Since the Arab uprisings began in 2010, all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been preoccupied with regime survival, which dictates how they project their power beyond their borders.

When Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and to a lesser extent Oman project power abroad, they are driven by their own domestic challenges rather than by a Gulf consensus. Consequently, GCC countries have adopted contradictory projects in most Arab countries such as Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been determined to block the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in North Africa, but until recently Qatar was actively supporting it. With Syria, almost all GCC countries, with the exception of Oman, were keen on supporting so-called moderate rebels, a term that has become increasingly muddled since the Syrian uprising began five years ago. The sectarian agenda of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain — each has a vested interest in depicting its own local protest as an Iranian Shiite conspiracy against it — does not resonate well in Kuwait and Oman.

When GCC states need to project power abroad, they inflame their citizens’ imaginations with hypernationalism, which is highly important at times of regional turmoil, political instability and economic hardship.