. This portion of the energy sea lanes issituated west of India, east of the Arabian peninsula, and offshore
Pakistan. It lies much closer to the Indian sub-continent than it doesto China, and is an area also of major traditional American militaryactivity, especially by carrier battle groups, due to its proximity to theGulf. The Arabian Sea is hence a segment of the energy sea lanes to
the Gulf where it is still difficult for China to assert its influence.
China has, however, worked to maintain some logisticalpresence along the coast of the Arabian Sea, through the Gwadar port
in Pakistani Baluchistan, less than four hundred kilometers from the53

entrance to the Arabian Gulf. Gwadar, built with Chinese assistanceand opened by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself in 2005, is a
strategic strand in the “string of pearls” between the Strait of Malacca
and the Gulf.39 It was run by PSA International, a Singaporean portservices firm, from 2007-2012, but was recently returned to Chinese
administration.40 It currently berths both PLA-N naval vessels andcommercial ships, and could have rising strategic importance infuture, especially as infrastructure enabling over-land transshipment from Xinjiang directly across Pakistan to Gwadar becomes
more developed. 41(5)

The Strait of Hormuz and Beyond. Although the United States

maintains its major aircraft carrier strike capabilities relevant to theGulf in the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean, and its long-range airforce strike capabilities at Diego Garcia and in the continental UnitedStates, the US military has had basing facilities inside the Gulf at
Bahrain since before the Korean War. Since the Gulf War of 1991 it
has maintained Army facilities at Camp Doha in Kuwait, and a major

39 The term “string of pearls” was first used by the Pentagon, and popularized through the so-called

Marshall Report, authored by Defense Department Office of Net Assessment Director Andrew Marshall,describing prospective Chinese military threats to US strategic interests in Asia. See F. William Engdahl,“Obama’s Geopolitical China Pivot”, at: http://www.globalresearch.ca; and Dan Lamothe, “The $183,300‘Yoda’ job at the Pentagon”, Washington Post, January 2, 2015.
40 “Pakistan-China Gwadar Port deal to be struck on 18 th”, The News.Com, at:
http://www.thenews.com.pk.
41 Christopher Pehrson, “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian
Littoral”, on the US Army War College website, at: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil.

54

air base at al Udeid in Qatar; for many years it also operated a lowprofile presence in Saudi Arabia.42
China and India, by contrast, maintain no formal presence
inside the Gulf, although China since 2010 has begun engaging inperiodic military exercises with Turkey, Iran, and Russia, among
others. In 2013 the Turkish government also agreed to develop a
missile-defense system (FD-2000) within Turkish borders, incooperation with the controversial China Precision Machinery Importand Export Corporation (CPMIEC).43 In September, 2014 PLAN
warships, including a guided-missile destroyer and frigates, voyaged
to Iranian waters for the first time, to conduct joint exercises.44
Between 2011 and 2014, China and Russia engaged in three sea
exercises—held variously in the Mediterranean and the Pacific—andhave committed to two more in 2015.45
IN CONCLUSION
What is clear from a detailed review of the geopolitics of the energy
sea lanes from Northeast Asia to the Gulf is six general points:

42 On the evolution of US basing presence in the Middle East, see Kent E. Calder. Embattled Garrisons:Comparative Base Politics and American Globalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
43 Emre Tunc Sakaoglu, “Is Turkey Gravitating toward China?”, Turkish Weekly.net, March 31, 2014, at:
http://www.turkishweekly.net.
44 Sam LaGrone, “Chinese ships in Iran for Joint Exercises”, US Naval Institute, September 22, 2014, at:
http://news.usni.org.
45 Ibid.

55

(1) The relative capabilities and geopolitical influence of the major
powers engaged along the sea lanes, including the United States, China,
and India, varies substantially across the five different segments of theenergy sea lanes.
(2) Broadly speaking, China is strongest at the eastern end of the sea
lanes, close to its home waters, where its brown-water navy isoperational, but far less influential. It has much less power projection
capability, however, west of the Strait of Malacca, since it lacks a true
blue –water navy.
(3) India, by contrast, is strongest at the western end of the sea lanes,
and virtually invisible east of the Strait of Malacca, although it seems to
be developing broader, more expansive ambitions toward the east
under Prime Minister Modi. Like China, India has only brown-watercapabilities now, and for the foreseeable future.
(4) Only the United States has comprehensive capabilities to project
power along the entire length of the energy sea lanes, due to its
unrivalled blue-water navy, including eleven carrier battle groups.
(5) Maintaining US capabilities at close to current levels is a relatively
in-expensive proposition, as military expenditures go, since the major
capital investments, including the carrier battle groups and facilities at

56

Diego Garcia, have already been made. It thus seems unlikely for theforeseeable future, that fiscal constraints alone will cause major
retrenchment in American naval presence with respect to the energy sea
lanes to the Gulf.
(6) Due to the varying geopolitical character of different sea-lanesegments, however, there is a strong argument for collegial managementof the sea lanes as a US-Japan strategic objective, based on continuing US
presence and pre-eminence. This could, for example, involve joint USJapan patrolling in the sea lanes—to the Strait of Malacca and beyond.

57

CHAPTER FOUR:
THE LOGIC OF THE US-JAPAN-ARAB GULF STRATEGIC TRIANGLEOver the past five years, there has been increased attention—both
within and outside governments in both Tokyo and Washington—to thelogic of US-Japan cooperation with third parties in a variety of trilateralcontexts. Such cooperation can ease the economic burden of bilateralcommitments, prevent redundancy, and exploit complementary skills,
personal networks, and insights in the third-party partner nations. It has aparticular logic in a world of fluid alignments and deepening global
interdependence.
Between 2009 and 2012 the logic of trilateral cooperation involving
the United States and Japan, together with an additional partner, wasconcretely tested in a variety of contexts. The US State Department and its
partners in Tokyo initiated trilateral policy dialogues at the Track One level,that also included India, Australia, the Republic of Korea, the European
Union, and—at modest level—Kazakhstan and Mongolia as well. As an
indication of its seriousness regarding this concept, the East Asia andPacific Affairs Bureau of the State Department established a new high-level
position, that of Deputy-Assistant Secretary of State for Multilateral Affairs
within the EAP Bureau to address such questions in the Asian context.

58

There is clearly a powerful argument for US-Japan cooperation withrespect to the Arabian Gulf, as for several other strategic regions, in termsof the common strategic objectives that both Washington and Tokyo seek.
The two countries bring contrasting capabilities, that are, however, moving
toward greater symmetry in dynamic fashion. To realistically assess thelogic of future US-Japan trilateral cooperation with the nations of the
Arabian Gulf, it is important first to recall past patterns of involvement by
Japan and the United States in the Gulf, and to assess the heritage of pastpractice and established precedents for the future.
The History and Logic of Japan’s Involvement in the Gulf
Although Japan obtains the overwhelming share of its oil, and asignificant fraction of its natural gas, from the Arabian Gulf, its broader
equities in the region are still relatively limited, compared to Europe andthe United States. Japan’s investments in the Gulf are smaller than those ofother major industrialized nations. And the closest tangible Japanesegeopolitical presence is at Djibouti, near the mouth of the Red Sea, where
Japan maintains a Marine Self Defense Force facility, in connection with theglobal anti-piracy campaign.
To say that Japanese investments in the Gulf are small relative tothose of Europe and the United States is not by any means to say that they59are insignificant. Inpex, for example, has held a major joint-venture
investment position in Abu Dhabi for nearly half a century; the United ArabEmirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the central element in energy terms,
exports close to half of its oil production to Japan.46 Arabian Oil Corporation
held major concessions in the Neutral Zones between Saudi Arabia andKuwait, and operated a large refinery at Khafji, near the Saudi-Iraqi border,
from December, 1957 until February, 2000.47
Japan’s history of political and diplomatic involvement with the Gulf,
like its investment position, has also been traditionally limited, although attimes it has played an important substantive role. In contrast to theEuropeans and the Americans, Japan has never been an imperial or
intrusive military power in the Gulf. To the contrary, it has at times been anotable supporter of Arab or Islamic nationalism, which—together with its
historic role as the first successful non-Western modernizer—has earned
Tokyo a distinctive regional credibility.
Much of Japan’s early credibility in the Islamic world was with theTurks and the Iranians, it is certainly true. Japan is known in Turkey forhaving aided ship-wrecked Turks during the Meiji period, and was highly
regarded for having defeated Turkey’s ancestral enemy Russia during the

46 On the history and current operations of Inpex, see its corporate website, at:

http://www.inpex.co.jp/english/company/history.html.
47 See the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, at: http://www.mofa.go.jp.

60

Russo-Japanese War of 1905. For half a century and more—especially sincethe 1979 revolution-- Japan has been highly regarded in Teheran for its
tacit support of Mosaddegh following his nationalization of the Britishowned Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1951. Yet Tokyo has also gained
credit on the Arab side of the Gulf for its generous aid to the Palestinians
over the years, and even more especially for its strong financial backing of
the Gulf Cooperation Council—apart from, and in addition to the UnitedStates-- during the Gulf War of 1991.
America’s Traditional Role, and How it is Changing
Since the end of World War II the United States has been, in Michael
Palmer’s apt phrase, the political-military “guardian of the Gulf”.48 Between
1946 and 1948, it constrained Russia from occupying northern Iran, andunder the Truman Doctrine it extended economic aid to Turkey and Greece,
after the Sterling Crisis of 1947 prevented Britain from filling its traditionalrole as lender of last resort. Through covert action, Washington
destabilized and ultimately overthrew the nationalistic Mosaddegh
government in Iran in 195349; after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 it once
again worked to re-assure the Arab nations of the Gulf, with creation of a
Rapid Deployment Force (1979); reflagging of vessels exporting oil from48 See Michael A. Palmer. Guardian of the Gulf: A History of America’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf,

1833-1992. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
49 On the coup that overthrew Mosaddegh, see Stephen Kinzer. All the Shah’s Men: An Ameican Coup andthe Roots of Middle East Terror. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003.

