CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 87 of 120

Correct — C, Gulf Cooperation Council. The Peninsula Shield Force was created in 1984 as the joint military arm of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the six-member grouping of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates founded on 25 May 1981 with its secretariat at Riyadh. The force is stationed near King Khalid Military City at Hafar al Batin in Saudi Arabia, close to the Kuwaiti and Iraqi borders, and by 2011 numbered roughly 40,000 troops drawn from all member states. It has been used three times to note: about 3,000 personnel in the liberation of Kuwait in 1990-91, a 10,000-strong deployment to Kuwait during the Iraq war of 2003, and an intervention in Bahrain in 2011.

• (a)Organization of Islamic Cooperation — The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is a fifty-seven member political grouping of Muslim-majority states, founded at Rabat in 1969 with its secretariat at Jeddah. It has no standing military force.
• (b)Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries coordinates oil production and pricing policy among its members. It is an economic cartel and has never had an armed arm.
• (d)Arab League — The Arab League is a wider political grouping of Arab states, several of them outside the Gulf, and has repeatedly discussed a joint force without ever fielding one of this kind.

The Gulf Cooperation Council was formed in 1981 by the six Arab monarchies of the Gulf, at a moment when the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war had made them anxious about their security, and it covers economic integration as well as defence. The Peninsula Shield Force was its answer to the defence half of that agenda. Its record has been mixed — it was too small to matter much in 1990 and its most consequential use was internal rather than external, when Saudi and Emirati units crossed the causeway into Bahrain in 2011 to secure installations during the protests there.

All four options are groupings of Muslim-majority or Arab states, so the item turns on which of them is small enough and cohesive enough to field a joint force. The answer follows from scale: fifty-seven states cannot agree on a standing army, and an oil cartel has no reason to want one, but six neighbouring monarchies with shared borders and similar governments can. One update is worth carrying, and it landed just before this exam — the Council renamed the force the Unified Military Command on 5 January 2021, so a paper set today might use either name.

• The Peninsula Shield Force was established in 1984 as the joint military arm of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
• The Gulf Cooperation Council was founded on 25 May 1981; its six members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and its secretariat is at Riyadh.
• The force is based near King Khalid Military City at Hafar al Batin in Saudi Arabia and numbered about 40,000 troops as of 2011.
• It was deployed in the 1990-91 Gulf War, in Kuwait during the 2003 Iraq war, and in Bahrain in 2011.
• It was renamed the Unified Military Command on 5 January 2021.

• Assuming the Arab League has a standing joint force; proposals have been made repeatedly and never realised.
• Confusing the Gulf Cooperation Council with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation because both are groupings of Muslim-majority states.
• Treating OPEC as a political or security body; its remit is oil production policy.

As a which-organisation-does-this-belong-to item, or in a match-list pairing regional groupings with their headquarters or their institutions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Gulf Cooperation Council has its secretariat in which one of the following cities?

  • (a)Doha
  • (b)Riyadh
  • (c)Jeddah
  • (d)Abu Dhabi

  Answer(b) Riyadh — Jeddah is the seat of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is not a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council?

  • (a)Oman
  • (b)Qatar
  • (c)Iraq
  • (d)Bahrain

  Answer(c) Iraq — the six members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.