The Fragility of Gulf States

Four Gulf States—Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—are structurally fragile and may not survive a prolonged U.S.–Israel–Iran conflict. They were carved out of the region and established in the late 20th century, following the decline of the British Empire. Located on the western coast of the Persian Gulf, they face Iran across the water on the eastern coast. The other two Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Oman, are relatively secure. Saudi Arabia, the largest in both land area and population, faces no significant threat to its existence.

The four fragile states, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE, gained independence in 1961 (Kuwait) and 1971 (the other three). These countries quickly became what might be called migrant states because their populations were largely composed of migrant workers. Foreign nationals in some of these states account for up to 90% of the total population. In contrast, Saudi Arabia and Oman, despite having large foreign-national populations, are mostly composed of native-born residents.

As of 2026, expatriates make up approximately 88.5% of the UAE’s total population (around 10.24 million out of 11.57 million) and about 88% of Qatar’s population (roughly 2.87 million foreign workers out of 3.2 million). In Kuwait, expatriates account for about 67–70% of the population (roughly 3.7 million out of around 5.5 million), while in Bahrain, the foreign population is around 52% (approximately 849,000 non-Bahrainis out of 1.59 million in 2024).

To understand their fragility, one must first analyze the legal and demographic makeup of these four Gulf States, since they are essentially migrant states.

Migrant States

A migrant state is not the same as an immigrant state. The United States and Canada, for example, are immigrant states in the sense that a large share of their populations are immigrants. An immigrant state allows immigrants to become citizens after meeting certain residency, moral, and other requirements. Even if the road to citizenship is made harder, the road is never closed.  After naturalization, immigrants have the right to vote, run for office at the state and federal levels, and, for all practical purposes, are treated at par with born citizens.

Society in an immigrant state may discriminate against legal immigrants and naturalized citizens based on nationality, race, language, and religion. Still, the law and the constitution of an immigrant state make no distinction between born and naturalized citizens, granting extensive rights even to legal immigrants. For example, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

This constitutional commitment to equal protection of the laws is a hallmark of most immigrant states. Even though President Trump has challenged the integrity of the 14^th Amendment in the Supreme Court, a case widely predicted to fail, the Gulf States have no law resembling the 14th Amendment. In fact, migrant states are governed by unequal laws. Some critics compare these states to apartheid-like stratification, as inequality among groups is legally validated and enforced.

A migrant state comprises two distinct groups of people. One is the native inhabitants who are the citizens of the state. The other group is the workers recruited from other nations, which may be called migrant workers, for they are not immigrants qualified to become citizens as a matter of law under clear standards. The workers may belong to any field, from construction to banking, and may be blue-collar or white-collar.  Furthermore, each worker is tied to an employer under the notion of kafala. The kafala system may bind the worker to the employer, restricting the freedom to change jobs.

Therefore, what sets a migrant state apart from an immigrant state is the legal framework for granting citizenship. A worker might work for decades, live with their family, and even have children born in a migrant state. Yet, they or their children would not automatically become citizens by law. Even if a migrant state grants citizenship to a few residents, that is a special executive favor, not a legal entitlement available to other residents.

Since 2005, Qatar has granted citizenship, with a cap of 50 per year. The grant is highly discretionary. Since 2021, the UAE has granted limited citizenship to investors and professionals by presidential decree. Kuwait and Bahrain are similarly restrictive, requiring a long residency of over 20 years, fluency in Arabic, and ownership of registered property. These characteristics, however, do not guarantee citizenship because it is a discretionary executive order. These policies ensure that citizenship remains a rare privilege granted primarily by ruling authorities, rather than a path accessible to most expatriate workers, even after many years of residence and economic contribution.

Migrant workers have virtually no influence on the government, even if they work for it. They are barred from holding certain jobs and positions. They can work as bureaucrats but not as policymakers. They lack access to the legislative branch and have no say in creating the laws of the migrant nation. Even the judiciary is not accessible to migrant workers, so they cannot serve as judges or magistrates. If there are any exceptions, those are favors granted by the rulers rather than positions available by law. Additionally, migrant workers cannot become the country’s envoys or ambassadors to other nations. In short, migrant workers have no role in shaping the migrant nation’s domestic or foreign policy.

This broad exclusion of foreign nationals from state affairs is not only objectionable on civil rights and political liberty grounds; it also directly affects the migrant state’s ability to defend itself.

Foreign Security Dependence

As a rule, the migrant state is militarily weak.

A regular state, even with a large immigrant population, is primarily defended by its born and naturalized citizens, even if immigrants are eligible for military recruitment. Citizenship has no inherent magic except that it strengthens the bonds between the individual and the state. If the country is attacked, particularly for an unjust reason, citizens have an emotional commitment to defend their country.

Military equipment is critical for both defensive and offensive warfare. Yet who operates the equipment is also relevant. Here, loyalty and the will to fight do not stem from equipment alone, no matter how sophisticated it is. In addition to competence, emotional attachment to defending the nation is needed to be effective soldiers and officers in the armed forces.

A migrant state may have sophisticated weapons, but the migrant workers, if recruited to fight, will not have the same mindset as the citizens. Since the Gulf migrant states have very few native-born soldiers and officers in their defense forces, their defenses remain vulnerable, no matter how good their equipment is.