61

Arab Gulf ports amidst the Iran-Iraq War (1986-1987); and rolling back
Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait in 1991. In 2003, of course,
the United States, supported by a “coalition of the willing”, invaded Iraq,
and overthrew Saddam’s regime entirely.
The Logic of Arab Receptivity to the US and Japan
Arab receptivity to US policies has naturally been influenced by theheritage of those policies themselves. The US has, since the Iran Revolution,
frequently intervened in the Gulf to support the Gulf Arab states. It has also
sold them massive quantities of high-performance weapons, particularly
fighter aircraft, and greatly expanded its basing presence in the region.
Despite its 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, the US military retains formal basesin Kuwait (Army—Camp Doha); Qatar (Air Force—al-Udeid Air Force
Base); and Bahrain (Navy). In 2014-15 it has also re-engaged militarily
with the Islamic State, in both Iraq and Syria.
Despite the strong defense support for friendly governments in the
Gulf that the US has provided, and the quiet backing that it receives fromlocal leaders, American security involvement in the region has continued tobe controversial with the Arab public--due in part to America’s close ties
with Israel, and with Britain—a former imperial power. US presence is also
regarded suspiciously, however, because American involvement in the62region has traditionally been so heavily military. The cultural and economic
dimensions of US relations with the Gulf nations have long been underdeveloped.
Two contradictory sets of pressures have thus been consistently
bearing on Arab leaders over the quarter century during which the US hasmaintained a substantial military presence in the Gulf: (1) pressures fromthe US itself for cooperation, especially in anti-terrorist operations; and (2)resistance from the Arab “street” to such cooperation. They have, notsurprisingly, sought means of easing the contradictions. US-Japan
cooperation with key Arab nations can, we shall argue, help to ease thesecontradictions. In doing so, it can both facilitate a more active Japanese rolein the Gulf, serving long-term Japanese interests, and also help the UnitedStates to develop a softer, lower profile, that simultaneously enhances
American influence in the region.
In Conclusion:
The Logic of Trilateral US-Japan-Gulf Arabian Cooperation
The three prospective parties to this triangle can all benefit greatly,
but only under certain conditions. To understand those, it is important tosummarize once again the areas where the relations of the three parties are
symbiotic:

631) American military power is critical to the Arab states of the Gulf, as adeterrent to Iran and as a potential combatant against radical nonstate actors such as the Islamic State. US diplomatic influence is also
useful to the Arab Gulf states as a restraint on Israeli adventurism in
the region.
2) American military presence—both in the Gulf and along the energy
sea lanes to Asia--is likewise important to Japan, as a guarantor thatvital energy supplies will flow smoothly.
3) The Arab Gulf nations, especially Qatar and the UAE, also need stableeconomic relations with Japan, which is a prime market (larger eventhan China) for the LNG and oil that they produce.
4) Japan can likewise be a useful partner to the Arab nations—both
within the Gulf and more broadly-- in a broad range of technical areas
related to soft security, including desalinization, energy efficiency,
urban planning, and transportation. In many of these spheres, as well
as food production, the combination of the US and Japan together can
be a highly appropriate configuration.
5) The joint involvement of Japan and the US in socio-economic anddisaster-preparedness projects with security relevance can help
neutralize the backlash against American involvement that is aperennial domestic political problem for Arab nations.

64

US-Japan cooperation in the Arabian Gulf and the Arc of Crisis
surrounding it, in short, has an importance that transcends the sum of its
parts, in both substantive and symbolic terms. Established American
political-military power and presence both gives enhanced credibility to
Japanese efforts and also helps expand Japan’s still developing human
network. Japanese political-economic involvement in the Gulf, conversely,
helps soften Arab resentment of what has been seen as an over-bearing,even neo-imperialist US presence, while simultaneously broadening anddeepening American development expertise in such areas as energy
efficiency and holistic program design.

65CHAPTER FIVE: EMERGING REALITIESThe US-Japan-Arab Gulf trilateral relationship has an important
intrinsic logic, as we have seen. The Gulf has massive hydrocarbon reserves,which makes it intrinsically important for Japan, a nation with few suchreserves. The Gulf is also an unstable region where tectonic geopoliticalplates meet around the fragile periphery of Israel, which makes it
intrinsically important to a global superpower like the United States. The
US and Japan have complementary economic and political-militarycapabilities, as well as common interests, that make them indispensable
partners for one another in a troubled world.
These underlying verities are clear, but they need to be applied in a
fluid, rapidly changing world. The Arabian Gulf portion of that world
exhibits five critical dimensions of change—five challenges-- to which the
US and Japan need to jointly respond. This chapter outlines those emerging
challenges, and the next one specifies the opportunities for US-Japan
cooperation that will likely emerge from confronting these challenges
seriously. One of the challenges (demography) is socio-economic; two(evolution of the GCC and relations with Iran) are political; and two (energy
and the China factor) are in their essence geopolitical.

66

A. DEMOGRAPHY
The Arab world generally, including the nations of the Gulf, has one of
the youngest and most rapidly growing populations on earth. In 2010, thepopulation of the Arab region was 357 million, having doubled since 1980.
While the global population was growing at 1.5 percent annually, the Arabworld was growing at 2.4 percent. Population was increasing fastest(among independent nations) in Yemen, at 3.7 percent, which was also thepoorest and one of the most unstable countries of the region.50 Only in subSaharan Africa was population expanding more rapidly than in the Arabworld.51
The Arab demographic challenge is not simply a matter of growing
population. More importantly, from a political-economic standpoint, it is amatter of employment. The recent surge in Arab population came primarily
in the 1980s and the 1990s, following the oil-price increases of the 1970s,
as income levels rose and health standards began to improve. Consequently,
the Arab world today has a rapidly rising cohort of young people, who also
constitute a rising share of local populations. Around 22 percent of Yemen’speople are between 19 and 28 years old—up from 18 percent in 1980. In

50 On the Arab demographic challenge, see Barry Mirkin. Arab Spring: Demographics in a region intransition. New York: United Nations Development Program, Arab Human Development Report Research
Paper Series, 2013.
51 Keith Crane, Steven Simon, and Jeffrey Martini. Future Challenges for the Arab World: The Implicationsof Demographic and Economic Trends. Santa Monica, California: The Rand Corporation, 2011, p. ix.

67the Palestinian territories that share is 21 percent, and in Iraq and Syria 20
percent, compared to a global average of 18 percent.52
With rising affluence, the population boom has begun to crest in
many Arab nations. For the Middle East/North Africa region as a whole, theshare of the youth population (15-24 years of age) is expected to decline
from 20 percent in 2010 to 15 percent by 2025.53 In some areas,
however—mostly poor and unstable—the flood of young people isexpected to continue to grow. In Gaza, for example, fully 50 percent of the
population is under the age of 15; in Yemen the ratio is 47 percent, whileon the West Bank it is 45 percent, 43 percent in Iraq, and 42 percent in
Syria.54
Population has been growing fastest in the Arab world around the
periphery of the wealthy Arabian Gulf, rather than within it—in countries
like Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinian State. These vulnerable
and volatile areas, which amount to a veritable “Arc of Crisis”, ringstrategically important Saudi Arabia, as indicated in Figure 5-1.

52 Mirkin. Arab Spring, p. 14.
53 Ibid.

54 Jane Diamond, “The Demography of the Arab World”, at: www.naba.org.uk. Interestingly, demographicpressures also appear strong in Oman, one of the traditionally more stable nations of the region, where
the share of population under 15 is 46 percent, and the estimated doubling time of population is only 18
years, as compared to 423 years in Britain.

68

Figure 5-1: THE “ARC OF CRISIS” AROUND THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

Source: Middle East Map, http://www.geographicguide.com/asia/maps/middleeast.htm

Most of the Arc of Crisis nations are relatively oil poor, with unstable,transitional economies and political systems. Given their rapidly rising
youth population, it is not surprising that they also have extremely highrates of youth unemployment. As noted in Table 5-1, prevailing rates foryouth unemployment in the Arab world are generally well over double
those for total unemployment. They are significantly higher in war-torncountries, and those without oil, than elsewhere, although some major oil
producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, appear toexperience severe youth employment challenges as well. The one Arab69

country that seems to have resolved its youth employment problem is
Qatar.
Table 5-1:
ARAB YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

COUNTRY
Iraq
Palestinian
Auth.
Yemen
JordanSaudi Arabia
UAE
Bahrain
Qatar

TOTAL
UNEMPLOYMENT
15.3
23.7

YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
43.5
40.2

14.6
12.5
5.4
4.0
3.7
0.3

NA
28.1
29.9
12.1
NA
1.2

Notes: (1) NA indicates “not available”. (2) “Youth Unemployment” covers those seeking
work between 15 and 24. (3) Statistics are the latest available, and provided for thefollowing years: Iraq (2008); Palestinian Authority (2008); Yemen (2009); Jordan(2010); Saudi Arabia (2009); UAE (2008); Bahrain (2010); and Qatar (2009).
Source: International Labor Organization, “Statistical Update on Arab States andTerritories and North African Countries,” June 2011, cited in Barry Mirkin, Arab Spring,p. 23.

B. INSIDE THE GCC: CONTINUING CHALLENGES OF COHESIONAll of the Arab states bordering the Gulf except Iraq are members of
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), known formally as the Cooperation
Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. The GCC was founded in May, 1981
at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar,
Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia as members. All of these nations are Arabmonarchies, and the immediate objective of establishment was collective
70

protection against threats posed by the Iran-Iraq War and Iranian-inspired
activist fundamentalism. As indicated in Table 5-2, the countries do,
however, vary substantially in size, population, and income level—
asymmetries that have challenged the Council’s unity ever since its
foundation, while also facilitating common action in time of crisis.
Table 5-2: ASYMMETRIES WITHIN THE GCC
COUNTRY

POPULATION 2014
GDP
(US $)

2014
GDP/PERCAPITA(US $)

AREA(sq.
miles)MILITARY

Saudi
Arabia27,345,986$778
billion$25,401

830,000

Active227,000

UAE

5,628,805$416
billion$44,771

32,278

Active 63,000

Oman

3,219,775$80.5
billion$21,688

119,499

Active 42,600
Paramilitary
4,400

Kuwait

2,742,711$179
billion$44,850

6,880

Active 15,500
Paramilitary
7,100

Qatar

2,123,160$ 212
billion$94,7444,468

Active 11,800

Bahrain

1,314,089$12.8
billion$28,424

295

Active 8,200
Paramilitary
11,260Source: International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 201571

In an intensive series of meetings soon after foundation, the GCC
defense ministers and chiefs of staff developed plans for mutual defense,
directed principally against Iran, and launched efforts to form a jointcommand and a joint defense network.55 As an initial concrete gesture ofunity, ground and air units of the six member states conducted several
multilateral military exercises between 1983 and 1987, under the codename of Peninsula Shield. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait gave military assistanceto Bahrain, which was particularly exposed due to its majority Shiite
population, to acquire advanced fighter aircraft and to build a modern air
base. They also aided Oman in improving its ability to defend the Strait of
Hormuz. The Saudis likewise served as catalyst, at the GCC Kuwait summitof 1987, for creating a combined air control and warning system based on
Saudi AWACS aircraft, although this was delayed by technical problems. In
2004, the GCC member states also concluded a counter-terrorism accord
focusing on intelligence sharing and the use of mass media, as well as
religious platforms, to tackle terrorism.56
In 1984 the GCC defense ministers agreed to create a 10,000 man
Peninsula Shield Force, to be based in Saudi Arabia with elements from all
the member states. Numbering only 5000 when Saddam Hussein invaded
55 See “Gulf Cooperation Council” on the Global Security website, at:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/gcc.htm.
56 See UK Parliament Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, “The United Arab Emirates and the ‘war against
terrorism’, at: httpi//www.publications.parliament.uk.

