The writer is an economist, anchor, and geopolitical analyst
and the President of All Pakistan Private Schools’ Federation
president@Pakistanprivateschools.com
In the intricate tapestry of global geopolitics, the stark reality of Qatar’s recent experience serves as a poignant reminder that true security transcends the mere accumulation of military hardware and financial might. The ephemeral nature of Western weaponry, starkly exposed by the Israeli attack on Qatar, underscores a profound truth: the instruments of war, however formidable and expensively acquired, are rendered ineffectual when confronted with adversaries who wield power beyond the tangible realm. The Israeli attack on Qatar’s capital, Doha, on September 9, 2025, targeting senior Hamas leaders, has sent shockwaves through the Middle East, exposing vulnerabilities and recalibrating regional power dynamics. The attack, which Israeli officials justified as retaliation for a recent shooting in Jerusalem but which was indeed a “state terrorism,” struck at the very nexus of mediation efforts. Hamas negotiators, hosted under Qatar’s diplomatic umbrella, were the intended targets, with reports of at least a dozen casualties, including high-profile figures. Qatar’s Prime Minister lambasted the strike as a violation of sovereignty, accusing Israel of undermining fragile ceasefire talks in Gaza. Israel’s military actions have escalated dramatically, after almost 3-year airstrikes in Gaza, targeting six countries over the span of just three months. The countries affected include Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and now Qatar, showcasing the breadth of Israel’s recent military engagements in the Middle East. This unprecedented strike within a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member state underscores Israel’s military assertiveness and raises critical questions about security, alliances, and the fragile balance of power in the region. The paradox of Qatar’s situation is striking – a nation that lavished billions of dollars on Western arms, only to find them wanting in the face of external aggression. The orchestration of the Doha attack, authorised by a leader who had erstwhile professed friendship amidst the exchange of staggering sums – Trump’s receipt of $1.2 trillion from Qatari authorities – lays bare the transactional nature of certain international relationships. Such episodes illuminate that the essence of power is not encapsulated by monetary transactions or arsenals of war; rather, it resides in the realms of insight and wisdom – the capacity for astute perception, strategic foresight, and nuanced diplomacy. In the shadowed corridors of Middle Eastern diplomacy, where alliances shift like desert sands and power is measured not just in tanks and jets but in the subtle art of influence, the Israeli airstrike on Doha on September 9, 2025, has ripped open a veil of illusion. This audacious operation—targeting Hamas leadership in the heart of Qatar’s capital—did not merely escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it laid bare the fragility of a global order built on transactional ties, exorbitant arms deals, and the hollow promise of Western protection. This disparity highlights a critical distinction: military prowess and economic wealth, while significant, are but facets of a broader spectrum of power. When weak nations clash amongst themselves, these tools may demonstrate a semblance of efficacy, yet they crumble precipitously against foes like Israel or the United States, revealing the fragility of reliance on material strength alone. This narrative beckons contemplation on the nature of true strength in international relations: it is not the button of destruction that guarantees security, nor the promises of fleeting alliances woven with threads of billions of dollars. Instead, it is the cultivation of profound understanding, the marriage of sagacity with strategic acumen, that constitutes the bedrock of enduring power and resilience. In this light, Qatar’s experience emerges not merely as a testament to the limitations of military hardware but as an invitation to reflect on the deeper currents shaping global dynamics – currents navigated not by wealth or weapons alone, but by the penetrating insights of wise leadership. As sirens wailed over Doha’s skyline and the world watched in stunned silence, Qatar’s experience became a stark parable: in the intricate tapestry of global geopolitics, true security transcends the mere accumulation of military hardware and financial might. The Doha attack marks a pivotal moment of Qatar’s security paradox, signalling potential realignments and underscoring the intricate, volatile nature of Middle East geopolitics. Qatar hosts a significant US military presence, including the Al Udeid Air Base, home to over 8,000 American personnel and CENTCOM’s (CENTCOM) regional headquarters. Despite this, Israel reportedly used undetected weapons to bypass Qatar’s air defences, highlighting gaps in the country’s security architecture. Qatar’s Defence Budget: Estimated at around $15-20 billion annually; Israel’s Defence Budget: Approximately $24 billion (2025 estimates); Military Personnel: Qatar with 16,000 active military personnel, whereas Israel with 170,000 active personnel, with significant reserves, reflecting Israel’s robust military capabilities. The Doha attack has sparked widespread condemnation from Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Kuwait, signalling potential shifts in regional alignments. The strike may unify Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in shared condemnation of Israel’s actions, despite historical rivalries. Whereas Iran’s recent missile attacks on US bases in Qatar (June 2025) underscore the country’s retaliatory capabilities and regional tensions. Normalised ties between Israel and some GCC states (UAE, Bahrain) face strain amid public outrage over the Gaza conflict and Palestinian rights. The US’s complex balancing act between Israel and Gulf allies is tested, with President Trump’s weak and hollow public rebuke of Israel’s unilateral action. The UN and International condemnation countries like Turkey, Iran, and Jordan have also very weakly and hollowly condemned the attack, reflecting weak global concerns. Geopolitical ripple effects with the incident challenge US strategic interests and highlight Russia, China and Iran’s growing assertiveness. Presence of US Bases in Qatar: Al Udeid Air Base, the Largest US military facility in the Middle East, is a meaningful critical for CENTCOM operations; Strategic significance for the host’s aircraft, drones; pivotal for US operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. Qatar and GCC states’ vulnerability is clearly exposed by Israel’s Doha attack, raise questions about base security. Israel’s Military Assertiveness clearly demonstrated its capability to strike beyond traditional conflict zones. Whereas Qatar’s Vulnerability also exposed limitations despite hosting US military assets, which heightened GCC-Iran-Israel-US interplay complexities and tested the global diplomacy and international relations, US-Israel-Gulf balances. Yet, beyond the immediate shockwaves, this event exposes deeper fault lines. Qatar, a pint-sized powerhouse flush with liquefied natural gas wealth, has poured billions into Western armaments, only to find them inert against an adversary wielding not just superior firepower but the intangible might of strategic impunity. The ephemeral nature of these Western weapons, starkly exposed by the Israeli attack on Qatar, underscores a profound truth: the instruments of war, however formidable and expensively acquired, are rendered ineffectual when confronted with adversaries who wield power beyond the tangible realm.
