At the end of 2025, the Gulf states received high praise for their economic resilience. According to reports by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, the region was stable, modern and reliable, says Emilie Rutledge, Senior Lecturer in Economics at The Open University.<\/p>\n
Now the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) \u2013 Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates \u2013 are watching on nervously. The economic damage done by what has become a regional conflict, bringing an abrupt loss of stability, could be huge.<\/p>\n
Aside from Saddam Hussein\u2019s\u00a0foray into Kuwait in 1991<\/a>, these six countries have successfully steered clear of conflict on their home turf over a long period. They avoided the\u00a0revolutionary upheavals<\/a>\u00a0which affected Egypt (1952), Iraq, Syria and Iran (1979). They steered clear of any spillover from the long-running\u00a0Israel-Palestine conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n The group was mostly unaffected by the\u00a0war between Iran and Iraq<\/a>. And aside from a\u00a0short-lived uprising<\/a>\u00a0in Bahrain in 2011, the GCC emerged largely unscathed from the regional turmoil of the\u00a0Arab Spring<\/a>\u00a0in 2010 which spread from Tunisia and and Egypt and led to violent instability which continues to this day in Libya, Yemen and Syria.<\/p>\n The GCC\u2019s comparative stability underpins its attractiveness as a global hub for money and modernity. Success in\u00a0luxury tourism<\/a>\u00a0has filled places such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi with five (and even a seven) star hotels. Only France has\u00a0more Michelin-starred restaurants<\/a>\u00a0than the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There is\u00a0cutting-edge technology<\/a>\u00a0in Qatar\u2019s energy sector, and a vast\u00a0AI campus<\/a>\u00a0in the UAE.<\/p>\n It is these kinds of projects which led the\u00a0World Bank<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0World Economic Forum<\/a>\u00a0to publish glowing reports on the region recently. Both organisations agreed in late 2025 that oil wealth was being wisely invested for the future.<\/p>\n