72

Kuwait in August, 1990, the Shield Force did not participate in the conflictas a distinct entity. Lack of operational readiness and demographic depth,
as well as political differences among ruling families of the Gulf, made its
mobilization impractical.57
In subsequent years, Saudi Arabia maintained the headquarters andprovided the bulk of the troops—continuing to favor the concept of aregional force, even as most GCC partners feared the implied prospect ofSaudi hegemony.58 Saudi and Emirati troops within the force were,
however, mobilized in March, 2011 to put down protests in Bahrain during
the Arab Spring. One thousand Saudi and 500 Emirati soldiersparticipated.59 In September, 2014 GCC members Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
UAE, and Qatar, plus pending member Jordan, commenced air operations
against ISIS in Syria, in cooperation with the United States, although that
action was under the aegis of GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum, rather
than the Peninsula Shield Force.60
The GCC has also been ambitious in the economic and financial area.
The prospective global implications of its initiatives in these sectors are
57 See Al-Monitor.com website, at: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/01/saudi-arabia-

gcc-announcement.html##ixzz3TGW4abn9.
58 Christian Koch, “he GCC as a Regional Security Organization”, KAS International Report, November,
2010, at: http://www.kas.de.
59 Ethan Bronner and Michele Slackman, “Saudi Troops Enter Bahrain to Help Put Down Unrest”, NewYork Times, March 14, 2011.
60 Joint Communique Following the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the GCC-US Strategic Cooperation
Forum, September 25, 2014. See Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, New York City, at:
http://www.state.gov.

73

great, especially in finance, since the six GCC member states have a
combined GDP of over $1 trillion, and roughly ten percent of global foreignexchange reserves. Were they to successfully create a common multilateralcurrency union, it would be the second largest in the world—next in scale
only to the European Union’s Euro currency area.61 Given the foreignexchange reserves standing behind it, and a seeming absence of weak links
such as Greece presents for the Euro, the GCC thus potentially provides,
through its putative currency, the Khaleej, one plausible alternative key
currency to the US dollar.
The GCC’s success in its economic initiatives has so far been mixed. It
did create a customs union in 2003, and a common market in 2008, withplans to realize a fully integrated European Union-style monetary union by
2010. Implementation lagged behind after the 2009 financial crisis, but
aspirations for integration persisted, especially in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, and Qatar.62 In 2015 trade integration was expanded to the service
sector, with GCC citizens being allowed full equality to work in thegovernment and private sectors of all member state; to own and deal inshares, set up companies, and open branches in the member states; while

61 Michael Sturm and Nikolaus Siegfried. Regional Monetary Integration in the Member States of the Gulf

Cooperation Council. Frankfurt am Main: The European Central Bank, June, 2005, at: http://www.ecb.int.
62 The four countries resolved in 2013 to create a common central bank that would issue a common

currency. See “Gulf countries take steps to achieve monetary unity”, December 29, 2013, at:
http://www.al-monitor.com.

74

also receiving local social insurance and retirement coverage and being
eligible for real estate ownership and access to education and various
social services.63 Coordination of taxation systems, accounting standards,
and civil legislation, however, is still incomplete.
The Gulf Cooperation Council has been relatively successful with
infrastructure projects that help to bind its partner economies. The
member states have, for example, cooperated to connect their electric
power grids. A water connection project has also been launched, that will
be partially in operation by 2020.64 Most importantly, the GCC has launchedmajor rail lines to more fully integrate the Arabian peninsula, thus bothpromoting intra-regional trade and reducing fuel consumption. Over40,000 kilometers of rail network are being constructed across the GCC, ata cost of up to $200 billion, to be completed by 2018.65
Financial integration has proven to be among the thorniest
challenges to confront the GCC. The six member nations agreed in principle
to launch a single regional currency, similar to the Euro, but as theimplementation date approached two nations began to equivocate. In
December, 2006 Oman announced that it would not be able to meet the
63 “GCC common market achieves most goals”, The Peninsula, January 9, 2015, at:

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com; and The Atlantic Sentinel.com, June, 2010, at:
http://atlanticsentinel.com/2010/06/the-real-threat-in-the-persian-gulf/
64 “The GCC and the Supreme Council Summits”, Saudi-US Relations Information Service, December 11,
2014, at: http://wwsusris.com.
65 “GCC Rail Projects to See Investments Worth $200 billion”, Gulf Business, January 11, 2015, at:
http://gulfbusiness.com.

75

target date of late 2009. Following the announcement that the central bankfor the monetary union would be located in Riyadh, the UAE alsoannounced its withdrawal, in May, 2009. In December, 2009, however,Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia did, however, create a joint
Monetary Council, preparatory to introducing a common currency, and toestablishing a central bank. In late 2013 they reaffirmed their intention toestablish a central bank that would issue a common currency, although
delays were in prospect.66 A currency basket is already used for financialtransactions, to some degree.
Ultimately, the most serious obstacles to full-fledged economic union
within the GCC seem to be diplomatic, albeit rooted in political differences.
Saudi Arabia is by far the largest nation in area, population, and foreignexchange reserves, as indicated in Table 5-2. Yet the UAE resents what it
perceives as Saudi hegemonic impulses within the GCC, as expressed in
Saudi insistence on both commanding the Peninsula Shield Force andproviding the headquarters for the proposed central bank, as well as thepersistent Saudi proposals for confederation and “Gulf Union”.67 The oil
producers (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, in particular) also have

66 “Gulf countries take steps to achieve monetary unity”, December 29, 2013, at: http://www.al-

monitor.com.; “GCC tries to persuade UAE, Oman to join currency talks”, Arab News, June 29, 2014, at:
http://www.arabnews.com; and the Asian Development Bank Institute website, at: http://www.adbi.org.
67 In December, 2011 Saudi Arabia proposed that the GCC form a confederation, and in December, 2013 it
floated proposals for a “Gulf Union”. See “Gulf Union on agenda at annual GCC summit”, Al Arabiya News,
December 10, 2013, at: http://english.alarabiya.net.

76natural differences of economic interest with the chief natural gas producer(Qatar) of the region.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have persistently
resented Qatar’s support since 2011 for Islamist groups active during theArab Spring, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the former Morsi
government of Egypt. These differences came to a head at the March, 2014
meeting of the GCC, after which the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain all
recalled their ambassadors to Qatar.68 After a few months, following Qatariconcessions, these countries resumed active relations with Qatar, but
tensions still remain.
C. THE CHANGING ENERGY EQUATION
For more than half a century—during much of the period from theRussian Revolution of 1917 until the early 1970s, the Texas Railroad
Commission, drawing on the seemingly inexhaustible resources of the East
Texas Field, was an influential single arbiter of world energy prices,
through its influence on production levels in the United States and by
American majors around the world.69 Following the Oil Shocks of the 1970s,
and the nationalization of Aramco and other Western energy assets in the
Middle East, the locus of geo-economic power in hydrocarbons shifted to
68 “Three Gulf Countries Pull Ambassadors from Qatar Over its Support of Islamists”, New York Times,

March 5, 2014.
69 Daniel Yergin. The Prize, pp. 231-235. This was particularly true during the Depression of the 1930s,
when production in East Texas supplied fully half of American demand.

77the Arabian Gulf. Saudi Arabia became the critical swing producer in oil,whose production decisions exercised a decisive impact on global oil prices.
Although long-term contracts and the absence of well-developed spot
markets limit the analogy, Qatar also came to play a powerful price-leadingrole in liquefied natural gas.
The Arabian Gulf continues, of course, to hold a dominant reserve
position in conventional oil and gas that make it the long-term supplier oflast resort in global energy markets. As we saw in Chapter One, the Gulf
holds well over one third of the world’s proven conventional oil reserves,
with the largest share concentrated in three countries—Saudi Arabia, Iran,and Iraq.70 It also holds close to 30 percent of the world’s conventional
natural gas—again concentrated heavily in three countries—Qatar, Iran,and Saudi Arabia. The only formidably large conventional oil and gas
reserves on earth lie in the former Soviet Union.
Over the past decade, however, potentially destabilizing challenges tothe Middle East-centric global energy regime that has prevailed since the1970s have suddenly begun to arise. The emerging challenge is centered in
the United States, and flows from the rapid recent increase in American
shale gas and shale oil (tight oil) production. Shale gas production in the US
rose from less than 1 percent of domestic gas production in 2000 to over
70 BP. Statistical Review of World Energy, June, 2014 edition.

78

20 percent by 2010, with the US Energy Information Administration
estimating that it will rise further, to 53 percent of US gas supply by 2040.71
The US Potential Gas Committee has increased its estimates of unproven US
gas reserves by 45 percent, from 32.7 trillion cubic meters (tcm) to 47.4
tcm, to allow for these shale gas developments.72
American shale oil, produced through an analogous process ofhorizontal drilling and fracking to that which produces shale gas, andspurred by parallel technological developments, has also begun to flood
into the market, beginning shortly after the large-scale appearance of shalegas. In 2004 shale oil production in the US only amounted to 260,000
barrels per day. That amount has increased over thirteen-fold, however, to3,480,000 barrels per day in 201373, and even more in subsequent years. As
a result, US oil imports have fallen to their lowest levels in a quarter
century.
Shale oil production in the US appears likely to rise more slowly inthe future, to around 1.2 million bbl/day by 2035, representing 12 percent
of projected US oil production at that time.74 Most estimates of future
production, however, are significantly higher, and American shale oil
71 US Energy Information Administration, “M-3 Annual Energy Outlook, with Projections to 2040”, April,2014, at: http://www.eia.gov.
72 Paul Stevens, The ‘Shale Gas Revolution’: Developments and Changles. London: Chatham House Briefing
Paper, August, 2012, p. 1, at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.
73 PWC Corporation. Shale Oil: The Next Energy Revolution, at: http://www.pwc.com.
74 Energy Information Agency. Annual Energy Outlook, 2012 edition. Energy-price volatility could be one
inhibiting factor.

