This book assesses the dynamics of Kuwaiti foreign policy since 1961 and explores the role of Kuwait as a small state in international politics. It analyzes the impact of ideology, religion, and value systems on Kuwaiti foreign policy as well as the impact of domestic forces on political actors.

By the time of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, he had already developed an ambitious foreign policy vision. By his own account, he sought to bend the arc of history toward greater justice, freedom, and peace; within a year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for that promise. In Bending History, Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O’Hanlon measure Obama not only against the record of his predecessors and the immediate challenges of the day, but also against his own soaring rhetoric and inspiring goals. Bending History assesses the considerable accomplishments as well as the failures and seeks to explain what has happened. Obama's best work has been on major and pressing foreign policy challenges—counterterrorism policy, including the daring raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden; the "reset" with Russia; managing the increasingly significant relationship with China; and handling the rogue states of Iran and North Korea. Policy on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, has reflected serious flaws in both strategy and execution. Afghanistan policy has been plagued by inconsistent messaging and teamwork. On important "softer" security issues—from energy and climate policy to problems in Africa and Mexico—the record is mixed. As for his early aspiration to reshape the international order, according greater roles and responsibilities to rising powers, Obama's efforts have been well-conceived but of limited effectiveness. On issues of secondary importance, Obama has been disciplined in avoiding fruitless disputes (as with Chavez in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba) and insisting that others take the lead (as with Qaddafi in Libya). Notwithstanding several missteps, he has generally managed well the complex challenges of the Arab awakenings, striving to strike the right balance between U.S. values and interests. The authors see Obama's foreign policy to date as a triumph of discipline and realism over ideology. He has been neither the transformative beacon his devotees have wanted, nor the weak apologist for America that his critics allege. They conclude that his grand strategy for promoting American interests in a tumultuous world may only now be emerging, and may yet be curtailed by conflict with Iran. Most of all, they argue that he or his successor will have to embrace U.S. economic renewal as the core foreign policy and national security challenge of the future.

The Gulf States and the Horn of Africa takes a deep dive into the complexities of power projection, political rivalry and conflict across the Red Sea and beyond. Focusing on the nature of interregional connections between the Gulf and the Horn, it explores the multifaceted nature of relations between states and the two increasingly important subregions. Bringing together scholars working on and in both regions, the book considers strategic competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between the UAE and both Qatar and Turkey, along with other international engagement such as joint anti-piracy operations, counterterrorism cooperation, security assistance, base agreements and economic development. Drawing on a range of subject expertise and field research across case study countries, the volume adds to the sparse literature on the regional and international politics of the Horn of Africa and Red Sea, gleaning specific insights from contemporary reflections across the book. This is essential reading for students and researchers interested in the Horn of Africa and the evolving regional geopolitics of the Gulf.

China’s foreign policy in the Arab world is important because it reflects China’s general foreign policy. In this study, first published in 1981, the author draws upon a wealth of previously unpublished and inaccessible material to analyse Chinese attitudes in three cases: the two Arab liberation movements, the Palestine Resistance Movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Oman, and the established and independent State of Kuwait. Since the Arab liberation movements played a significant political role within their fields of operation, it was necessary for China to decide whether these movements did actually fit in with Chinese foreign policy objectives. Dr Behbehani’s analysis of these two case studies provides the basis for a discussion of whether China’s motives in supporting the liberation movements are theoretical or purely practical. China’s support for Kuwait’s political internal continuity is related to the stability of the whole Gulf region. The author analyses Chinese support for Kuwait and the surrounding conservative states on two main bases, political and economic, in the form of trade. It is through these channels, particularly the economic one, that China has sought to establish itself in the Gulf and the Arabian peninsula.

This book studies how smaller Gulf states managed to increase their influence in the Middle East, oftentimes capitalising on their smallness as a foreign policy tool. By establishing a novel theoretical framework (the complex model of size), this study identifies specific ways in which material and perceptual smallness affect power, identity, regime stability, and leverage in international politics. The small states of the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) managed to build up considerable influence in regional politics over the last decade, although their size is still considered an essential, irresolvable weakness, which makes them secondary actors to great powers such as Saudi Arabia or Iran. Breaking down explicit and implicit biases towards largeness, the book examines specific case studies related to foreign and security policy behaviour, including the Gulf wars, the Arab Uprisings, the Gulf rift, and the Abraham Accords. Analysing the often-neglected small Gulf states, the volume is an important contribution to international relations theory, making it a key resource for students and academics interested in Small State Studies, Gulf studies, and the political science of the Middle East.

Kuwait has been pivotal to the decades-long U.S. effort to secure the Persian Gulf region because of its consistent cooperation with U.S. military operations in the region and its key location in the northern Gulf. Kuwait and the United States have a formal Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), under which the United States maintains over 13,000 military personnel in country and prepositions military equipment to project power in the region. Only Germany, Japan, and South Korea host more U.S. troops than does Kuwait, which has hosted the operational command center for U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) that has combatted the Islamic State since 2014. Kuwait is a partner not only of the United States but also of the other hereditary monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman). Kuwait is participating militarily in the Saudi-led coalition that is trying to defeat the Shia "Houthi" rebel movement in Yemen, but Kuwait tends to favor mediation of regional issues over the use of military force. Kuwait has sought to resolve the intra-GCC rift that erupted in June 2017 when Saudi Arabia and the UAE moved to isolate Qatar. Kuwait has refrained from intervening in Syria's civil war, instead hosting donor conferences for victims of the Syrian civil conflict, Iraq's recovery from the Islamic State challenge, and the effects of regional conflict on Jordan's economy. Kuwait has not followed some of the other GCC states in building quiet ties to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Kuwait generally supports U.S. efforts to counter Iran and has periodically arrested Kuwaiti Shias that the government says are spying for Iran, but it also engages Iran at high levels. U.S. government reports have praised steps by Kuwait to counter the financing of terrorism, but reports persist that wealthy Kuwaitis are still able to donate to extreme Islamist factions in the region. Kuwait has consistently engaged the post-Saddam governments in Baghdad in part to prevent any repeat of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Experts have long assessed Kuwait's political system as a potential regional model for its successful incorporation of secular and Islamist political factions, both Shia and Sunni. However, since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Kuwait has followed other GCC states in incarcerating and revoking the citizenship of social media and other critics. Kuwait's political stability has not been in question but long-standing parliamentary opposition to the ruling Sabah family's political dominance has in recent years included visible public pressure for political and economic reform. Parliamentary elections in July 2013 produced a National Assembly amenable to working with the ruling family, but the subsequent elections held in November 2016 returned to the body Islamist and liberal opponents of the Sabah family who held sway in earlier assemblies. Kuwait has increased its efforts to curb trafficking in persons over the past few years. Years of political paralysis contributed to economic stagnation relative to Kuwait's more economically vibrant Gulf neighbors such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Like the other GCC states, Kuwait has struggled with reduced income from oil exports during 20142018. Kuwait receives negligible amounts of U.S. foreign assistance, and has offset some of the costs of U.S. operations in the region since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The Road to War examines how presidential commitments can lead to the use of American military force, and to war. Marvin Kalb notes that since World War II, "presidents have relied more on commitments, public and private, than they have on declarations of war, even though the U.S. Constitution declares rather unambiguously that Congress has the responsibility to "declare" war.