The recently concluded GCC summit is notable for its emphasis on unity in the face of aggression and destabilisation, and for its heralding of an enhanced role for think tanks. In this regard, it bears much in common with the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which gave birth to a new world order where knowledge was central to geostrategic success.
The past 12 months have witnessed the security order of the Middle East come under pressure. One of the six members of the GCC – the state of Qatar – was twice subjected to unprovoked attacks, while a violent long-range war between Iran and Israel demonstrated the destructive potential of the latest generation of drones, missiles and fighter jets. This was enough for the GCC states to rethink the underpinnings of regional security, with last week's summit in Bahrain offering an opportune moment to co-ordinate worldviews.
The context has much in common with Europe circa 1815, when the continent’s war-weary powers met to launch a new order.
Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia convened in Vienna to fashion a regional system where unilateral aggressors would be dissuaded from their maximalism.
There was a collective understanding that countries seeking to subjugate peoples, annex territory and destabilise neighbouring states represented an existential threat to Europe.
Accordingly, whatever differences great powers such as Britain and Russia had, they should at least agree on the need to co-operate against would-be hegemons.
The GCC summit’s closing statement echoes this context through its repeated affirmations of GCC unity and of the principle of collective security. An attack on any GCC country is considered to be an attack on the whole council. In short, the GCC is repositioning itself as a tightly co-ordinated security bloc in a region facing overlapping crises.
The Vienna Congress was also notable for introducing a “moral order” dimension to policy that persists to this day. While the fundamental principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states was still valid, there was now an acknowledgement that countries would not remain silent in the face of oppression of the vulnerable and defenceless.
Committing atrocities among civilian populations was not just geopolitically destabilising but ethically unacceptable and therefore was the basis for regional co-ordination to deter perpetrators.
The GCC summit’s deep focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict confirms that the maxims launched in Vienna two centuries ago continue to hold in 2025.
The GCC summit also mimicked its Viennese antecedent in its empowerment of knowledge producing institutions. In 1815, there were no think tanks, and it took 16 years for the world’s first such institution – the Royal United Services Institute – to be founded by the British general-turned-prime minister Lord Wellington. The Congress itself was an enabling factor in the transition to a world where knowledge institutions support policy by establishing an order based on consultation, heralding a shift from ad hoc alliances to systemic stability management.
This spirit was reflected in the GCC summit, as the bloc adopted the outputs of a technocratic research-oriented body (the advisory board) in the context of disaster management, artificial intelligence and economic integration.
Fortunately for Gulf states, the region has numerous effective think tanks that make a positive contribution to regional security and economic development. They do this through the production of a broad spectrum of research, in addition to convening policymakers and other key stakeholders in events designed to facilitate the sort of informal dialogue that complements formal diplomacy and lays the foundation for lasting peace.
While Europe experienced significant turbulence in the period 1815-1914, in general, it was considerably more peaceful than the preceding and succeeding centuries. The GCC countries will be hoping for a similar outcome, whereby a united front against aggressors and the institutionalisation of the production of policy-relevant research combine to reinforce regional stability.
Two centuries ago, Vienna reshaped Europe by marrying unity with strategic foresight. The GCC’s 2025 summit hints at a similar possibility for the Gulf: that in a turbulent world, stability belongs not to the most aggressive, but to those wise enough to stand together and learn together.
