Power-based interventions of countries organizing the siege against Qatar

Abstract

In Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict, Ury, Brett and Goldberg proposed three categories - power-based, rights-based, and interestbased - for analyzing interventions and processes used by parties in conflict. Chapter 2 provided background information and context for a deeper analysis of the siege against Qatar. That analysis reveals that the blockading countries - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt - have relied primarily on power-based interventions in their attempt to force compliance with the thirteen demands and six principles delivered to Qatar in July 2017. This chapter discusses the blockading countries' use of the following powerbased interventions: imposing the blockade itself, expelling expats, planning a mercenary or other invasion, violating Qatari airspace, fostering a palace coup, waging an economic war, criminalizing any show of support for Qatar, and blocking media broadcasts. It also describes the use, for the first time in the Arab Gulf, of cyber warfare, Twitter bot armies, and a misinformation campaign designed to create a narrative about Qatar's role in financing terrorism. The chapter concludes that the power-based interventions of the blockading countries succeeded in motivating Qatar to step up efforts to curtail terrorism financing, but they otherwise failed to force compliance with the thirteen demands or six principles. In addition, the power-based interventions risked escalating the dispute in dangerous and irreparable ways, potentially ruptured the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), exposed the GCC's impotence in managing cross-border conflicts, and damaged inter-country relationships among GCC officials, citizens, and expats.