79reserves appear to be huge. They have been revised upward more thaneight-fold, from 4 billion barrels in 2007 to 33 billion barrels in 2010, as aresult of new assumptions regarding technology, suggesting a significant
new contribution to US energy independence.75 In the long term, it now
appears that shale oil could well displace around 35-40 percent ofwaterborne crude oil imports into the US, a significant fraction of whichcome from the Middle East.
The US has not, it is important to stress, become as yet a significant
exporter of either oil or natural gas, and there are multiple reasons to
doubt that it will be so in future. The first, and arguably most important,reason is the nature of shale-oil and shale-gas production, which comesfrom small wells with a short production life, and thus responds primarily
to marginal rather than total production costs.76 When prices go down,
shale producers flexibly stop drilling, and production falls within a matterof months, as the small wells, producing as little as 2000 barrels a day, areplayed out. Thus, unless export prices are predictably high, and marketing
networks are well-established, shale producers will not have incentives to
produce for export, and their output will vary flexibly in accordance mainlywith domestic demand.

75 Ibid.
76 Shawn Tully, “The shale oil revolution is in danger”, Fortune.com, January 9, 2015, at:

http://fortune.com/2015/01/09/oil-prices-shale-fracking/80

A second, related factor inhibiting US shale energy exports is the
behavior of Middle Eastern low-cost conventional energy producers—sographically demonstrated in recent months. Saudi Arabia, in particular,
with one quarter of world conventional oil reserves, has strong incentives
to curb the global market share of US shale producers. And it can easily do
so by increasing its own production and thereby depressing international
market prices, as it has so dramatically and effectively done since the fall of
2014.77
A final constraint on US shale production, and on exports—as well as
on other unconventional energy production, such as Canadian tar-sands
development-- is environmental considerations, and their relationship to
local politics. Environmentalist opposition has, for example, blocked the
Keystone pipeline project, as well as the expansion of fracking inNortheastern states in the US, such as New York and Pennsylvania. As the
Keystone controversy well illustrates, local residents are sensitive toenvironmental challenges in general, and often even more sensitive when
the resources being produced and transported are meant for export rather
than local consumption.
The global impact of US shale production thus appears to beimportant but limited. It will put downward pressure on global oil and gas
77 Stanley Reed, “Oil Prices Continue Decline, Pressured by Saudi Action to Defend market Share”, NewYork Times, October 2, 2014; and Thomas Friedman, “A Pump War?”, New York Times, October 14, 2014.

81

prices, by redirecting overseas production that would otherwise flow to the
US as imports back into the global market. It will not, however, result inlarge energy flows outward from the United States to other parts of theworld. Non-North American markets will continue to be dominated by
Arabian Gulf production, which is low-cost, with the major casualties of
expanded US production being Russian green-field production, especially innatural gas, which is high-cost due to the large infrastructuralrequirements.
The dramatic recent market developments of recent years, however,suggest that Arabian Gulf producers will need to keep alert to emerging
market challenges. They cannot maintain their market position throughpassivity, given the latent American shale energy challenge, which canemerge quite abruptly, due to the short production cycle of the US shaleproducers. The challenge to be alert to market developments may beespecially sharp for LNG producers such as Qatar, since shale-induced
liquidity in global markets, combined with new conventional production
coming on-stream in Australia and elsewhere, are likely to put pressure on
the existing long-term contract structure, and enhance the importance of
spot and futures markets. This rising long-term fluidity in global LNG
markets has major implications for Japan and Korea, which are the two82

largest LNG importers in the world, consuming over half of world LNG
imports between them.78
D. IRAN, THE GCC, AND THE STABILITY OF THE GULF
Iran looms large over the Gulf today, as it has throughout history. It isby a considerable margin the largest country of the region geographically,
and in terms of population. It was an empire and a highly developed
civilization 2500 years ago—nearly a millennium before the Arabconquests.
The nations of the Arab Gulf, by contrast, are smaller, and much more
recent in their provenance. The oldest, the Wahhabi kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, dates only from the 18th Century, and in its current incarnation only
from the early 20th century reign of Abdul Aziz, from whom its rulers aredescended. Although some of the other traditional monarchical lines, suchas the Sultanate of Oman, are venerable, all of them are of recent vintage as
independent nation states, emerging from British protection only in the
1960s and 1970s.
As recently as the mid-1970s, the Shah of Iran ruled imperiously, as
the hegemon of the Gulf--with the support of the Nixon Administration,
including Henry Kissinger, in the United States. It is only since the Iranian

78 In 2013 Japan accounted for around 37 percent of global LNG purchases, and Korea accounted for 17

percent. Data from US Energy Information Administration, at: http://www.eia.gov.

83Revolution of 1979, and the ensuing Iran-Iraq War, that the United States
has aligned decisively with the Arab side of the Gulf. In this position, it
must contend with some embedded ethnic and historical realities, inheritedfrom pre-Revolutionary years, which continue to complicate US andJapanese efforts in support of the GCC nations.
The most deeply embedded reality, of course, is geography. As Figure5-1 indicates, Iran dominates the northern shore of the Gulf, as well as
strategic entrances to the Strait of Hormuz, through which one third of thecrude oil moving in international commerce must pass. It would be
relatively easy for the Iranians to blockade or mine entrances to the Strait,such that shipping would be disrupted. Alternatively, Iran could, in a crisis,covertly harass international shipping, as it did during the latter stages of
the Iran-Iraq war, sending international shipping insurance rates into thestratosphere, and compelling the Reagan Administration to engage in a
reflagging operation. Any of these scenarios would have catastrophic
implications not only for the Gulf states, but for Northeast Asia—including
conspicuously Japan, the largest oil importer from the Gulf, as well.

84

Figure 5-2: IRAN AND THE GULF, INCLUDING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

A second embedded reality of the GCC relationship with Iran is
ethnic: Iran’s population is overwhelmingly Shiite79, and several of the Arab
Gulf nations—notably Iraq, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia—have substantial
Shiite populations as well.80 Iraq and Bahrain both have Shiite majorities,
even though Iraq until the US intervention of 2003 had been ruled by
Sunnis, and Bahrain continues to be ruled by Sunnis to this day. Shiites also
constitute around one third of the population in the oil-rich Eastern

79 Iran’s population is estimated to be 90-95 percent Shiite. See CIA. World Factbook.
80 Iraq is around 65-70 percent Shiite; Bahrain is 65-75 percent Shiite; and Saudi is 10-15 percent Shiite.

See Ibid.

85

province of Saudi Arabia,81 and constitute strategic minorities in Yemen,
Lebanon, and Afghanistan as well.
There is also embedded history. During the 1970s, the Shah of Iranpursued an aggressive policy toward the fledgling, newly independent Gulf
Arab states, declaring himself the “policeman” of the region, and enforcing
his sway with a massive arms buildup. During those years, Iran occupied
three islands that had previously belonged to the United Arab Emirates,
and claimed Bahrain as well. After the revolution Iran enflamed
sectarianism in the region by supporting Shia minorities in the Gulf against
their governments, which naturally affects the stance of those governments
toward the Islamic Republic to this day.
On top of all these considerations, Iran now also appears to pursue
nuclear weapons, which India, Pakistan, and Israel, in its neighborhood,already have. The Gulf Arab states came to a clear perception of Iranianintent relatively late—only in 2002, when the advanced state of Iran’s
nuclear program was discovered. All of the Gulf states are signatories tointernational treaties against nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass
destruction; they now see Iran as an aggressive and expansionist state that,

81 Library of Congress Country Study on Saudi Arabia, at:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awg/awcgate/loc/sa/shia.htm.

86

with nuclear capabilities, would represent a clear and present danger to theother Gulf states.82
E. THE CHINA FACTOR
China’s classical relationship with the Middle East goes back to thedays of the Silk Road, with significant interaction having occurred between
the Islamic world and China even in the days of the Tang dynasty. In
contrast to Japan, which has had a significant symbolic and economic
presence in the Middle East since the Russo-Japanese War at the beginningof the twentieth century, however, China’s modern relationship with the
Middle East, and the Arab Gulf in particular, is relatively recent. That said, it
has grown remarkably over the past decade, presenting a new and growing
challenge to more established US and Japanese partnerships with Gulf
nations.
Modern China’s relations with the Gulf were relatively detached until
China became a net oil importer during the third quarter of 1993, as bothnations maintained primarily regional concerns. China’s relations with
Egypt were relatively close from the days of Nasser and Chou En Lai’s joint
participation in the 1955 Bandung conference of non-aligned nations; oneclear indication of China’s regard for Egypt was to leave Ambassador to
Egypt Huang Hua, later to become Foreign Minister, in Cairo during the82 On Iran and the Gulf, see “Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf Region: Iran working group Roundtable/videoconference, February 27, 2007, at: http://www.fiia.fi/en/event/98/iran_iraq_and_the_gulf_region/

87

Cultural Revolution of the 1960s—one of the only Chinese senior diplomats
worldwide to remain at his post, without returning to Beijing. China hadstrong ties with Tanzania, the African National Congress of South Africa, thePLO, and various other Afro-Asian revolutionary groups, but little
relationship with the Gulf. When it finally did discover the Gulf, during themid-1970s, its principal early relations in the Gulf were with the Shah of
Iran.83 China did not even recognize Saudi Arabia until 1990, andmaintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan from 1946 until then.
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, China’s ties with the Gulf have
deepened substantially. The initial catalyst was the Iran-Iraq War (19801988), during which China was the principal arms supplier torevolutionary Iran. Following the war, China also provided arms supplies to
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and even missiles to Saudi Arabia. China’s role as aweapons supplier has, however, waned substantially since the mid-1990s,
under strong pressure from the United States.84
China’s economic relationship to the Gulf has intensified greatly since
the PRC became a net oil importer in 1993. Today it imports well over two
million barrels a day from the Gulf, or about 40 percent of China’s total
imports. This ratio is markedly lower than the share of Japanese or Korean
83 See John Garver. China and Iran: Ancient Parts in a Post-Imperial World. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 2006, p. 179.
84 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Database; and IMF. Direction of Trade
Statistics.

88

imports from the Gulf, as we have seen, and more oriented to the northernshores of the Gulf (Iran and Iraq) than are Japan’s imports, suggesting somegeopolitical hedging on China’s part. At the end of 2013, Japan’s overall
imports from the GCC states, including but transcending oil, as indicated in
Figure 5-3, were substantially larger than those of China, although thelatter were larger than those of the US, which does not import much Gulf oil.
Figure 5-3:
CHINA’S IMPORTS FROM THE GULF: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics

The real core of China’s economic relationship with the Gulf, however,still lies in China’s prowess in manufactures. As indicated in Figure 5-4,
China is by a considerable margin the largest supplier of goods to the Arab
Gulf, with the scale of those imports having more than doubled since 2009.
American exports to the GCC nations have also increased rapidly, although89not, of course, to Iran. Japan’s exports to the Gulf, by contrast, still remain
below the levels of 2008.
Figure 5-4:
CHINA’S EXPORTS TO THE GULF: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics

It is striking to see the country-specific breakdown of China’s tradewith the Arab Gulf nations. As noted in Figure 5-5, China’s imports (largelyoil) are overwhelmingly from Saudi Arabia, in contrast to Japan’s, whichflow from a more diverse range of countries, including very importantly the
UAE and Qatar. Chinese imports from Saudi Arabia surged especially after
2009, as sanctions tightened against Iran, and the Saudis supplied extra
production enabling China to cut back its reliance on the Iranians. China
also imports a growing amount of oil from Oman—its largest Gulf supplierapart from Saudi Arabia—which is the only Gulf Arab nation lying outside90

the Strait of Hormuz. Together with the low overall level of Chinesereliance on Gulf oil supplies, this relationship with Oman seems to indicate
a systematic Chinese effort to minimize geopolitical risk to its oil supplies.
Figure 5-5: CHINESE IMPORTS FROM THE GULF: BY COUNTRY

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics

There is one Gulf Arab energy relationship, however, that doesparadoxically indicate a greater Chinese tolerance for political risk. That is
the PRC’s relationship with Iraq. In the face of the strong US politicalmilitary relationship with Iraq since 2003, China has nevertheless actively
pursued oil exploration contracts with Iraq, and done so successfully.
Indeed, the largest share of the initial contracts that the Iraqi government

91

concluded after re-opening oil exploration opportunities to foreign firms in2008 went to Chinese firms.85
China’s relationship with the GCC is not only a matter of trade. There isalso an increasingly important investment dimension, as China becomes
progressively a more and more important capital exporter. As indicated in
Figure 5-6, the Chinese invested nearly $10 billion in GCC construction
projects between 2005 and 2012—more than in any other sector, including
oil and gas. As the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), based in
Beijing, prepares to commence operations, the configuration of Chinese
investments in the Gulf, and their broader geopolitical implications, is an
important topic for future research.

85 In 2008 Petrochina and another Chinese oil firm, China Zhen Hua Oil, signed a $3 billion contract wit

the Iraqi government for oil-exploration rights, which was the first major deal with foreign firms after thefall of Saddam in 2003. In 2009 Petrochina and a British firm obtained exploration rights in Iraq’s biggest
field, with over 10 percent of the country’s oil reserves. See Mu Chunshan, “China’s Iraq Investment”, The
Diplomat, July 25, 2011, at: http://thediplomat.com.

92

Figure 5-6:
SECTORAL DISTRIBUTION OF CHINESE GCC INVESTMENTS (2005-2012)

Source: Kevin Korner and Oliver Masetti, “The GCC Going East: Economic ties with
developing Asia on the rise,” Deutsche Bank Research, February 18, 2014

Although trade and investment configurations are major dimensionsof the emerging Chinese presence in the Arabian Gulf, the most importantdimension, in geopolitical terms, is clearly the presence of the Chinese
military and militarily-related assets in the region, as well as along theenergy sea lanes from Northeast Asia to the Gulf. Chinese political-militarypresence along the sea lanes began to rise after 2000, as Asia recoveredfrom the financial crisis, and China became an increasingly large-scale oil
importer. Chinese political-military presence in the vicinity of the Gulf itself

93

is more recent, dating from around 2008, as the anti-piracy campaign in the
Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean grew more intense.
China’s political-military presence in the energy sea lanes—what thePentagon has called the “string of pearls”, presented in Figure 5-7—beganwith a communications station in the Cocos Islands in the Andaman Sea,
provided by Myanmar’s military government, around 2000. It was
followed by construction of the Gwadar port in Pakistan, roughly 150 miles
from the Strait of Hormuz, which was opened by Chinese Prime Minister
Wen Jiabao in 2005. Subsequently, China also built deep-water ports at
Chittagong in Bangladesh and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, which have dual
civilian and military-use capabilities. China has also built an oil pipeline
across Myanmar, from Kyaukpyu into Yunnan; and begun construction of
analogous facilities in Pakistan, from Gwadar toward Xinjiang, and acrossthe Isthmus of Kra in Thailand, in order to reduce the geopolitical risk ofsea lane reliance. It has also strengthened overland energy-supply
capabilities from Central Asia into China, thus reducing overall energy sealane reliance from 90 percent of China’s oil imports in 2005 to around 80
percent today.

94

Figure 5-7:
THE STRING OF PEARLS BETWEEN CHINA AND THE ARABIAN GULF

Source: SP's naval forces, at: http://www.spsnavalforces.com/story.asp?mid=38&id=1

China has thus taken a variety of elaborate steps to enhance thesecurity of its energy sea lanes, including some tentative steps—such as therecent sea trials of its new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning—toward thecreation of a blue-water navy. What is striking, however, is how slow andrelatively tentative these steps have been. While China has rapidly
expanded its air force, developing both cruise missiles and stealth fighters,for example, it has not yet built full-fledged carrier battle groups. China has,
to be sure, aggressively probed US and Japanese resolve in sea lanes close
to its home territory, such as the East and South China Seas, including avery active land-fill program to build up small atolls, reefs, and even sub95

surface formations for strategic purposes. The PRC has, however, beenremarkably defensive in political-military actions further from Chinese
shores.86
Chinese involvement with anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden
illustrate the status-conscious, selective, national-interest oriented, butultimately defensive character of Chinese political-military operations in
the environs of the Gulf. These operations began in December, 2008, andhave continued un-interrupted for over six years. Yet they have been
relatively small-scale, and consistently multilateral in their configuration.87
The only major unilateral actions have been the evacuation of Chinese
citizens in the face of political turbulence in such nations as Libya andYemen.88
Since the early 1990s, China has become an active participant in UN
peacekeeping operations, especially in Africa. At the end of 2012, 1869
peacekeepers, including engineers, civilian police, medical units, andmilitary observers, as well as some combat troops, were involved in UN

86 Andrew Erickson and Austin Strange. No Substitute for Experience: Chinese Anti-Piracy Operations in

the Gulf of Aden. Newport: US Navan War College China Maritime Studies Institute, at:https://www.usnwc.edu.
87 Andrew Erickson and Austin Strange, “China and the International Piracy Effort”, The Diplomat,
November, 2013, at: http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/china-and-the-international-antipiracy-effort/.
88 On these evacuations, and broader Chinese unilateral efforts to safeguard citizens abroad, see JonasParello-Plesner and Mathieu Duchâtel. China’s Strong Arm: Protecting Citizens and Assets Abroad.
London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2015, pp. 107-124.

96

peacekeeping operations.89 In 2014 China also participated for the firsttime in RIMPAC, the world’s largest maritime warfare exercise, hosted by
the United States in the waters off Hawaii.90
IN CONCLUSION
The Arabian Gulf is rapidly changing, along many dimensions:demographic, economic, and political. With the coming of the shale gas andshale oil revolution, the world of energy, upon which the fortunes of the
Gulf so profoundly rest, is changing as well. New powers are arising, and reshaping the geopolitical environment surrounding the Gulf. Without
understanding the historic transformations underway, it is impossible tomeaningfully assess how Japan and the US can realistically cooperate tofurther their enduring national interests, in this complex world of rapidchange.
Among the most important realities we have discovered here is the
obscure but fateful challenge of demography. The nations of the Gulf, andtheir environs, have remarkably young populations. Yet many of them—especially in the energy have-not periphery, such as Yemen—have unstable
political economies that cannot readily generate jobs. Even if the jobs are

89 European Parliamentary Research Service, “China’s Role in US Peacekeeping Operations”, April 24,

2013, at: http://epthinktank.edu.
90 Paul Sinclair, “China’s growing international defense engagement”, Asia New Zealand Foundation, at:
http://asianz.org.nz.

97

available, as in the UAE and Qatar, local elites prefer to award them tocompliant foreigners, especially Islamic migrants, from Pakistan,
Bangladesh, India, or the Philippines. Local youth unemployment in many
Arab states is thus explosively high.
Within the GCC itself, there is a continuing challenge of cohesion.
External crisis has periodically propelled superficial unity, as during the
Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and the Gulf conflict of 1991, but it has not been
enduring. Unity and meaningful integration have been especially difficult in
strategic areas like finance, where integration could otherwise have fatefulgeopolitical implications for the broader world.
For four decades from the early 1970s, the Arabian Gulf, led by Saudi
Arabia, was the global swing producer, capable through its production
decisions of determining world energy prices, just as the East Texas fields
were in a prior epoch. In the wake of the shale gas and oil revolution, theviability of Middle Eastern price leadership has come into question. Largescale North American shale-energy exports appear unlikely for some time
to come, but rising US energy self-sufficiency produces liquidity in broader
global energy markets that presents another deepening challenge to Arab
Gulf producers.

98Two geopolitical challenges from outside put pressure on the nationsof the Arab Gulf, and intensify the struggle for unity within the GCC. The
first is Iran—a challenge in both geopolitical and also religious dimensions.
The second is China—rising rapidly as both energy customer and supplierof manufacturers. Together, these dual challenges force the Gulf nations to
be vigilant, and to search for allies. The United States and Japan make, forthose Gulf nations, most promising partners, for reasons that we consider
in the pages to come.

