| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyzes the foreign-policy tools that Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman use in dealing with Iran. It argues that a policy of strategic hedging reduces the danger of conflict with Iran in the short term, while preserving contingency plans that address the severity of the threat and the uncertainty of the relationship in the long term. We could have expected that, because of their sense of threat, the small Gulf states would adopt a behavior of balancing Iran's power or, alternatively, of bandwagoning with it. However, these states have consciously chosen to adopt a “mixed” policy that includes elements of both methods. This stands in contrast to the assumption, widespread in the international-relations field, that they would choose to either balance1 or bandwagon as a way of coping with threats.
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