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Autonomy, necessity, and the small state: ruling Kuwait in the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Mary Ann Tètreault
Mary Ann Tètreault
Affiliation:
Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.
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Abstract

To reduce its strategic vulnerability, a small state may enter into a cliency relationship with a more powerful state. Among the consequences of cliency for the small state are the acquisition of resources, which can be used against threatening neighbors as well as against domestic populations, and the reduction of autonomy. In 1899, Mubarak, Kuwait's ruler, entered a cliency relationship with Britain. As a result, Kuwait was able to avoid incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. Although Mubarak and subsequent Kuwaiti rulers lost their foreign policy autonomy, they acquired resources enabling them to enhance their domestic autonomy by suppressing elite groups that were formerly integral participants in governing Kuwait. In 1961, oil revenues enabled Kuwait's rulers to end the cliency relationship and to provide their own resources for repressing or pacifying domestic groups. But the fact that oil revenues proved less effective than cliency in maintaining Kuwait's strategic security illustrates the fundamental security dilemma faced by all small states, even rich ones.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1991 , pp. 565 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1991

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References

Research for this article was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship and a grant from Old Dominion University. I am grateful to Mark Gasiorowski, James N. Hyde, Stephen Krasner, Shannon Maher, Craig Murphy, and Frank Randall for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts.

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17. Support for these conclusions comes from interviews with Kuwaiti citizens, including leaders of the political opposition, conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990.

18. Tompsett-Makin, Deborah, “Containment, Cliency and the Revolution in Vietnam,” Master's thesis, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va., 1989, p. 162Google Scholar.

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25. Ibid., pp. 119–20.

26. Dickson, H. R. P., cited by Winstone, and Freeth, in Kuwait: Prospect and Reality, pp. 70–71Google Scholar. Dickson admired Mubarak, whom he saw as a strong ruler and a friend of Britain, which he certainly was.

27. See “Extract from Bahrain diary for week ending the 9th September 1910,” in Records of Kuwait, 1899–1961, ed. Rush, Alan deLacy (London: Archive International, 1989), vol. 1, p. 556Google Scholar.

28. The regions that are now part of Iraq were the subject of a large and successful nineteenth-century effort by the Ottomans to reestablish and even expand their control of Mesopotamia and contiguous areas. Before the end of the century, Basra and its hinterland were once more an administrative region of the Ottoman Empire governed by a wali appointed by the Porte. Kuwait eluded Ottoman efforts. Its rulers continued to be independent even though Abdullah (who reigned from 1866 to 1892) accepted the Turkish title of Qaimaqam in 1871, signifying his acceptance of Ottoman suzerainty. However, since there is no evidence that Kuwait ever paid tribute to Constantinople, Iraq's claim that Kuwait was once incorporated into the Ottoman Empire is tenuous. Even more tenuous is the claim that Iraq itself once included Kuwait. After World War I and the subsequent Arab revolt of 1920, “Iraq” was cobbled together from two wilayahs, Basra and Baghdad. Later, the wilayah of Mosul, with its highland hinterland and its oil resources, was added. This is the Kurdish region of present-day Iraq, a prize that Turkey, Britain (as the mandate power in Iraq), and the Kurds themselves fought over. See Winstone, and Freeth, , Kuwait: Prospect and Reality, pp. 68–71Google Scholar; Abu-Hakima, Ahmad Mustafa, The Modern History of Kuwait, 1750–1965 (London: Luzac & Company, 1983), pp. 109–11Google Scholar; al-Ebraheem, Hassan Ali, Kuwait: A Political Study (Kuwait: Kuwait University Press, 1975), pp. 51–52Google Scholar; and Marr, Phebe, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 22–43Google Scholar.

29. See “Memorandum by Basrah Counsular Dragoman, dated the 19th October 1896,” “Memorandum respecting Koweit,” and “Letter from Senior Officer, Persian Gulf,” in Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, pp. 129–30, 179–80, and 206–7Google Scholar, respectively. See also Abu-Hakima, , The Modern History of Kuwait, pp. 110–14Google Scholar.

30. This description is contested by Al-Qasimi, Sultan Muhammad in The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London: Croom Helm, 1986)Google Scholar.

31. Stephens, Robert, The Arabs New Frontier (London: Temple Smith, 1973), p. 30Google Scholar.

32. See al-Ebraheem, , Kuwait: A Political Study, p. 43Google Scholar.

33. See ibid., pp. 46–50; and Penrose, Edith T. and Penrose, E. F., Iraq: International Relations and National Development (London: Ernest Benn, 1978), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

34. Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 101Google Scholar.

35. See al-Ebraheem, , Kuwait: A Political Study, p. 52Google Scholar. The British representative on the scene, Lieutenant-Colonel M. J. Meade, was so anxious to see the completion of the protectorate arrangements that he wrote an agreement out in longhand and took it upon himself to get Mubarak's signature without prior clearance from the British government. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, pp. 116–48.

36. The ancillary agreements granted the British access to or control over specific aspects of the local political economy. For example, they forbade Kuwait to trade in arms or slaves, and they gave the British the right to veto grants of access by foreigners to Kuwait's pearl and oil resources, the exclusive right to establish a post office in Kuwait, and the right to rent port facilities at Shuwaikh. See Abu-Hakima, The Modern History of Kuwait, Appendix 4, “Treaties and Undertakings in Force Between the British Government and the Rulers of Kuwait, 1841–1913.” As a result of the Shuwaikh agreement, Mubarak understood that the British would guarantee the right of succession to his sons and their heirs.

37. Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 3Google Scholar.

38. Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, p. 66.

39. The understanding between Mubarak and the British that the ruler's domestic autonomy would be preserved under the protectorate was limited by a British Order in Council, approved in 1925, which gave jurisdiction over British subjects and several classes of protected persons, some of whom were Kuwaitis, to the British government in the persons of the political agent and his superior, the political resident in the Persian Gulf. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, p. 18. This abrogation of sovereignty was deeply resented by Kuwaitis and later formed one of the prongs of popular attack on the protectorate prior to its dissolution in 1961. See Daniels, John, Kuwait Journey (Luton, U.K.: White Crescent Press, 1971), pp. 41 and 69–71Google Scholar.

40. See Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 103Google Scholar. Although the Anglo-Turkish Agreement guaranteed Kuwait's domestic autonomy, Mubarak felt “shocked” that the British would sign an agreement which recognized Kuwait as “an autonomous Caza of the [Ottoman] Empire” and which would permit a Turkish agent to be stationed in Kuwait. He would have been even more shocked had he lived until 1922, when the British political resident in the gulf, Sir Percy Cox, gave almost two-thirds of Kuwait's territory to Saudi Arabia under the Treaty of Uqair.

41. Dickson, H. R. P., Kuwait and Her Neighbours (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956), pp. 270–76 and 301–2Google Scholar.

42. The ancillary agreements, along with the payments, were secret. The initial protectorate agreement carried a payment to Mubarak of 15,000 rupees. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, p. 149.

43. Ibid., pp. 80 and 94. After Mubarak died, contraband was smuggled to Iraq via Kuwait during the brief reign (1915–17) of the easygoing Jabir II. Jabir sympathized with Kuwaiti merchants, who complained about British interference in their trade with the Turks, while simultaneously proclaiming his staunch support of Britain. His successor, Salim, initially refused to enforce the British embargo on goods to Turkey. But in February 1918, when the British intervened directly in the blockade, Salim “agreed” to the embargo and sent his son Abdullah to work with the British enforcers. The British suspected Abdullah of continuing his contacts with the Ottomans throughout the war and distrusted him from that time onward, even after he became amir in 1950.

44. During the two years before his death, Mubarak was preoccupied with the question of his succession. His preoccupation was touched off by a translation of the Anglo-Turkish Agreement, which seemed to him to be a recision of the promises regarding succession that had been made by the British in the Shuwaikh agreement. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, pp. 402–3.

45. Ibid., pp. 567–85.

46. Ibid., pages 119,121, and 195. The bedouins were the traditional allies of the Al-Sabah long before Mubarak led them in desert campaigns against other tribes and against Iraqi shipping in the Shatt-al-Arab.

47. Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 175Google Scholar.