99

CHAPTER SIX:OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENHANCED TRILATERAL COOPERATIONAs we have seen in the previous pages, the Arabian Gulf and its
neighborhood are, in the early twenty-first century, being beset by a broad
range of historic challenges. The populations of key nations—particularly
poor and impoverished ones, in the shadow of oil-rich neighbors—are
growing explosively. Yet volatile, unstable political economies in the Arc of
Crisis around Saudi Arabia are not providing sufficient jobs. Both food andwater are in short supply. On top of this basic human problems, the nationsof the region are plagued by ethnic conflict, and the perverse maneuveringof outside powers, including conspicuously Iran and China,
Japan and the United States are both status-quo powers with
substantial stakes in the stability of the Gulf and its ability to smoothly
supply energy to the broader world. As such, they have a common interestin cooperating with the Arabian Gulf nations in both the economic andsecurity realms, to help assure that stability is maintained, and that energy
continues to flow outward from the Gulf, to the broader world. In thischapter, we outline some potential options for Tokyo and Washington, toassist in furthering this common stability objective.
To be sure, there are many status-quo partnerships that canconstructively support the Gulf states and the “Arc of Crisis” surrounding100them. The US-Japan alliance has, however, several distinctive traits that
render it especially potent in its support potential. First of all, the alliance iscross-cultural, giving it more credibility, in a part of the world with bitter
experience at the hands of Western imperialism, than more ethnocentriccoalitions of Western allies that include the former imperial masters
themselves.
The US-Japan alliance is also distinctive in the complementarity ofpartner capabilities. Both nations are sea-faring countries, with major
stakes in international trade. The United States, however, spends much
more on its military, and has developed global air and naval capabilities,
many of them offensive, that are second to none. Japan has a highly
competent military with high-quality weapons, but it is significantly
smaller, and defensively oriented. It does, however, have some specialized
capabilities, such as minesweeping, which are world class, and in someinstances stronger than those of the United States itself. This
complementarity underlies the logic of cooperation.
Security
The US, Japan, and the states of the Arabian Gulf share two overriding hard-security interests in common. On the one hand, they all support
the stability of the Arabian peninsula and its environs. They also have a101

common interest in the security of the sea lanes to the Gulf, since thelifeblood of that region—hydro-carbons—travels primarily by sea.
To understand the security challenges of the Arabian Gulf, one mustfirst consider the disposition of forces and patterns of defense spending in
the Gulf itself. As indicated in Table 6-1, Iran looms large in politicalmilitary terms, as we have already seen that it does in political-economic
terms. It has over 500,000 men under arms, compared to 227,000 in Saudi
Arabia, and much lesser numbers in the other GCC states. It also has thelargest number of combat-capable aircraft in the Gulf, in the latest
assessment of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and isapproaching the nuclear-weapons threshold, as is widely reported.
Table 6-1: MILITARY FORCE LEVELS IN THE ARABIAN GULF (2013)
Country

Active Duty
ForcesIran523,000
Saudi Arabia 227,000
UAE
63,000Oman
42,600
Kuwait15,500Qatar
11,800Bahrain
8,200

Combat Capable
Aircraft
334 (mostly F-4 level)313 (F-15 C and D)
157 (F-16 E and F)
44
66
18
39

DefenseBudget$14.8 b.
$ 80.8 b.
$13.9 b.
$9.6 b.
$4.8 b.
$4.4 b.
$1.3 b.

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2015.

It is true that much of Iran’s military equipment is approachingobsolescence; only 60 percent of its US planes (now over 35 years old) and80 percent of its Russian and Chinese planes are believed to be serviceable,

102due to absence of spare parts.91 In some strategically important areas, suchas anti-ship missiles, short-range (150-500 kilometer) ballistic missiles,
and air-defense equipment, however, Iran’s capabilities are both more
operational and more technically advanced, due to assistance particularly
from Russia.92 One important area for US-Japan cooperation is thus
working together to inhibit Iran from upgrading its capabilities still further
in critical sectors like ship to ship missiles and air defense—not to mention
the nuclear dimension—in the absence of international agreement on arms
limitation.
Due to the imbalance of forces and capabilities in the Arabian Gulf
between Iran and the GCC—which would be sharply intensified were Iranto obtain or develop nuclear weapons—the GCC nations welcome thepresence of friendly foreign forces in the Gulf and its environs. The UnitedStates, of course, has had a naval presence in Bahrain since 1947; air andground forces in Qatar and Kuwait respectively since the early 1990s; andrecently deployed air forces in the UAE.93 Since 2008 restrictions have beenloosened on the mission of US troops in the UAE. And the US presence in
91 IISS. The Military Balance, 2015 edition, p. 326.

92 Russian entities have helped the Iranian missile effort, in particular, in areas such as testing, training,and components. Russia’s potential revenue in supplying Iran’s military, industrial, and nuclear programs
is estimated to be around $10 billion/year. See John A. Lauder, “Russian Proliferation to Iran’s Weaponsof Mass Destruction and Missle Programs”, efore the Senate Committee on Foreing Relations, October 5,
2000, at: http://www.iranwatch.org; and Maseh Zarif, “Technology Sources from Iran’s Nuclear Program”,
AEI Iran Tracker, July 24, 2009, at: http://www.irantracker.org/nuclear-program/technology-sourcesirans-nuclear-program.
93 In 2014, there were 8000 US troops at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar; 5000 in the UAE, and 13,000 in
Kuwait, mainly US Army personnel at Camp Doha. The US also maintained a highly strategic air and naval
base attached to the US Pacific Command on Diego Garcia, in the British Indian Ocean Territory. See Ibid.

103

the UAE has expanded quantitatively as well, especially since 2012. In 2012,
for example, the US relocated a squadron of F-15C Strike Eagle fightersfrom Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and in 2013 a half-dozen F-22s,
as well as Global Hawk long-range drones, to the UAE.94 Britain withdrew
from the Gulf in the 1970s, but France has recently established a naval basein the UAE, and seems intent on increasing its presence in the Gulf
generally.
One emerging issue for US-Japan security cooperation in relation to
the Gulf is how Japan might serve the common security interest of the twocountries in keeping the flow of energy from the Gulf unimpeded. This is a
critical security interest of Japan, in particular, since around 85 percent ofJapan’s entire oil consumption comes ultimately from the Gulf. This flow
could potentially be impeded by (1) political developments in the Gulf itself,such as Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990; (2) byinterdiction of or covert attacks on tankers in the Gulf, as happened during
the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s; (3) by closure of the Strait of Hormuz, mostprobably by Iran, which has not occurred, but is plausible; or (4) by threatsbeyond the Gulf to the sea lanes.

94 The US Air Force has also set up a joint planning center at Dhafra in the UAE to share sensitive targetingand intelligence reports. See Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “The UAE, the US has a little but potent ally
nicknamed ‘Little Sparta’, The Washington Post, November 8, 2014.

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Of these various possible contingencies, US-Japan cooperation would
be most important with respect to #3 and #4. In both cases, Japan’s
formidable mine-sweeping capabilities—arguably the most substantial in
the world—would be an invaluable asset. Japan currently has 35 mine
warfare and countermeasures ships, compared to only 11 for the US Navy,
16 for the British Navy, and 5 for Iran.95 Were the Iranians to lay mines in
the Strait of Hormuz or its environs, in an attempt to impede the flow ofshipping, Japan could play a critical role in helping to take them out or
neutralize them. Japanese minesweeping could be important in other partsof the 7000-mile long energy sea lanes from the Gulf to Japan’s homewaters as well.
For Japan’s substantial minesweeping capabilities to be of concrete
assistance to the international community, including the GCC nations andthe United States, two important preconditions would need to pertain: (1)Japan would need to actively affirm its willingness to engage in collective
self-defense; and (2) Japan would need basing facilities for its
minesweepers somewhere in reasonable proximity to the Gulf. Every US
Ambassador to Japan since at least 1990 has explicitly supported the active
Japanese exercise of collective self-defense, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
has, during 2015, taken important steps to affirm collective self-defense as

95 Ibid.

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Japanese public policy. Japan has, since 2011, had MSDF basing facilities inDjibouti, to support the multilateral struggle against piracy,96 and hasreportedly been exploring the possibility of expanded MSDF cooperation
with Oman, which Prime Minister Abe has visited in January, 2014, on sealane defense around the Strait of Hormuz, as well as on energy
development and other economic issues.97
Oman is a particularly strategic theater for future US-Japan
cooperation in the Arabian Gulf area for several reasons:1) It has the geostrategic advantage of being located next to the Gulf
itself, but outside the Strait of Hormuz; oil production and oil
storage facilities there are thus less subject to hostile interdiction,
potentially by the Iranians, than those inside the Gulf, in the UAE,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Kuwait.
2) It has stable relations with both the Arab side of the Gulf and also
Iran. The only other GCC nation that enjoys working relations with
Teheran is Qatar, which unlike Oman has contentious relations withboth Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
3) It lacks the complex internal ethnic and religious politics, or
territorial disputes, that make nations such as Bahrain, Yemen, and

96 Alex Martin, “First Overseas Military Base since WW II to Open in Djibouti”, Japan Times, July 2, 2011.
97 Iori Kawate, “Abe Visiting Middle East, Africa to Lead Push by Japan Firms”, Nikkei Asian Review,

January 10, 2014.

