The years between 2002 and 2008 witnessed a steady increase in the price of oil, which reached US$147.27 in July 2008. This was due in large part to increases in global demand, cost of investment and in the vulnerability of supply due to the geopolitics of the major oil-producing regions, and to the emergence of oil as a financial asset traded as 'paper barrels' on the futures market. After sinking to US$35 per barrel in March 2009, the price of oil has already risen to above US$70 per barrel since the global economy began to recover. Whilst increased oil prices were welcomed by producers, the volatility of the market was not. For major oil consumers, energy security has raced to the top of national security agendas aimed at reducing consumers' dependence on oil generally and oil imports in particular. The oil dependent transport sector became the primary target, with fuel efficiency, biofuels, hybrids and electric cars now part of the global discourse. In the medium to long term, the transformation of land transportation will have a profound impact on the economies of the oil-producing states of the Gulf, which derive the majority of their GDP from oil revenue. Further, whilst a 'post-oil world' is probably many decades away, GCC states themselves need to develop strategies to manage the growth of their own fossil-fuel consumption as the region is expected to account for 20% of the growth in oil demand over the next two decades (IEA, 2008). Accordingly, this paper will analyse the nature and impact of changes in the oil market on the GCC states from both a regional and international perspective. Its framework will be driven by the following questions arising from the increased price and volatility of the global oil market: 1) what have been the responses to these changes by consumers (both regionally and internationally); 2) what impact have changes in oil-consumer behaviour had on the GCC states in the short-term, and what impact might they have in the medium to longer term; and 3) what policies might the GCC states pursue in the future in order to manage the potential impact of a 'post-oil world' and in doing so, to promote socio-economic development.

Virtuous Circle or Neo-Imperialism? The Global and Local Impact of Food (in)Security in the Gulf. This paper examines the global and local impact of Gulf food insecurity. This research asks whether or not the Arabian Gulf's quest to lessen their food dependency will lead to a "virtuous circle" for countries like Ethiopia and Sudan who have undeveloped agricultural resources. The global food crisis of 2008 led to the idea that the only way for a country to have food security, defined as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life" (Conceicao and Mendoza, 2009, p. 1179) is to control the means of production. (Rice, 2009, p. 48). As a result, countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE are leading a regional drive to lessen food dependency, as explored by this analysis. Both authors base their analyses on several years of field research in the Gulf, in addition to the interdisciplinary primary and secondary source material, all of which addresses a fundamental aspect of security, the need to eat. During 2008, 33 countries experienced political unrest linked with food scarcity; wheat prices rose 130%, while the price of rice rose 70%. Almost 90% of the world's arable land is already in use, and the largest reserves of untouched farm land lie in Africa, ironically, the continent which has the most trouble feeding itself. Since untapped agricultural resources in Africa are drawing global investors, how can enlightened policy turn this situation into a win-win for alleviating food dependency and poverty simultaneously? Global food security affects the entire world community, especially given nightmare inducing scarcity projections. Moreover, "decisions taken now, will have major repercussions on the livelihoods and food security of many people for decades to come." (Conceicao and Mendoza, 2009, p. 1244), thus the importance of this analysis. Done right, Gulf countries can fund agricultural and infrastructural development projects which will both lessen Gulf food dependency, stabilize pricing and give local farmers new techniques for more efficient production. Done wrong, the Gulf countries will exploit a precious resource, fertile, green land, to feed themselves at the expense of others, less fortunate, creating a new wave of imperialist exploitation and exasperating poverty and a lack of security for what Paul Collier calls "the bottom billion" (Collier, 2008, p.1).

