Description
"It's a massive investment into the military," says Andreas Krieg, a military adviser to the Qatari government until last year.This huge leap in spending -- until 2013 Qatar was spending around $3 billion a year on defence, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute -- reflects Doha's fear of invasion especially at the beginning of the crisis.
Qatari officials admit privately they were stunned when the crisis began, taken completely unaware by the Saudi-led states.
Despite the sometimes bizarre nature of the crisis -- Doha flying in thousands of cows, protest songs and Qatar missing from a map at the Louvre Abu Dhabi -- fears of invasion initially ran very deep.
"There was concern that the initial diplomatic and economic measures imposed on Qatar on June 5 might be the prelude for military action," says Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in the United States.
Krieg adds that Qatar's fear of invasion stretches back to 2014 when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain abruptly pulled their ambassadors from Qatar.
Their dispute was resolved -- or at least papered over until last summer -- but its impact is not forgotten.
- Expect the unexpected -
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani took over from his father Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani just months before that dispute.
A former member of the Qatari air force who attended Britain's Sandhurst military training academy, Sheikh Tamim broke from his father's policies and poured more of his country's gas riches into defence spending.
"The military had been underfunded for many decades," says Krieg.
"Regardless of the crisis, there was always a demand to get new equipment for the air force, navy and land forces."
| Period | 2 Feb 2018 |
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| Held at | Agence France Presse |