The Arab Federation formed as a bulwark for Hashemite defense against the populist sentiments driving the union between Egypt and Syria. Jordan, fearing a militarized and antagonistic Syria to its north, proposed a federation with Iraq to strengthen both monarchies. Jordan, like Syria, was the weaker party in the relationship but retained a number of prominent cabinet posts for its officials and both Baghdad and Amman kept their status as national capitals.[21] However, just as the UAR ended in a Syrian military coup in Damascus, the Arab Federation disbanded after an Iraqi military coup in Baghdad. The newly formed revolutionary Iraqi government attempted to form a new union with Damascus and Cairo, but Syrian leadership remained too skeptical of Nasser and the proposal faded away.[22]

Sub-Regional Organizations: The Gulf Cooperation Council

The GCC established itself in 1981 at the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War to provide a united defense against Iran. Its loosely aligned military force, dubbed Peninsula Shield, found little success when Qatari and Saudi troops engaged each other in a deadly border clash.[23] The group initially consisted of only 5,000 soldiers.[24] Egypt offered to send an additional 15,000, but the offer proved unnecessary when the war ended.[25] The force remained largely symbolic after the war, and in 1990 it failed to deter Iraq from invading Kuwait.[26] Decades later in 2011, Saudi and UAE troops deployed to Bahrain under the Peninsula Shield banner to support its Sunni rulers against a Shi’a rebellion.[27]

Individual states within the GCC have invested heavily into defense spending. Their militaries operate equipment purchased from numerous countries. Cutting edge missile, intelligence, and communication systems complement their combat assets. Despite their large investments, the GCC has failed to integrate military apparatuses since discussions on the topic began in 1993. The GCC signed a joint defense agreement in 2000 to attempt to build military cooperation.[28] These efforts continued in 2002 and 2003 amid the U.S. invasion of Iraq.[29] In 2005, GCC leadership agreed to grow the force and integrate new weapons to broaden the Peninsula Shield’s capabilities.[30]

Recent military endeavors have led some observers to believe that the prospect for greater GCC security cooperation is on the horizon. The intervention in Bahrain coincided with the 2011 Libya intervention, the 2012 GCC summit during which the members announced joint naval forces and counterterrorism units, and the 2015 war against the Houthis in Yemen.[31] Each of these recent activities could be viewed as collective defense achievements, but research into organizational success shows “little or no evidence” that the GCC has impacted any resolution in the Gulf in a meaningful way.[32] In fact, cooperation amongst the GCC as an entity has declined in recent years. Ongoing disputes between Qatar and the Saudi-led coalition of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, have no apparent resolution. Disagreements are based on two issues: Qatar’s alleged support for political Islam and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and its closer relations to Iran than other states like Saudi Arabia.[33]

Ad Hoc Alliances: Arab Wars vs Israel

The Arab nations and Israel have fought multiple wars, the most significant of which were in 1948, 1967, and 1973. On each occasion, a coalition of Arab states formed, fought, and lost. These coalitions were largely ad hoc and impromptu, existed for a short period of time, and lacked any major integration or coordination.

The formation of Israel in 1948 provoked invasions from its Arab neighbors. The Arab states’ population greatly outnumbered Israel, but they failed to train, equip, and coordinate their forces at an adequate level. In contrast, Israeli units were prepared for war and fielded better-equipped troops than the Arab states.[34] War broke out again in 1967 (The Six-Day War) after military posturing and rising tensions in the Levant. Israel thoroughly destroyed the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian militaries, captured large amounts of neighboring territory, and established itself as a dominant military power.[35] The 1967 war was a catastrophe for the Arab states and permanently set back the pan-Arab movement which was already on shaky ground.[36]

In 1973, Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel in unison to retake lost territory in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Like previous conflicts, coordination was poor and led to frequent incidents of friendly fire.[37] The attack caught Israel off-guard. Egypt re-captured portions of the Sinai and the war eventually led to the Camp David accords. This was the closest the Arab nations ever came to achieving outright victory against Israel, but their limited success failed to strengthen regional cooperation or spur on a collective security arrangement. Instead, it led to the opposite. Egypt’s peace treaty with and recognition of Israel as a legitimate state led to major divisions in the Arab world. The main form of Arab-Israeli violence since the treaty has been continued outbreaks of localized conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Current Military Coalitions

The most visible current coalition of Middle Eastern states is the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. Saudi and UAE contingents entered Yemen in 2015 to support Sunni groups against the Iranian-backed Houthis who overthrew the government. The war has dragged on for four years and overextended the Gulf militaries. The goals of Saudi and Emirati leaders have diverged as the conflict continues. The UAE primarily supports separatist groups in southern Yemen who control the port city of Aden, and it recently redeployed many soldiers from the country.[38] Besides a lack of support for Saudi objectives, UAE and Saudi militias have occasionally targeted each other. UAE aircraft defended their southern allies against royalist forces to retain their hold on Aden and its proximity to Yemen’s oil fields.[39]