This paper examines the geopolitics of insecurity in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It focuses on the nexus of instability linking Somalia with Yemen and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and contextualises it within a broader socio-political and economic crisis of governance in the region. It will adopt an interdisciplinary approach combining security studies with political science and international relations in a holistic study of the challenges of, and responses to, the incidence of progressive state failure in one of the most important geo-strategic and commercial world arteries. The security situation in Yemen became an issue of international concern following the attempted bombing of an American airliner in December 2009. Yet its roots extend much deeper, and form part of a complex security dilemma interlinking Yemen, and by extension the Arabian Peninsula, with state collapse in Somalia and instability in the Horn of Africa. Overlapping political, economic, social and environmental stresses in both countries has eroded state legitimacy and capacity, and bred extremism and myriad cross-border flows of militants, money and ideational affinity with trans-national terrorism. A reconstituted Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula now poses a renewed threat to regional and international security through its demonstrated intent and capability to operate in the GCC and beyond. The paper's primary aim is to explore the changing dynamics of regional security and chart GCC responses to these failing political economies on their flank. The GCC is the key regional stakeholder and has a collective interest in addressing the root causes of human insecurity and minimising their overspill to its own polities. Yet its record of engagement has hitherto been underwhelming, with a clear preference for a strategy of containment over serious consideration of the scale and complexity of the challenge posed by Yemen and Somalia. The paper will therefore assess the record of past and present GCC engagement with Yemen, in addition to the prospects for a constructive and sustained regional initiative in the future. Related to this is a secondary objective, which is the broadening of security to cover the emergence of increasingly non-military challenges to fragile polities in transition. Hence the paper will examine the intersection of resource depletion, unequal patterns of development and distribution, demographic and generational change, and the impact of climate change and environmental degradation in Yemen as a portent of longer-term challenges that will face the GCC.

This paper illustrates the results of a research project on the newly found role of NATO in the Gulf and elaborates on the possibility of the rise of a new security architecture there. The project is theoretically grounded on recent scholarship on international relations and security studies. The research questions are: What were NATO motives behind its involvement in the Gulf? Did NATO contribute to the achievement of a new security architecture there? How were NATO involvement and its public diplomacy efforts received in the GCC countries? The method employed in the research project focused extensively on structured interviews with NATO, GCC and Iranian officials conducted in Europe, North America and the Gulf. This supplements the analysis of internal working documents and reports. The paper concludes that in spite of its efforts NATO did not alter the security equation in the region and that NATO public diplomacy efforts were mostly viewed with suspicion. Furthermore, it suggests that the motives behind NATO ICI initiative, inaugurated in 2004 were not shared by all its member states. The paper further examines the possibility of the rise of a new, less confrontational, security architecture in the Gulf and it concludes that it depends on the unlikely start of a US-Iran security dialogue, whose possibility is viewed with suspicion by the elites of GCC states.

The Mediterranean region has historically been the stage and avenue for war as well as peace and trade throughout millennia. Emanating from meetings and negotiations started on October 30, 1991 at the Peace Conference in Madrid, following the suggestions of then U.S. President G.W.H. Bush and Soviet President M. Gorbachev following the Iraq-Kuwaiti war, the structure of the Madrid Framework for a bilateral and a multilateral negotiating track was developed. It enabled the first-ever direct talks between Israel and her immediate Arab neighbors on November 3, 1991. These negotiations focused on key issues of concern to the entire Middle East: water, environment, arms control, refugees and economic development. These negotiations led to the first Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Foreign Ministers of the future EuroMed Partnership member states in Barcelona in November 1995 and marked the official starting point of the EuroMed Partnership (EMP), its main objectives focusing on the political, economic and social-cultural rapprochement among its member states. To add saliency to these goals, the EMP was relaunched, following French President Sarkozy's initiative, in July 2008 as the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). While the U.S. was neither involved in the EMP per se, nor in the UfM, but followed its own Mediterranean/(greater) Middle East foreign policies, European, Southern Mediterranean, Middle East and U.S. strategies continue to intersect in the greater Mediterranean region, especially in light of the EU's evolving Common Security and Defense Policy, and the broad security sectors and levels (Buzan, Waever and de Wilde 1998), which come into play in this region and its inter-regional dynamics. This paper seeks to analyze specifically the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which this newly evolving Union for the Mediterranean faces in light of these dynamics as well as global norms pertaining to security, be they human security (e.g. in terms of (illegal) migration pressures, economic security or based on gender equality pertaining to economic access), or energy security to name just a few in the context of a possible Euro-Mediterranean Regional Security Complex context (Boening 2008).