The British Empire employed a diverse range of strategies to establish and then maintain control over its overseas territories in the Middle East. This new interpretation of how Britain maintained order, protected its interests and carried out its defence obligations in the Gulf in the decades before its withdrawal from the region in 1971 looks at how the British government increasingly sought to achieve security with great economy of force by building up local militaries instead of deploying costly military forces from the home country. Benefitting from the extensive use of recently declassified British Government archival documents and India Office records, this highly original narrative weighs the successes and failures of Britain's use of 'indirect rule' among the small states of Eastern Arabia, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the seven Trucial States and Oman. Drawing important lessons for scholars and policymakers about the limitations of trying to outsource security to local partners, Security in the Gulf is a remarkable study of the deployment of British colonial policy in the Middle East before 1971.

‘A must-read for all who are interested in the British period in the Gulf. It gives all the vital details as to how the British maintained internal security in the Gulf Arab shaikhdoms, amirates and sultanates in the mid-twentieth century. This is of vital significance to understanding the foundation and nature of the current security regimes in the Gulf Arab states.'

Saul Kelly

‘Security in the Gulf fills an important lacuna in the scholarly literature about the last period of the Arabian states under British protection. Rossiter's book is engagingly written, deeply thoughtful, and extensively researched – it is a major contribution to the historical scholarship on the Gulf and the British Empire.'

Zoltan Barany - University of Texas