The Gulf States had hosted American bases on their territory in the hopes that if attacked, the American defense forces would protect them. This assumption may be overly optimistic for at least two reasons. First, why would an army assume primary responsibility for defending a foreign nation? Second, if the foreign soldiers are attacked, they may prioritize withdrawal over sustained engagement. The American soldiers will kill and die for their own country, but they will be hesitant to fight with the same spirit for a foreign client state.

In the ongoing US-Iran war, when Iran attacked the US bases in the Gulf States, the resident soldiers relocated for safety, a course of action perfectly understandable. These bases were established to protect American geopolitical and economic interests. The Gulf States erroneously assumed that these military bases would protect them.

Recent Iranian strikes on U.S. bases in the Gulf, including Al Udeid in Qatar, bases in Kuwait, and facilities in the UAE and Bahrain, have caused an estimated $800 million in damage and made several installations largely uninhabitable, showing the limited protective value of foreign military presence.

If the migrant state’s security depends on external resources, its economic stability also relies on external confidence.

Foreign Investments and Tourism

The four Gulf States might have built their economies primarily on hydrocarbons (oil and gas), but now real estate, tourism, and foreign capital constitute a significant share of their GDP.

The UAE, for example, promoted itself as a place to buy real estate and park money for investment worldwide. Non-oil sectors contribute approximately 75–77% of GDP, with real estate, construction, finance, and tourism as key drivers. Bahrain’s non-hydrocarbon GDP runs close to 85%. Qatar’s GDP is around 65% non-hydrocarbon. Kuwait is still an oil and gas economy, though it, too, is moving to real estate.

The British, Indians, and Pakistanis, among others, move their money from their home countries to buy property in the UAE and keep it in UAE banks. Indians have been the largest investors in the UAE for some time, which has led to the construction of a spectacular Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi, the first in the Middle East, inaugurated in 2024 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Turning the desert into New York-style real estate wonders means very different things in Manhattan compared to Dubai. Manhattan is part of a large and complex country called the United States. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, shape the nation and are standalone marvels of real estate and capital; each is a separate emirate ruled by a different family within the United Arab Emirates federation.

Foreigners dominate real estate activity in the Gulf States. In Abu Dhabi in 2024, foreigners accounted for approximately 78% of the total property sales value. In Dubai, foreign nationals hold around 43% of the total value of all residential properties. In the other three Gulf States, foreigners own real estate in designated areas, and foreign real estate investment totals billions.

The Gulf States also greatly benefit from sovereign funds guaranteed by their respective governments. The UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait maintain some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is valued at over $1.1 trillion, and the Kuwait Investment Authority at approximately $1 trillion, both of which have historically buffered against economic shocks but remain vulnerable to shifts in investor confidence during conflict. The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar’s primary sovereign wealth fund, manages assets recently valued at approximately $580 billion.

These trillion-dollar funds rely on the safety of the states. When the state is vulnerable, the funds are also at risk. The value of these funds can fall sharply if investors perceive the states as unsafe, not to mention the possibility of their dissolution.

Money moves to safety, and that has been its character ever since it was created as a means of exchange and an alternative to assets.  Money moved to the Gulf States because there was the illusion of safety created by military bases and the inflow of foreign capital. Nothing works more effectively than an illusion supported by durability. The Gulf States successfully created the illusion of safety for foreign capital, and it worked until Iran attacked these states, though with restraint. Islamic ties and Islamic law might have restrained their hands from destroying the infrastructure of the Gulf States. Since the war has not yet ended, there is no way to tell the future of the skyscrapers in the Gulf States.

The ongoing conflict has made the Gulf States unsafe for capital or real estate investments. Tourism may be the biggest casualty, taking years to recover. The illusion of safety is gone. This perceptual damage is more devastating than the physical destruction these states have endured or might face in the future.

Conclusion

A migrant state, like the four Gulf States, is fragile because most of its residents are non-citizens who might return to their own countries out of fear or lack of economic incentives, or be expelled for any reason by the rulers of the migrant state. Due to law-based discrimination, a migrant state does not treat foreign nationals with the same respect as its native-born population. As a result, migrant workers, regardless of how much money they earn, do not develop the same bond and sense of loyalty to a migrant state as they do to their home country.

Furthermore, a migrant state is fragile because it depends mainly on foreigners for its defense. A mercenary force might fight for money or other benefits, but there is a limit to their loyalty and commitment. A nation can only be protected by a people who develop a deep patriotic bond with their country. The natives in the Gulf States have little incentive to join the armed forces when they have other opportunities to start businesses with expatriates.

A migrant state might have a thriving economy, as seen with the Gulf States, but this prosperity depends on the fragile illusion of safety. The US-Israel-Iran conflict has shattered the idea that the Gulf States are secure places for capital and that their real estate offers reliable growth. Foreign capital has no loyalty to any nation, moving where it feels safe and can grow continuously.

Even if the Gulf States’ desalination plants are not attacked, which would make it hard for people to survive without water, the US-Israel-Iran war has significantly damaged the concept of a migrant state where workers and capital owners come for economic gain. In an immigrant state, immigrants who can become citizens on equal footing with native-born residents present a much safer model. In contrast, in migrant states, workers can leave in fear or be expelled, leaving behind a small population of natives raised in luxury.

The same forces that create a strong illusion of safety and prosperity in these four Gulf States—such as foreign labor, US protection, and capital inflow from both rich and poor countries—also make them fragile.

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