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the UAE subject to distinctive pressure from Teheran, and subject
to the danger of local instability.
4) Oman has strong traditional relations with India, located less than
1000 miles away across the Arabian Sea.
Oman currently hosts no foreign military bases, and is arguably a
prime candidate for some increased Japanese naval presence, if and when
Japan decides to enhance its MSDF capabilities in the Arabian Gulf area.
Such a presence could be an important step forward in operationalizing
more intense US-Japan cooperation around the Arabian Gulf. Deepened
relations with Oman could also benefit Japan in developing broader
relations across the Gulf, as Oman has unusually broad communication
channels on both the Arab and the Iranian sides of the Gulf.
National security stands, of course, on economic as well as military
foundations. In thinking about the stability of the Arabian peninsula andthe “arc of crisis” that surrounds it, it is important to be continuallyconscious of the economic issues related to security that the Gulf’s own
geography implies. As indicated in Figure 6-1, Saudi Arabia lies at the coreof the Arabian peninsula, flanked by the other five GCC states (UAE, Qatar,
Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman) on the southern shores of the Gulf, confronting
Iran, on the Gulf’s northern shores. The GCC nations themselves are by andlarge stable and affluent, although they have internal tensions on which we
107shall elaborate later. The over-riding stability challenge of the Arabian Gulf,
however, lies in the employment difficulties, together with the elemental
food and water problems of the unstable surrounding states, including
Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, as well, potentially, as Jordan, Oman, and Egypt.
Figure 6-1:
MAP OF ARABIAN PENINSULA AND SURROUNDING ARC OF CRISIS

Source: Middle East (Reference Map) 2004, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,
The University of Texas-Austin,
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/middle_east_ref04.jpg

Addressing the socio-economic challenges prevailing in the Arc of
Crisis surrounding the Gulf is a task for which the US and Japan in
combination are much better suited than those two countries (or any

108countries) alone. The United States naturally has the political-military
experience and intelligence capabilities in the region to assess withmaximum accuracy the problems of individual countries. It also has
expertise to deal with food and water security issues that are especiallysalient in these members of the “Arc of Crisis”. Japan, on the other hand,
has a complementary peace-building orientation and expertise in energy
efficiency that nations such as Yemen, Jordan, and Iraq also badly need.
It may seem paradoxical to stress energy efficiency in a part of theworld with the largest hydro-carbon reserves on earth. The Middle East,
however, has the lowest energy-usage efficiency of any part of the world.98
And it also has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per capita on earth.99
For energy-poor parts of the region, the logic of increased efficiency
is obvious. For the energy-rich Gulf states, energy conservation also makes
sense, because energy is fungible; if these nations do not use the energy,
they can store it for a future when resources will be more scarce. Apartfrom energy efficiency, increased supplies—and higher quality—of foodand water are also natural regional priorities—for both the GCC members

98 Among 105 countries surveyed in the 2013 World Economic Forum Energy Architecture Performance(EAPI) rankings, GCC members ranked as follows: Saudi Arabia (#82); UAE (87); Qatar (92); Kuwait (95);and Bahrain (99). Iran ranked 96th. See World Economic Forum. The Global EAPI Report, 2013 edition, at:
http://www3.weforum.org.
99 The top four global rankings in carbon dioxide emissions per capital are the highest in the world, with
Qatar in first place and the UAE record. See Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. The GCC States and the Shifting
Balance of Global Power. Qatar: Georgetown University Center for International and Regional Studies,
2010, p. 12.

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(largely on a commercial basis) and for the Arc of Crisis nations (throughODA from the US, Japan, and the GCC states as well).
The United States and Japan are two of the largest donors to the Arcof Crisis nations. In 2012 the US was the largest bilateral donor to Iraq,
Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. Japan was secondin Iraq.100 Both Washington and Tokyo have focused their ODA efforts
heavily on energy, water, and food, albeit with slightly different areas ofconcentration.
The US has prioritized education, democratic governance, nutrition,and poverty reduction.101 It has also, like Japan, placed emphasis on watersupplies; health care; and electricity. Japanese ODA has had a stronger
infrastructure, energy, and, interestingly, agricultural bias, including
support for Jordan’s largest-ever solar-power generation complex, and its“Corridor for Peace and Prosperity Initiative” in the Jordan River Valley,
which includes establishment of the Jericho Agricultural and Industrial
Park.102 In Yemen, which has minimal oil and gas relative to that possessedby the GCC nations, Japan has also been supporting solar-power

100 See World Bank World Development Indicators, Distribution of Net Aid by DAC Members, at:

http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/6.12.
101 See US Department of State Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Fact Sheets for Iraq; Yemen; West Bank andGaza; Jordan; and Lebanon, at: http://www.state.gov.
102 “Japan’s Assistance to the Palestinians” (January, 2015), at: http://www.mofa.go.jp.

110generation; food aid (through the World Food Program), and rural watersupply projects.103
Beyond the environs of the Gulf itself, US-Japan cooperation in thesea lanes from Hormuz to Yokohama is also critically important to a crucial
objective of the alliance: keeping Japan economically strong. As noted
earlier, US naval preeminence in the Indian Ocean is unassailable for atleast a generation, due to America’s formidable blue-water navy, with its
eleven carrier battle groups, and the formidable US naval and air basecomplex at Diego Garcia. As we also noted, the incremental marginal costsof maintaining both the carriers and Diego are relatively limited, so themuch-debated US fiscal difficulties should actually not have much bearing
on prospects for US preeminence. China may well have more leverage inwaters closer to China itself, where its area-denial capabilities are rising,but it also is dependent on the energy sea lanes to the Gulf, making it likely
supportive of status-quo arrangements that assure its own stable access toneeded Middle East resources.
The implication of this complex geopolitical situation in the sea lanes
for US-Japan cooperation is that the two countries should pursue abalanced strategy with two key components: (1) Maintaining military
preeminence, while strengthening defensive capabilities such as
103 “Japan’s ODA Data for Yemen”, at: http://www.mofa.go.jp.

111minesweeping; and (2) Re-assuring third parties that freedom ofnavigation in the sea lanes will be observed, through multilateralconfidence-building measures, such as the anti-piracy missions and
RIMPAC, in which both the US and Japan participate jointly with such othermajor nations as China. Through this two-pronged strategy, the allies will
hopefully be able to give China incentives not to engage in blue-water naval
competition, which would be ruinously expensive to all parties concerned,
without measurably improving the security of any.
Economics
Japan and the United States, of course, are the largest free-market
economies in the world. And the GCC nations are, collectively, the largest
energy producers, and some of the largest financial surplus nations onearth. From a global standpoint, this triad together can do much to enhance
global economic stability, and simultaneously their own prosperity.
What can Japan and the US do jointly to catalyze the potential of thisstrategic US-Japan-GCC triad? Most importantly, they can encourage theGulf nations to help set a positive global agenda on energy-efficiency, foodsecurity, job training, education, and environmental protection, by
stressing the benefits to regional security from Gulf initiatives on theseimportant agendas. As we noted previously, the Gulf nations themselves

112are both affluent and temporarily stable. They are, however, surrounded bymuch more unstable nations in the “Arc of Crisis”, for whom initiatives in
the foregoing areas would have potentially decisive stabilizing implications.
Japan and the US can serve as a catalyst for future-oriented GCC
initiatives on energy, food, employment, and education issues by providing
technical expertise, help in accessing multilateral institutions, and, where
decisive, symbolic financial assistance of their own. Universities, as well as
think tanks such as the Sasakawa Foundation, Qatar Foundation, Gates
Foundation, Ford Foundation, Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA)
and the Research Institute on International Economic Issues (RIETI), canplay an important role in this process. New institutions in the Gulf, such as
Education City in Qatar; Dubai Knowledge Village; and Dubai International
Academic City, should also play a key role in this global agenda-setting
process.
The US and Japan can also cooperate to encourage healthy Middle
Eastern regional interaction, with a central role for the Gulf as well. The
UAE has, for example, recently undertaken to support construction of one
million middle-class homes in Egypt, thus promoting political-economic

113stability there;104 the US and Japan, which also have major aid programs in
Egypt, could constructively cooperate with such initiatives.
IN CONCLUSION
Japan and the United States are far geographically from the Arabian
Gulf, but they are intimately interdependent with the Gulf, in both security
and economic terms. As the two largest free-market economies in theworld, there is much they can do to promote both stability and prosperityin the Gulf, its environs, and in the energy sea lanes from Hormuz to
Yokohama. Through their joint effort, Tokyo and Washington can also
encourage the Gulf nations to play a far-sighted global agenda-setting roleon energy, food, employment, and environmental questions, that iscommensurate with the resources that the affluent Gulf nations have attheir command. In a world of scarcity, the GCC nations are potentiallycrucial agenda setters on issues of central importance to all mankind.
Without security, the Gulf nations obviously cannot afford to beenlightened global agenda setters. The US and Japan need to cooperate so
as to assure that threats to the stable flow of resources from the Gulf arecontained. Concretely, this means support for political stability in the Gulf
and its environs, and also opposition to any interdiction of navigation in the

104 Asma Alsharif, “UAE’s Arabtec agrees $40 billion housing project, with Egypt army”, reuters.com, at:

http://www.reuters.com.

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Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Japan’s role in minesweeping could beparticularly important, but to be credible would need to involve both active
collective security steps and also possibly forward deployment, perhaps in
Oman.
The US and Japan also share an important prospective economic
agenda with the nations of the GCC, centering on energy efficiency; foodsecurity; employment; education; and environmental protection. This may
sound like an idealistic liberal agenda, but it is rooted in the concrete
political-economic requirements of the “Arc of Crisis” surrounding the
Arabian peninsula. Apart from this sector-specific agenda, Japan and theUnited States also share an interest in a dampening of rivalries within the
GCC, and its institutional strengthening, as a force for stability in an
increasingly volatile world.

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CHAPTER SEVEN:IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND JAPANThis monograph has focused on the changing circumstances of the
Arabian Gulf, the challenges it confronts, and how the United States andJapan can help in ameliorating those challenges. Their common actions, ofcourse, could have significant consequences for the two nations, and forworld affairs more generally, although we have not had occasion to clearly
articulate them as yet. Now it is time to assess those prospective
consequences, and thus to affirm why the current research is significant,and what implications for future policy it might imply.
One can consider the utility of this research, and of US-Japan-GCC
cooperation, along four dimensions: (1) the value to each of the threepartners individually; (1) the value to the world as a whole; (3) the value tothe US-Japan alliance; and (4) the heuristic value in elaborating importantquestions for further study. This chapter will review this work along thesevaried dimensions, giving special attention to policy implications in eacharea. It will, in conclusion, devote particular attention to ways in which the“trilateral” paradigm of analysis can be particularly useful in developing
and operationalizing concrete prescriptions for policy cooperation in USJapan relations, and why this paradigm is growing increasingly importantin the twenty-first century.
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Implications for the United States
The US has effectively been, since the Iranian Revolution and theBritish withdrawal from east of Suez at the end of the 1970s, the “guardianof the Gulf”. The political, military, and in some ways economic fate of the
Arab states along the Gulf’s southern shores has lain to a substantial degreein America’s hands. Yet Washington’s fiscal and political willingness to bearthat burden has seriously begun to wane, in the wake of conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan that continued for well over a decade, at a collective costalready of over two trillion dollars, with billions more in veterans benefits
still to come.
In the wake of two long military engagements in the Islamic world,
the issue of how much more blood and treasure to spend there is a lively
one in American politics. After a decade and a half of ongoing warfare since
the 9/11 attacks—the longest period of continuous armed conflict overseas
in US history—many Americans are growing weary of overseas
commitments and appalled at the cost. Yet they are also outraged at thebarbarity and inhumanity of terrorism, and generally aware that theircountry inevitably plays a unique global role. Most Americans—especiallythose in the policy process-- would agree, however, that continued active
involvement in the Islamic world is very much in US interest, provided thatthe human costs are not exorbitant, and there are concrete ways to share117them with allies. This research has provided some concrete suggestions as
to how that might be done.
It should be clear that Americans do not expect Japan to play a major“boots on the ground” role in confronting the Islamic State. They
themselves are contemplating largely air and naval engagement; US
advocacy that Japan actively pursue collective self-defense is intended only
to secure Japanese support, mainly through minesweeping, in sea lane
defense. Japanese support, through sea lane defense and active ODA tovulnerable nations of the “Arc of Crisis” and along the sea lanes to the Gulf,
would, however, be valuable, from an American perspective.
Implications for Japan
Japan, as we have repeatedly stressed, obtains five sixths of its entire
oil supply from the Arabian Gulf, and that dependence is unlikely todissapate very soon. The stability of the Gulf, and its neighbors in the “Arcof Crisis”, is thus a fundamental economic-security interest for Japan. Yet
Japan cannot realize that vital underlying national interest through its own
efforts alone.
US engagement, as the world’s preeminent superpower, inmaintaining the security of the Gulf and the energy sea lanes from Japan to
the Gulf is absolutely vital to Japanese national interests. Washington has

