The Limits of the Sandhurst Connection

This article examines the role of Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said in the development of Oman’s foreign and defense policy from 1970 to 1977. Historians have assumed that following the British-orchestrated overthrow of Qaboos’s father in 1970, British soldiers and diplomats exerted a decisive influence over the inexperienced young sultan’s policy decisions. While Qaboos certainly depended on British military assistance to defeat an insurgency in Oman’s Dhofar province, he proved much more assertive than existing accounts have suggested. Drawing on British archival documents as well as correspondence of American advisors to the sultan, this article shows that Qaboos played an active role in the development of Omani foreign and defense policy. From the beginning of his reign, the sultan enlisted a diverse group of independent advisors in order to limit British influence over his government. His assertiveness intensified as Oman enjoyed a windfall of oil wealth beginning in 1973. In demonstrating the sultan’s attempts to consolidate power from the outset of his reign, this article offers a case study of the limits of Western influence over leaders in the Gulf region

Assertiveness · Economics · Foreign policy · Government (linguistics · Insurgency · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Reign · Sociology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Psychology · Socioeconomic Development in MENA

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