Middle Eastern states have also supported the counter-ISIS campaign with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Bahrain carried out airstrikes in Syria. Jordan conducted strikes, provided training facilities and supported air-combat operations. Qatar provided facilities and overflight permission for U.S. troops, and Saudi Arabia provided training facilities, bases, and bombings in Syria.[40] Middle Eastern states have also supported NATO coalitions in Afghanistan. Turkey has invested in the Afghan mission for years and maintains over 500 troops in the country.[41] The UAE, Qatar, and Jordan have also contributed troops to the Afghanistan coalition.[42]

None of these collective operations are functionally Middle Eastern or Arab. The burden of building the infrastructure necessary for the coalition to operate such as communications systems, orders and plans, intelligence networks, and interoperability standards were conducted by the U.S. or Europe. These operations are more accurately seen as individual national contributions to Western-led coalitions rather than meaningful steps towards a collective security arrangement.

Causes of Cooperative Failure

What Doesn’t Cause Failure

Some common justifications about the lack of security cooperation in the Middle East face strong challenges when compared to NATO. It is worth first examining what arguments are not the reason for non-cooperation before examining plausible explanations.

Ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences in the region date back thousands of years. Many observers point to these differences, and their accentuation during colonialism, as a major cause of ongoing disunity. Some reports on the Arab world, especially during the Arab Spring, forecast the division of existing state structures into ethnically controlled sub-states.[43] But these divisions exist in Western Europe, as well. The nations which later formed NATO were shattered by two World Wars and survived political and economic ruin to become a cohesive, enduring defense organization. Prior to the 20th century, Europe endured the same ethnic, religious, and linguistic feuds which characterized the lands of the Ottoman Empire and caliphates. Current divisive movements like Brexit, independence votes in Catalan, and ongoing secessionist efforts across Europe disrupt this narrative of continental unity.[44]

Another common answer relies on culture as a defining factor of Arab military non-integration. Some observers credit Arab preferences to hold information tightly and restrict communication as a major detriment to cooperation. As one scholar explains, “Decisions are made and delivered from on high, with very little lateral communication. This leads to a highly centralized system, where authority hardly ever delegates.”[45] This argument, too, finds common ground in modern NATO arrangements. Coalition forces in current war zones like Afghanistan often find themselves beholden to multiple leaders from the coalition military command, their national military command, and their country’s political leadership.[46] Units operating in the same geographic area also often answer to separate command structures.

A third similarity which fails to explain cooperative failure is organizational policies that restrict decisions to unanimous votes. Article 6 of the League of Arab States Charter mandates that group responses to aggression will be decided by a unanimous vote.[47] The clause’s effect is to prioritize national sovereignty and minimize the organization’s ability to act.[48] Some scholars argue that the unanimous voting clause means the League’s agenda “is little more than the lowest common denominator of the desires of its member states.”[49] However, NATO shares the same clause, and all NATO members must vote in unison for military or political action. Consensus drives NATO decision-making, and individual states are not obligated to participate in every NATO mission.

Cause of Failure #1: Lack of Trust

Regime insecurity permeates the Middle East.[50] Trust between governments is rare, and a lack of national identity or acceptance of statehood historically characterized the Arab countries. The results are two-fold: weak national governing establishments, and government-citizen relations “based on coercion, the exhaustion of ideological foundations and varying allegiances beyond centralized institutions.”[51] Most regional institutions and agreements have failed due to an unwillingness of national governments to empower or enforce these arrangements because they did not trust their neighbors. Low levels of regional interdependence on trade and politics foster the status quo.[52]

This lack of trust was a major contributing factor in the failures of Arab alliances against Israel. King Hussein of Jordan, after secret negotiations with Israel, preferred to occupy and secure the West Bank during 1948 rather than continue fighting deeper into Israel.[53] In 1967, Nasser lied to Jordan about the location of the Egyptian Air Force to entice the kingdom to join the war. In 1973, Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, used false operational plans to entice the Syrians into war with Israel.[54] Arab rulers learned from these experiences that they could not rely on other Arab nations for collective goals or trust the information they were sharing.

Pan-Arab unity was a consistent rhetorical device for Arab rulers to boost their own positions, but these words were not sincere requests for cooperation. Instead they served as a “claim...of hegemony, over the other state[s], and, potentially, its people, resources and territory.”[55] For example, unity was the goal of the League of Arab States at the height of pan-Arabism. However, in direct contrast to that mission, the League’s principles undercut trust between states. Its processes were enshrined on the bedrock of individual rulers and their governments respecting the sovereignty of other Arab states. Any deeper partnership could not overcome the fear of larger Arab states dominating their neighbors and the League was left without any effective enforcement mechanisms for action.[56]