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consistently pursued Arabian Gulf security for its own reasons since shortly
after World War II, stepping into the gap left by Britain and the Shah’s Iranwhen their presence in the Gulf declined. Yet those intrinsic reasons of its
own for which Washington would maintain Gulf security largely by itself
are now being eroded by the Shale Gas and Shale Oil Revolutions, whichmake energy a less compelling reason for US involvement.
It is thus in Japan’s interest to be proactive in cooperating with theUnited States in limited ways, such as development assistance for the Arc of
Crisis and littoral nations along the sea lanes, including those surrounding
the Bay of Bengal. Expanded involvement in Oman, including increased
economic support; infrastructural assistance (as in pipeline and oil-storage
construction); and possibly deployment of mine-sweepers in crisis
situations, could also be in Japan’s interest, to enhance effective
cooperation with the United States. Due to its broad regional networks,
Oman could also be a useful partner for Japan in regional peace-building
efforts.
Implications for the Gulf Arab Nations
Earlier in this monograph we note a variety of pressing challenges
that the Arab Gulf nations and their Arc of Crisis neighbors increasingly
confront: demography, food security, energy efficiency, employment,

119education, and so on. Effectively meeting these challenges could make thedifference between stability and chaos, especially for the Arc of Crisis
nations. And over the long run the fate of the Arab Gulf and the Arc of Crisis
are inextricably linked.
Cooperation from the United States and Japan could be vital inmeeting these impending challenges, while a credible US-Japan partnership
could be vital in maintaining the economic foundations of American Arab
Gulf involvement as well. US involvement will certainly be vital on the
security side, especially as Iran develops greater nuclear capabilities. Japan
has much to contribute also, both in soft security (energy efficiency, inparticular) and also, in cooperation with the United States, along harderdimensions, such as mine-sweeping in the event of a hostile blockade of theStrait of Hormuz.
The most intense political-economic challenges in the Gulf region, we
have found, are in the “Arc of Crisis” nations surrounding the Gulf, rather
than in the GCC member countries themselves. Yemen, Iraq, Syria, the West
Bank, Gaza, and even Egypt are the greatest threats to peace and security,
apart from Iran. As the conflict in Afghanistan winds down, it is vital thatboth the US and Japan redirect resources intensively and systematically tothe socio-economic problems of the Arc of Crisis nations, and strongly
encourage the wealthy nations of the GCC to do so as well.
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Global Utility
For most of the post-World War II era, oil and gas exports from theGulf have been vital to Asian and European economic growth, and throughstable energy prices to global growth as well. Since the 1970s, the Gulf’srole in smoothly re-cycling its rising financial surpluses has also been
fundamental to world economic stability and progress. These felicitous
outcomes would not have been easily attained without cooperation within
the strategic triangle outlined here, with the cooperation of the US and the
GCC being especially central.
There is strong reason to believe that US-Japan-GCC collaboration
could become even more vital, from a global perspective, in coming years,
especially if the role of Iran continues to be destabilizing. The US security
commitment will be important, but costly for Washington and theAmerican people; Japanese and GCC support can help defray those costs,
and hence help assure that Washington continues to be engaged. Thisequation could pertain especially with respect to development assistance in
the Arc of Crisis; Washington will have few resources for that, yetassistance will be needed. Egypt; the Palestinian state; Jordan; Yemen; andOman are among the areas where development cooperation among thestrategic triangle could be especially productive from a broader global
standpoint. Both in those areas and with respect to piracy and some121aspects of sea lane defense, multilateral approaches with the US, Japan, and
the GCC at the core could be especially productive, as the issues
fundamentally involve cooperative security.
Dividends for the US-Japan Alliance
Although the United States and Japan have never fought shoulder toshoulder in a major armed conflict, their defense alliance has beenremarkably durable and effective, in both Asia-Pacific regional and in global
terms. It has endured well over sixty years—extremely long as alliances gohistorically; supported US operations in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf; andhelped through trans-Pacific financial flows in provoking the collapse of theSoviet Union. All those have been outcomes of crucial importance for bothnations, and for world stability.
The US-Japan alliance, however, has previously operated mainly in
the Asia-Pacific region. To the extent (as during the 1990-1991 Desert
Shield and Desert Storm crises) that it functioned further afield, theJapanese political-military role was extremely limited, and Japan’s major
function was largely to provide large amounts of cash. The range of issues
confronting the US-Japan-GCC strategic triangle today and in future aremuch broader, and the questions of Japanese and GCC integration are more122

ambitious. Hopefully this research has been useful in helping toconceptualize them.
Both the US and Japan today live increasingly in a global world. Manyof the most pressing security problems that both confront—nuclear
proliferation, energy efficiency, financial stability, cyber-security, terrorism,
container security, and environmental pollution—are inevitably global. So
the alliance itself needs to operate globally. Given the inevitableparochialism of domestic public opinion, however, stimulus from outside
can hopefully help to broaden horizons closer to the required global level.
That is one of the most important benefits of the trilateral approach to the
Arabian Gulf suggested here.
Issues for Future Research
The principal analytical contribution of this research may be tohighlight the importance of trilateral approaches to US-Japan relations. The
agenda of US-Japan relations inevitably needs to become more global, forreasons discussed above, although parochial domestic forces andestablished interests from an earlier era tend to give it a more conventionaland bilateral bias. Trilateral analysis, where ways of deepening bilateralalliance cooperation are discussed in specific third-party contexts, such as

123

the Middle East or South Asia, is one good way to dilute or overcome thisimportant but narrow trans-Pacific bias.
This monograph has dealt with US-Japan cooperation in the Arabian
Gulf, both directly and in motivating third parties, such as the GCC, topursue objectives clearly in the US-Japan interest. The Gulf is clearly a mostimportant theater for applying this trilateral concept, for reasons that havebecome clear. Under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this concept wasapplied to trilateral relations among the US, Japan, and India, extending it
to a limited degree to relations with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, among
others. US administrations have given attention to US-Japan-Korea
trilateral relations since the Kennedy-Reischauer years in the 1960s, andeven before.
In an era when national boundaries are blurring, amidst
interdependence, and external stimuli are increasingly important in foreign
policy formulation, there are many other areas of the world where thetrilateral concept can be productively applied, to identify attractive joint
policy priorities for the United States and Japan, and to mobilize domestic
political support on their behalf . It could, for example, be used to defineroles and missions in relation to major powers such as Russia and China. It
could also be used to delineate responsibilities with respect to strategicareas of the world.
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One particularly important yet heretofore neglected area in thatregard could be the Bay of Bengal, touched by India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka,
and Bangladesh, and contested by China. The region is strategicallyimportant, both as a crucial way station on the energy sea lanes from
Northeast Asia to the Gulf, and as a possible exit point from China to theIndian Ocean, that circumvents the Strait of Malacca. The Bay of Bengal isan area in flux politically, whose fortunes can be shaped through judicious
assistance. And it is a region where Japan has long been held in high regard,
and where Japanese development assistance has contributed much to local
socio-economic progress.
A second topic deserving further study is the utility of multilateralism.
There are, to be sure, situations where it could undermine the deterrent
capacity of bilateral alliances, and those must be avoided at all costs.
Multilateralism can also, however, be potentially valuable as a confidencebuilding measure, even with potential adversaries, as in the Gulf of Aden
anti-piracy operation, and the broader utility of such approaches needs
more study.
IN CONCLUSIONThe US-Japan relationship has classically been conceived in AsiaPacific terms, and the direct bilateral ties between the two great market

125economies of the world will no doubt always be a core concern for bothTokyo and Washington. The world, however, is growing increasingly global,
and Pacific affairs are no longer the sole or even central concern of these
two great powers. At the heart of the broader concerns of both nations is aquintessentially global topic: the Arabian Gulf, which holds over half of theoil reserves, and a third of the gas, for the entire world.
Japan gets around 85 percent of its oil, and almost one third of its
natural gas from the Gulf. The United States, while less trade-dependent on
the Gulf, has major financial ties, and relies on the GCC nations increasingly
as surrogates in helping stabilize a vital part of the world from which it isdisengaging its ground forces after more than a decade of war. So
developments in the Gulf have major implications for both the US and Japan.
The nations of the Gulf, as we have seen, are among the wealthiest on
earth, holding over ten percent of the world’s foreign-exchange reserves ina region with substantially less than one percent of the world’s people. Yet
the GCC countries have serious divisions of their own, and are surroundedby an Arc of Crisis consisting of much more unstable nations. Seeing theregion stabilized is thus a challenge that is both difficult and a matter ofconsiderable importance to both the US and Japan.

126

The US and Japan approach the challenge of contributing to Arabian
Gulf stability from contrasting but complementary backgrounds andperspectives. The US, as the preeminent global superpower, has thepolitical-military resources and the experience to contribute in the hardsecurity realm. Japan, which has heretofore been a first-rank economic
superpower, but with an under-developed political-military dimension, canmost easily contribute to peace-building rather than deterrence. Throughtheir interaction, however, Japan and the United States can learn from one
another. And the challenges of helping stabilize a crucial region of theworld can become a means of broadening their alliance, while deepening
national capabilities as well.

127