Security in the Gulf
Local Militaries before British Withdrawal

A reinterpretation of how Britain maintained order, protected its interests and discharged its defence obligations in the Gulf before 1971.

Ash Rossiter (Author)

9781108726269, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 September 2022

320 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.415 kg

'Security in the Gulf fills an important lacuna in the scholarly literature about the last period of the Arabian states under British protection. Rossiter's book is engagingly written, deeply thoughtful, and extensively researched – it is a major contribution to the historical scholarship on the Gulf and the British Empire.' Zoltan Barany, University of Texas

The British Empire employed a diverse range of strategies to establish and then maintain control over its overseas territories in the Middle East. This new interpretation of how Britain maintained order, protected its interests and carried out its defence obligations in the Gulf in the decades before its withdrawal from the region in 1971 looks at how the British government increasingly sought to achieve security with great economy of force by building up local militaries instead of deploying costly military forces from the home country. Benefitting from the extensive use of recently declassified British Government archival documents and India Office records, this highly original narrative weighs the successes and failures of Britain's use of 'indirect rule' among the small states of Eastern Arabia, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the seven Trucial States and Oman. Drawing important lessons for scholars and policymakers about the limitations of trying to outsource security to local partners, Security in the Gulf is a remarkable study of the deployment of British colonial policy in the Middle East before 1971.

Introduction. Local militaries and imperialism
1. Patterns of protection in the Gulf
2. British India and local security arrangements
3. Local militaries and intensified British interests
4. Intervention or local means of coercion?: unrest in Bahrain and Qatar
5. Local forces and Britain's Silver Age in the Gulf
6. Securing the Gulf after Britain's withdrawal
Conclusion. Security on the cheap?

Subject Areas: Military tactics [JWKT], Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1], British & Irish history [HBJD1]