48. Ibid., p. 52. An anonymous estimated budget of expenditures and income for the amir in 1938 (probably prepared by the British political agent at the time, Captain De Gaury) shows only one unambiguously “public” expenditure: 2,000 rupees given to the municipality for education. In the same year, 12,000 rupees were paid to the amir's bodyguard. The total state income, derived from sources such as customs, monopolies, the landing company, rents, the date gardens, and payments from the oil company, was estimated at 746,000 rupees. The ruler's private income, derived from real estate holdings in Iraq and Egypt, a share in the landing company, interest on personal deposits, and similar sources, amounted to 82,400 rupees. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, pp. 30–31.

49. Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, pp. 543–51.

50. Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 103Google Scholar.

51. Quoted from “a contemporary British report” in Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 103Google Scholar. Textual deletions made by Rush.

52. Major J. C. More, “Report,” quoted in Rush, , Al-Sabah, p. 54Google Scholar. More was the British political agent in Kuwait from 1920 to 1929.

53. Rush, , Al-Sabah, pp. 194–95Google Scholar.

54. Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, p. 72. The candidates were listed in priority order in the document presented to the Al-Sabah by the “chief inhabitants” of Kuwait. The document also outlined the composition and jurisdiction of the proposed council.

55. See ibid., p. 27; and Rush, , Al-Sabah, pp. 57–58, note 8Google Scholar.

56. See Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, pp. 112—13 and 117–18. There seems to have been no tradition of state repression of politically active individuals in Kuwait until the reign of Mubarak. According to interviews with members of the political opposition, conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990, Kuwaitis still do not accept the idea that physical force can be used by the government against nonviolent political dissidents. The treatment of Shia prisoners taken during the domestic upheavals that accompanied the Gulf War, however, did not appear to be a matter of concern to anyone but the prisoners’ families.

57. Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, pp. 140–43.

58. Ibid., pp. 27–46,134, and 138–40.

59. Ibid., pp. 153–54 and 208–9.

60. Ibid., pp. 167 and 169.

61. Ibid., pp. 219–25.

62. Ibid., pp. 240–47.

63. Ibid., p. 258. In Al-Sabah, p. 258, Rush says that the speaker was crucified, but this may be a metaphorical rather than an empirical statement.

64. Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, p. 258.

65. Ibid., p. 228.

66. See Daniels, , Kuwait Journey, pp. 36–38Google Scholar; al-Najjar, “Decision-Making Process in Kuwait,” chap. 1; and Hewins, Ralph, A Golden Dream: The Miracle of Kuwait (London: W. H. Allen, 1963), pp. 243–47Google Scholar.

67. See Khouja, M. W. and Sadler, P. G., The Economy of Kuwait: Development and Role in International Finance (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winstone, and Freeth, , Kuwait: Prospect and Reality, p. 188Google Scholar; and Daniels, , Kuwait Journey, p. 28Google Scholar. Daniels was a British national who was employed by the Kuwait Oil Company during this period.

68. Interview with Ghanim al-Najjar, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University, conducted in Kuwait on 13 March 1990. See also Khouja, and Sadler, , The Economy of Kuwait, p. 26Google Scholar.

69. Interview with al-Najjar. This argument is strengthened by the strong evidence of disproportionate transfers of wealth to government employees and members of the ruling family under the Land Acquisition Policy, as documented earlier by al-Najjar in “Decision-Making Process in Kuwait.” In “Coalitions in Oil Monarchies,” however, Jill Crystal argues that the ruling family bought off the merchants with huge financial transfers, made possible by oil revenues, in exchange for their abdication from politics. Crystal's connection between economic payoffs and low levels of political opposition inside Kuwait is supported by the resuscitation of a merchant-led political opposition movement in the late 1980s, in large part a response to corrupt behavior by members of the ruling family. For a more detailed discussion of these arguments, see Tetreault, Mary Ann, “Internal Development in Kuwait,” paper presented at the Conference on Kuwait to brief Ambassador-Designate Edward “Skip” Gnehm, Washington, D.C., 07 1990Google Scholar.

70. Rush, , Al-Sabah, pp. 40–41Google Scholar.

71. Daniels, , Kuwait Journey, pp. 54–56Google Scholar.

72. Ibid., p. 34.

73. In Strong Societies and Weak States, Appendix A, Migdal emphasizes the importance of taxation as an indicator of a regime's legitimacy to exercise social control.

74. Interviews with members of the Kuwaiti political opposition, conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990.

75. Interview with al-Najjar.

76. Interviews with members of the Kuwaiti political opposition. See also al-Najjar, “Decision-Making Process in Kuwait”; and Crystal, , “Coalitions in Oil Monarchies,” pp. 431–32Google Scholar.

