Gulf Cooperation Council's Foreign Policy - Essay Example

This paper aims to examine the GCC’s changing foreign policies towards leading players in the region, especially, the GCC’s primary mandate being to promote, protect and pursue the interests of its member states. The Gulf Cooperation Council is an alliance of countries with similar political and economic interests, whose primary focus is to foster the political and economic development of its member states.1 The GCC seeks to strengthen the regional relations through increased collaborations between national states in the gulf; unity in political and economic associations between national states within the region is just a means to an end for the member states- the end itself is political and economic prosperity that is backed with strong currencies and a host of natural resources.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as a political and economic alliance, has been in existence for over 30 years now since its inception; the alliance dates back in history to 30 years ago when it was founded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 1981.2 The GCC alliance has been operational since then up to date, and the founder countries converged based on two main strategic reasons- promotion of political stability and economic prosperity. In other words, the alliance was formed purely out of the need by member states to join efforts to becoming politically and economically stable; the alliance was thus a strategic move to strengthen the political and economic stability of the region.

The Gulf Cooperation Council is made up of six Middle Eastern countries that are found in the gulf region; these six countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.3 Being a regional alliance, all the member countries have a number of things in common, and are subject to similar socio-economic, political, environmental and