Saif al-Arab
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To return to the topic at hand.
Imagine for a second if all the money spent on Qatar's recent buying spree was instead spent on desertification so small Qatar (a country slightly smaller than Montenegro) with a native population of just 330.000 (one of the lowest in the Arab world if not the lowest if I recall) and the only Arab country with virtually no forest cover and little agriculture as well, could become a pioneer and ideal testing ground due to the harsh conditions in the country and virtually no or very little farmland. It could serve as the perfect guinea pig and money would not be an issue either.
Taking research like this to a completely different level and thus in turn help other Arab and non-Arab countries facing desertification (a growing problem in the region and world by large - one just need to look towards the US itself - California comes to mind).
This in turn could give Qatar more prestige and influence than 10 times the weapon purchases could ever do.
I repeat, tiny Qatar is never going to launch a war against KSA, UAE, Bahrain or Iran (immediate neighborhood) nor is any sane party going to attack them either as long as they host the biggest and most important US military base (and one of the largest US overseas bases in the world) in the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Udeid_Air_Base
Obviously the Al-Thani's agreeing to this (the current Emir's father - the same guy that founded Al-Jazeera) knew what they were doing and now they have a leverage that is 100 times more important than all the weapons that they can buy which is US protection against for instance KSA.
One of the grievances that I have with monarchies in GCC (people can't really complain too much about their governments compared to other governments in the region and the Muslim world by large) is a too big focus on weapon purchases aside from too few political reforms (young leaders in power such as MBS and Tameem will help change that and the future Omani Sultan I believe personally). KSA being one of the few regional powers and one of the most influential countries in the world and a top 20 economy in the world, can somewhat justify such spending (although it is too much - thankfully Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 and the upcoming and promising indigenous military industry will help reduce this spending by a huge lot) but Qatar can certainly not.
Therefore it would be more wisely for the smaller GCC states (which are already de facto under the US and Saudi Arabian "umbrella") to spend money on other areas such as science, infrastructure etc. This is of course done but we want to see more of this.
Imagine for a second if all the money spent on Qatar's recent buying spree was instead spent on desertification so small Qatar (a country slightly smaller than Montenegro) with a native population of just 330.000 (one of the lowest in the Arab world if not the lowest if I recall) and the only Arab country with virtually no forest cover and little agriculture as well, could become a pioneer and ideal testing ground due to the harsh conditions in the country and virtually no or very little farmland. It could serve as the perfect guinea pig and money would not be an issue either.
Taking research like this to a completely different level and thus in turn help other Arab and non-Arab countries facing desertification (a growing problem in the region and world by large - one just need to look towards the US itself - California comes to mind).
This in turn could give Qatar more prestige and influence than 10 times the weapon purchases could ever do.
I repeat, tiny Qatar is never going to launch a war against KSA, UAE, Bahrain or Iran (immediate neighborhood) nor is any sane party going to attack them either as long as they host the biggest and most important US military base (and one of the largest US overseas bases in the world) in the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Udeid_Air_Base
Obviously the Al-Thani's agreeing to this (the current Emir's father - the same guy that founded Al-Jazeera) knew what they were doing and now they have a leverage that is 100 times more important than all the weapons that they can buy which is US protection against for instance KSA.
One of the grievances that I have with monarchies in GCC (people can't really complain too much about their governments compared to other governments in the region and the Muslim world by large) is a too big focus on weapon purchases aside from too few political reforms (young leaders in power such as MBS and Tameem will help change that and the future Omani Sultan I believe personally). KSA being one of the few regional powers and one of the most influential countries in the world and a top 20 economy in the world, can somewhat justify such spending (although it is too much - thankfully Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 and the upcoming and promising indigenous military industry will help reduce this spending by a huge lot) but Qatar can certainly not.
Therefore it would be more wisely for the smaller GCC states (which are already de facto under the US and Saudi Arabian "umbrella") to spend money on other areas such as science, infrastructure etc. This is of course done but we want to see more of this.
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