77. Crystal, , “Coalitions in Oil Monarchies,” p. 431Google Scholar.

78. Ibid. Even before the Law of Commercial Companies was passed, the amir aided individual merchants by awarding loans and exclusive dealerships. Because the dealerships were considered gifts, they could be taken away by the amir. Jabir Ahmad used the threat of the loss of dealerships in an effort to keep dissidents among the merchants in line during the internal struggles in Kuwait following the 1986 suspension of the parliament and constitution, but he was not always successful in his aims. The richest merchants continued to defy his right to abrogate their civil liberties up to the time of the Iraqi invasion. See Tetreault, “Internal Development in Kuwait.”

79. Khalaf, Jassim Muhammad, “The Kuwait National Assembly: A Study of Its Structure and Function,” Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1984, p. 209Google Scholar.

80. Interviews with three former members of the Kuwaiti parliament, conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990. All three interviewees were members of the “group of 32” who continued to meet after the National Assembly was dissolved on 3 July 1986. Their explanation for the dissolution was echoed by Kuwaitis in the private sector in interviews conducted during the same period.

81. Assiri, Abdul-Reda and al-Monoufi, Kamal, “Kuwait's Political Elite: The Cabinet,” Middle East Journal 42 (Winter 1988), pp. 48–58Google Scholar.

82. Crystal, “Coalitions in Oil Monarchies.”

83. Interviews with members of the Kuwaiti political opposition. Information about contracting came from several other persons, some in the private sector and some in government agencies, in interviews conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990.

84. Interviews with members of the private sector and with a prominent member of the Kuwaiti political opposition.

85. Tetreault, “Internal Development in Kuwait.”

86. Hintze, Otto, “The Formation of States and Constitutional Development: A Study in History and Politics,” in Gilbert, Felix, ed., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 163Google Scholar.

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88. Abd al-Karim Qasim, statement made during a press conference on 25 June 1961 and cited by Hewins, in A Golden Dream, p. 285Google Scholar.

89. Hewins, , A Golden Dream, p. 289Google Scholar.

90. See, for example, Penrose, and Penrose, , Iraq: International Relations and National Development, p. 275Google Scholar.

91. Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, p. 23Google Scholar.

92. Khalaf, , “The Kuwait National Assembly,” p. 56Google Scholar.

93. Assiri notes that Egyptian forces were withdrawn in response to the December 1961 coup in Syria, leaving less than two-thirds of the original deployment of about 3,300 men in place. See Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, p. 23Google Scholar.

94. Ibid., p. 302.

95. The New York Times, 19 October 1963, p. 34; cited by Assiri, in Kuwait's Foreign Policy, p. 151Google Scholar, note a.

96. Khouja, and Sadler, , The Economy of Kuwait, p. 29Google Scholar.

97. Article published in Al Fajr, September 1958; cited by Daniels, in Kuwait Journey, p. 54Google Scholar.

98. Interview with an official of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, conducted in Kuwait on 19 March 1990.

99. Interview with William Kent, president of William Kent International, conducted in Washington, D.C., on 28 December 1989. Kent is a consultant who spent most of the last thirty years living and working in Kuwait and Iraq.

100. Khalaf, , “The Kuwait National Assembly,” pp. 57–59Google Scholar.

101. Shihata, Ibrahim F., The Other Face of OPEC: Financial Assistance to the Third World (London: Longman, 1982), preface and chap. 3Google Scholar.

102. Khalaf, , “The Kuwait National Assembly,” p. 59Google Scholar.

103. See Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, p. 25Google Scholar. Kuwait's financial activities were also described by several bank economists and an official of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in interviews conducted in Kuwait in the spring of 1990. In addition, Otaqi, Shakib, former Kuwait correspondent for the Middle East Economic Digest and now a consultant, stated the following in an interview in London on 3 04 1990Google Scholar: “The recall of [Fuad] Ja'afar [head of the KIO] created a panic in the City of London. Share prices were depressed at the prospect that KIO was moving out entirely. Kuwait is a very big player.”

