How the GCC became a playbook example for modern influence warfare
While the impact of such investments is difficult to measure, the blockade was ultimately catalyzed by Trump echoing the premise, labeling Doha as “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
By DIMITRIY I. FROLOVSKIY, KHRISTO AYADSAUDI ARABIA’S King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud talks with Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah during the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) 40th Summit in Riyadh, in December.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Alongside hopes of the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar gradually finding its way out of deadlock, the crisis has already affected conventional and long-term views on modern influence warfare and its effects.Shifting from self-promotion to competing for favorable public opinion, the spat’s opponents managed to swiftly ramp up their outreach across the Western hemisphere, and secure lasting connections with major policy experts, media outlets and educational hubs.The results of high-value campaigns not only helped Qatar to sustain its sovereignty and, to an extent, protect the Gulf Cooperation Council framework. They also shaped cohorts of opposite international voices, which influence public discourse and vectors of foreign policy at home.Coined by Christopher Walker, the term “sharp power” outlines the capacity of authoritarian states to employ “manipulation to sap the integrity of independent institutions.” Scrutinizing disruptive Russian and Chinese strategies, the concept did not encompass nations in the Middle East and their lobbying efforts. Thus, the Qatar crisis arose as a playbook example of its relevance within the region’s settings.Saudi Arabia had emerged as a sharp power trendsetter already before the fallout. By the time US President Donald Trump made his first foreign trip to the kingdom, the number of its registered agents in the US had skyrocketed from 24 to 145 individuals, and Riyadh had roughly 20 firms working on its behalf. The visit was hailed by lobbying firms on annual retainer from the Saudi government, as well as other agents. Established in 2016, the Washington-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee alone spent more than $1.6 million on advertising to discredit Qatar in the public domain.While the impact of such investments is difficult to measure, the blockade was ultimately catalyzed by Trump echoing the premise, labeling Doha as “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”The Qatari response came two days after the blockade’s onset. The small Gulf state succeeded in attracting more than 250 influential experts to its side of the rupture. It reenergized its media engagement by launching public campaigns and running ads at major outlets, such as The New York Times, to counter allegations and highlight the illegality of the blockade. Organizations across sectors adopted the country’s messaging, underscoring continuation of “business as usual,” despite the duress exerted on its economy. Doha proactively reached out to the American public, and emphasized the importance of the US-Qatar partnership, raising awareness of Qatari investments and highlighting the positive impacts on the US economy.The rivalry likewise transferred to academia. In 2014, Qatar had subsidized the Brookings Doha Center with $14.8m., but the post–blockade landscape delivered new knowledge hubs that bet on different agendas within the GCC. Dissenting from the UAE-funded Arab Gulf States Institute and the Saudi-sponsored Arabia Foundation, both of which accused Qatar of disrupting the region, Doha’s Gulf International Forum offered observers different angles of analysis. A binary scholarly debate emerged, on the one hand affirming that the region’s societies must be empowered against authoritarian regimes, on the other, advocating for authoritarian stability to contain political Islam.Meanwhile, the spat’s regional communication employed a much fiercer antagonistic tone, frequently utilizing social media bots, but also blunt anti-Qatar propaganda channels without identified authors. More disposed to information warfare, the Arabic-language hypermedia environment recurrently referred to tribal aspects, hardly comprehensible to non-Arab publics. Stories of fake exiled sheikhs or threats to physically turn Qatar into an island may sound sensationalist and negligible in the West, but resonate very seriously among the Arab audiences they target.IN THE rift’s third year, the outcomes achieved by such adversarial communication offer a picture different from what the embargoing countries must have expected. Although the Gulf media’s warmongering attitude was initially transferred into Western capitals, observers at the receiving end recognized early on that any impact made actually originated from the wielding of financial power. Commentary, particularly in Europe, progressively articulated a tendency toward Qatar, the conflict’s passive actor. Western reactions however, while rooted in concerns about geopolitical stability and international law, also reflected standing caution toward the Gulf monarchies as a whole, and Saudi Arabia in particular.The very publicly fought quarrel revived Western unease, while prompting domestic oppositions to inquire into their own governments’ relations in the Gulf. Particularly the then-newly elected Trump administration faced questioning about considerable Arab influence, despite stark ideological divides. The president’s endorsement of the blockade, undercutting secretary of state Rex Tillerson days after the Riyadh visit, and earlier failed business dealings of son-in-law Jared Kushner with Qatar, drew persisting suspicions of personal financial motives.The landscape has since evolved further. While Qatar has fared well under pressure, the events around Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi triggered an international outcry, fueling criticism of Trump’s Saudi relations in an already deeply divided Washington. So far, the US transactional interest has proven to outweigh critical public opinion, but the closeness to Riyadh has been water to the mill of Democrat arguments against the Trump presidency.From an Arab perspective, the Gulf’s information war was primarily costly, with questionable results for the region’s image. “Game of Thrones” became a label for the standoff in the West, where little differentiation is made between the Gulf states. While Doha found itself forced to utilize its means of soft and financial power, the blockading players could not establish themselves as credible critics of Qatari policies. Instead, the camps in effect entered into a competition that ultimately fashioned and supported two very distinct points of view in the power struggle on Capitol Hill. Moreover, what seemed to lead into a zero-sum game at best has turned out to be counterproductive, particularly to Saudi efforts on its path to reform and modernity.Dmitriy Frolovskiy is a political analyst and consultant on policy and strategy in the Middle East and Central Asia, and has written about Russia’s foreign policy toward the Gulf Cooperation Council states and former Soviet territories. His writings have been featured in Foreign Policy, The Hill, the Carnegie Moscow Center blog, Al Jazeera, and others outlets. dmitriyfrolovskiy.pressfolios.com. Khristo Ayad is a strategic communications consultant and public diplomacy researcher based in Doha. His focus lies on the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as soft power diplomacy in a wider context.
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