Managing National Security Risk during and after the Blockade: Strategic Challenges and Opportunities for Qatar’s Energy Sector

This project examines the challenges and opportunities that Qatar’s energy sector has encountered in managing national security risk since the start of the blockade launched against it in June 2017 and how the evolving strategic environment will result in new challenges and opportunities in the future. No such comprehensive study of the Qatari energy sector currently exists. It is intended as a four-year project to be undertaken by a Lead Principal Investigator (LPI) from Georgetown University in Qatar (GUQ), in collaboration with Principal Investigators (PIs) from Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU), the General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority (GRSIA) of the State of Qatar, the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), and Sakarya University (Turkey). Apart from the GRSIA, the project has other important end-users: The Amiri Diwan of the State of Qatar; QatarGas; and The Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development. This project is focused on policy-driven research that contributes to the achievement of the outcomes set down in Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030. These include the strengthening of Qatar’s role in the international community, as set out in the Vision’s introduction, and in the Social Development Outcomes: ‘International Cooperation’, which envisage a role for the country in ‘attaining international peace and security’. In terms of QNV 2030’s Economic Development Outcomes, this project will contribute directly to those relating to the energy sector: (1) The ‘responsible exploitation’ of hydrocarbon resources; (2) the ‘development and sustainability’ of a ‘vigorous’ energy sector, in particular, a ‘fully developed gas industry’; (3) and the ‘long-term maintenance’ of strategic energy reserves to meet the needs of ‘national security and sustainable development.’ These are increasingly challenging but necessary tasks at a time of rapid change in the regional and international security systems and the global energy market, in particular the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) sector which is of vital importance to Qatar (Goldthau, 2013; Rose, 2018). This stark reality has been very apparent since the launch of the blockade against Qatar. In line with priority theme 4.3.3, this project begins by examining the role of Qatar’s energy sector as a strategic instrument in a small state under blockade. Steeped in a commitment to applied social science research and rigorous analytical analysis, the project will then identify national security challenges and opportunities that policymakers are likely to encounter in the future as they engage with key regional and international energy partners unilaterally and through bilateral and multilateral frameworks. It will then propose a menu of strategic, security, legal and regulatory options available to Qatar in the future to enable it to manage those challenges and to capitalize on those opportunities. In undertaking this comprehensive study, the key investigators will draw on their wide-ranging expertise and experience in a variety of disciplines and subject areas – International Relations, Law, Security Studies, Regional Studies, Finance and Public Policy. This approach will result in an overall research project that is not only theoretically informed and empirically rich but also novel and unprecedented in terms of its multi-disciplinary approach and the comprehensiveness of its range and scope. Specifically, the project will cover five key research themes. The first will examine Qatar’s energy sector in the context of country’s long-term strategic engagement in the international system and its shorter-term responses to the blockade. In doing so, it will develop an innovative energy-strategy nexus framework to aid in assessing and understanding the inter-relationship between energy capabilities and strategic planning in a small, energy-rich state. Changing external dynamics – legal and regulatory, as well as political and security – pose significant risk to Qatar’s overseas energy assets. In recognition of this, the second theme will develop a profile of emerging risks in managing international energy investments and offer ways to address them over the longer-term. Research themes three, four and five will explore the strategic implications flowing from the challenges and opportunities that will present themselves in Qatar’s evolving energy relationships with six major international actors (China, Japan and South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia) and two key regional actors (Turkey and Iran). In an era of uncertainty and flux, unpacking these case studies will facilitate an exploration of the range of dynamics Qatar will face in the future in its role as a global energy actor of the first rank. The project’s PIs have extensive experience in the policy, as well as scholarly, worlds and this proposal strongly acknowledges the importance of applied social science research in making a positive and direct impact outside of academia and across wider society. In line with this, this multi-level investigation will present key findings to end-users in a final report that includes a series of detailed recommendations. It is intended that these innovative, tangible and actionable outcomes will foster an improved understanding among end-users and other stakeholders of the ways that Qatar can manage the risks, address the challenges and seize the opportunities that its vital energy sector will encounter in the future.

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar