NO COMMON DEFENCE

Just three years ago the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) faced in reality the very threat which the six- country organisation had been formed to meet: the military invasion of one of its member states. The GCC had been formed with military and security cooperation in mind among other aims, and it was an article of faith among the members that an attack on one would be considered an attack on them all. Yet when the test came in the shape of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the GCC was militarily not capable of doing anything about it.