104. See Baz, Ahmed Abdullah Saad, “Political Elite and Political Development in Kuwait,” Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 1981Google Scholar; Daniels, , Kuwait Journey, pp. 54–55Google Scholar; Khalaf, , “The Kuwait National Assembly,” pp. 72–75Google Scholar; and Hudson, , Arab Politics, p. 186Google Scholar. These authors do not agree completely on the extent and meaning of “Arab nationalism” in Kuwait, but they all see it as an important element in Kuwait's internal politics.

105. Assiri combed official and unofficial sources to compile a table showing Kuwait's “political-financial” cash grants to Arab states and Arab “causes” during the period from 01 1963 through June 1989Google Scholar. He found, for example, that Iraq received in excess of $13.3 billion during this period, in comparison to the $892 million given to the PLO. See Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, Appendix B, pp. 147–53Google Scholar.

106. Interview with Otaqi.

107. Interview with Jasim Khorafy, Finance Minister of Kuwait, conducted in Kuwait on 3 May 1990; and interviews with Otaqi and Kuwaiti bank economists.

108. Interview with Abdul Baqi al-Nouri, chairman of Petrochemical Industries Company, conducted in Kuwait on 28 May 1990; and interviews with members of Kuwait's private sector.

109. Ibid. See also Shihata, The Other Face of OPEC, pp. 154–60.

110. Alwattari, Abdelaziz, “Arab Regional Groups and the Prospects for Oil in Arab Integration,” paper presented at the Oxford Energy Seminar, Oxford University, 09 1989Google Scholar.

111. See Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, p. 102Google Scholar. This assessment was supported independently by a member of the Saudi defense establishment. Other reasons given by Assiri for the GCC's rejection of Kuwait's request for help included the desire of Oman and the United Arab Emirates to continue their lucrative trade with Iran and the desire of the GCC states to position themselves as potential “honest brokers” in the event that regional mediators might be needed to bring the Iran-Iraq War to a close.

112. Ibid., p. 103.

113. Draper, Theodore, “American Hubris: From Truman to the Persian Gulf,” The New York Review of Books, 16 07 1987, pp. 40–48Google Scholar.

114. Assiri, , Kuwait's Foreign Policy, pp. 102–6Google Scholar.

115. Draper, , “American Hubris,” p. 44Google Scholar.

116. Ibid., p. 43.

117. Niblock, Tim, “Iraqi Policies Towards the Arab States of the Gulf, 1958–1981,” in Niblock, Tim, ed., Iraq: The Contemporary State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), pp. 125–49Google Scholar.

118. Marr, , The Modern History of Iraq, pp. 221–22Google Scholar.

119. Niblock, , “Iraqi Policies Towards the Arab States of the Gulf,” p. 143Google Scholar.

120. Marr, , The Modern History of Iraq, p. 222Google Scholar.

121. Hussein, Saddam, cited in The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), 23 07 1990, p. D5Google Scholar. The text of Saddam's letter was translated by MEES. According to Viorst, Milton, who was interviewed on National Public Radio's “Morning Edition” on 24 01 1991Google Scholar, the charge that Kuwait was conspiring with the United States to lower oil prices was widely believed in Jordan, where he had conducted interviews in the autumn of 1990.

122. The Kuwaiti government's letter was published in MEES, 23 July 1990, pp. D7–D9.

123. Kuwaitis connected with the embassy in Washington, D.C., insist that these concessions were made. But individuals with sources in Iraq say that they were not made, and news reports say that the Kuwaiti negotiators were “arrogant” during the talks.

124. Kuwait, like other oil-exporting countries, suffered large income drops after oil prices collapsed in 1986. Kuwait too was forced to borrow money to meet current expenses, despite the size of its investment income and the continued, though reduced, oil income it earned. Kuwait's financial difficulties were not as extensive as Iraq's. For example, in 1988, Iraq faced debt service payments of $3.31 billion on $8.94 billion in long-term obligations held mostly by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and—more crucially—$6.22 billion in short-term obligations held mostly by Western banks. That same year, Kuwait's debt service obligations were $1.2 billion. See MEES, 23 July 1990, p. B2.

125. Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944), p. 12Google Scholar.

126. This conclusion was drawn explicitly by two members of the Kuwaiti political opposition interviewed in the spring of 1990.

127. Hassan Ali al-Ebraheem is also president of Citizens for a Free Kuwait. He gave this description of his country on National Public Radio's weekday call-in program on the gulf crisis, 12 February 1991.