Threats and balancing strategies: A comparative analysis of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain before and since the Arab uprisings

This research examines the threat perceptions and different responses of states in dealing with common threats perceptions. Balancing strategies such as armament and alliance with other states are mainly the consequence of threats or perceived threats in states' internal and external environment. States that share structural similarities are expected to behave in similar ways while balancing their threats. However, often at times, differences are noticed in the balancing strategies of similar states. In the Gulf, upheavals such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the war that ensued as a consequence, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, the US invasion of Iraq, and the Arab Uprisings shaped the region's security dynamics. Threatened by these upheavals, the states took different strategies to balance their threat perceptions. To arrive at a plausible explanation, the Most Similar Systems Design was used to determine the similar states to understand and explain the reasons for the difference. Therefore, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain were carefully selected given that they share common threat perceptions; they are monarchical and authoritarian, among other things. The threat perceptions and balancing strategies of the states were examined. The result suggests that differences inherent to the states determine the nature and magnitude of threat perception and explain why states that perceive similar threats reacted differently.