Since the discovery of large deposits of natural gas across the eastern Mediterranean Sea basin, tensions have been steadily mounting over the exploitation and distribution of these resources. Underlying these tensions is a series of complex, interlocking disputes that have overlapped with the natural gas issue to create a volatile regional environment.

Several Gulf Arab countries have become enmeshed in this web of competition. The United Arab Emirates, increasingly at odds with Turkey, while closely aligned with Egypt and Jordan, and having just struck a normalization agreement with Israel, is embroiled in hostilities in Libya and entangled at the diplomatic and strategic level across the region. Qatar, by contrast, one of Turkey’s most important allies, has aligned itself on the other side.

This panel sought to unravel this complex knot, to explore how and why relatively distant Gulf Arab countries have become involved in a set of eastern Mediterranean disputes pitting NATO and European Union members against each other and playing out in proxy conflicts on the ground. What’s in it for the Gulf countries? How does this affect their relations with other Middle Eastern and European states? What is the U.S. role and how does the United States manage competition among Gulf Arab allies? And what are the implications for an already embattled Gulf Cooperation Council?