This book examines Britain's decision to leave the Gulf and considers the interaction between British decision-making, and local responses and initiatives, in shaping the modern Gulf.

This book examines Britain's decision to leave the Gulf and considers the interaction between British decision-making, and local responses and initiatives, in shaping the modern Gulf.

An in-depth analysis of Great Britain's policy in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region during the last years of British imperialism in the area, covering the period from the independence of Kuwait to the decision of the Wilson Government to withdraw from the Gulf.

Although Britain’s formal imperial role in the smaller, oil-rich sheikdoms of the Arab Gulf – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – ended in 1971, Britain continued to have a strong interest and continuing presence in the region. This book explores the nature of Britain’s role after the formal end of empire. It traces the historical events of the post-imperial years, including the 1973 oil shock, the fall of the Shah in Iran and the beginnings of the Iran-Iraq War, considers the changing positions towards the region of other major world powers, including the United States, and engages with debates on the nature of empire and the end of empire. The book is a sequel to the authors’ highly acclaimed previous books Britain's Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, 1950-71 (Routledge 2004) and Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-war Decolonization, 1945-1973 (Routledge 2012).

In recent decades Russia has played an increasingly active role in the Middle East as states within the region continue to diversify their relations with major external powers. Yet the role of specific Russian regions, especially those that share an 'Islamic identity' with the GCC has been overlooked. In this book Diana Galeeva examines the relations between the Gulf States and Russia from the Soviet era to the present day. Using the Republic of Tatarstan, one of Russia's Muslim polities as a case study, Galeeva demonstrates the emergence of relations between modern Tatarstan and the GCC States, evolving from concerns with economic survival to a rising paradiplomacy reliant on shared Islamic identities. Having conducted fieldwork in the Muslim Republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Dagestan, the book includes interviews with high-ranking political figures, heads of religious organisations and academics. Moving beyond solely economic and geopolitical considerations, the research in this book sheds light on the increasingly important role that culture and shared Islamic identity play in paradiplomacy efforts.

Half a century ago, Britain abandoned Aden, its last colonial outpost in the Arab world as its attempt to establish a new polity foundered amid a rising tide of Arab nationalism, tribal infighting and anti-colonial sentiment that eventually gave rise to the establishment of South Yemen. Yet just over three years later in 1971, a new state, the United Arab Emirates, emerged in Arabia, formed from the old Trucial states over which Britain had long held sway. At a time when state failure and fragmentation has become synonymous with much of the Middle East and where the very idea of sovereignty and legitimacy have become contested issues, this comparative historical study of the varied British attempts at state creation on the Arabian peninsula offers important insights into the limits of external ambition, as well as the possibilities that great power retrenchment offered to the peoples of the region. The legacy of British influence in Aden and Abu Dhabi still very much resonates today; this volume explains why. This book was originally published as a special issue of Middle Eastern Studies.

This book is a major and wide-ranging re-assessment of Anglo-American relations in the Middle Eastern context. It analyses the process of ending of empire in the Middle East from 1945 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Based on original research into both British and American archival sources, it covers all the key events of the period, including the withdrawal from Palestine, the Anglo-American coup against the Musaddiq regime in Iran, the Suez Crisis and its aftermath, the Iraqi and Yemeni revolutions, and the Arab-Israeli conflicts. It demonstrates that, far from experiencing a ‘loss of nerve’ or tamely acquiescing in a transfer of power to the United States, British decision-makers robustly defended their regional interests well into the 1960s and even beyond. It also argues that concept of the ‘special relationship’ impeded the smooth-running of Anglo-American relations in the region by obscuring differences, stymieing clear communication, and practising self-deception on policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic who assumed a contiguity which all too often failed to exist. With the Middle East at the top of the contemporary international policy agenda, and recent Anglo-American interventions fuelling interest in empire, this is a timely book of importance to all those interested in the contemporary development of the region.