The Doha attack whispers a timeless lesson: power’s essence resides in insight and wisdom, the capacity for astute perception, strategic foresight, and nuanced diplomacy. For Qatar, and indeed for all small states adrift in great-power tempests, the path forward lies not in bigger arsenals, but in mastering the intangible arts that turn vulnerability into enduring sovereignty.
Trump himself, back in the White House, expressed weak and hollow fury, his advisers viewing the attack as a direct affront to American interests in the Gulf. This stings deeper when recalling the transactional bonanza of Trump’s first term: Qatar’s staggering arms purchases—totalling over $12 billion in U.S. deals, including fighter jets and Patriot missiles—were hailed as a “win-win,” with Doha funnelling investments into American real estate and even bailing out Trump’s businesses amid financial woes. The orchestration of the Doha attack, authorised by a leader who had erstwhile professed friendship amidst the exchange of staggering sums, lays bare the transactional nature of certain international relationships. To grasp the paradox at play, consider the raw metrics of military disparity—a comparison that renders Qatar’s vulnerability all the more poignant. Israel’s defence budget for 2025, bolstered by a historic NIS 756 billion ($203.5 billion) national budget and an additional 42 billion shekels ($12.5 billion) surge in military spending amid multifront conflicts, eclipses Qatar’s allocations. Projections place Israel’s annual defence outlay at approximately $30-35 billion, a figure that includes cutting-edge Iron Dome systems, F-35 stealth fighters, and a robust cyber warfare apparatus honed by decades of existential threats. In contrast, Qatar’s 2025 defence budget hovers around $15 billion—a hefty sum for a nation of just 2.8 million people, representing about 9.7% of its GDP, yet dwarfed by Israel’s per capita investment and technological edge. This fiscal chasm is no accident; Israel’s economy, battle-tested and innovation-driven, sustains a military-industrial complex that turns defence into a pillar of national identity, while Qatar’s spending is a hedge against regional volatility, funnelled largely into imports like Boeing F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons. Manpower tells an even starker tale. Israel’s Israel Defence Forces (IDF) commands a total of 634,500 personnel in 2025, blending 170,000 active-duty troops with a vast reserve of over 465,000—citizens drilled from adolescence in mandatory service, ready to mobilise at a moment’s notice. This reservoir of human resolve, ranked among the world’s top 15 militaries by Global Firepower, is battle-hardened, with expertise in asymmetric warfare and urban combat. Qatar, by comparison, fields a modest force of around 66,500 active personnel—comprising 42,500 in the army, 2,000 in the air force, and 4,500 in the navy—supplemented by a small reserve of 12,000 and reliance on foreign mercenaries for up to 80% of its ranks. It’s a professional but outnumbered outfit, more suited to deterrence than direct confrontation. When weak nations clash amongst themselves, these tools may demonstrate a semblance of efficacy, yet they crumble precipitously against foes like Israel, revealing the fragility of reliance on material strength alone. Compounding this asymmetry is the irony of Qatar’s strategic embrace of the United States. Home to Al Udeid Air Base—the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East, sprawling across 24 hectares outside Doha and serving as forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command—Qatar hosts over 10,000 American troops, B-52 bombers, and drone operations. This partnership, forged in the post-9/11 era, was meant to shield the emirate from threats, including from Iran or intra-Gulf rivals. Yet, the Doha strike unfolded mere miles from Al Udeid, with U.S. forces reportedly caught unawares and unable to intervene. A presidential jet—evoking Donald Trump’s 2017 visit to Doha—and the base’s formidable presence did nothing to deter Israel’s Mossad-orchestrated precision hit. The significance of this episode ripples far beyond the Persian Gulf. Regionally, it dashes hopes for Qatari-mediated ceasefires in Gaza, where Doha has positioned itself as an indispensable broker between Israel, Hamas, and the U.S. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, already wary of Qatar’s ties to Islamist groups, may accelerate normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords, sidelining Doha as a diplomatic pariah. In the broader Middle East, the strike signals Israel’s willingness to export its shadow wars, potentially emboldening adventurism against Iran-backed proxies in Lebanon or Yemen—escalating a tinderbox where proxy conflicts could ignite into full-scale war. Globally, it challenges the post-Cold War paradigm of U.S.-led deterrence. America’s Arab allies, from Jordan to the Emirates, are taking note: if a host to 10,000 U.S. troops can be bombed with impunity, what safeguards remain for others? The implications extend to energy markets, with Qatar’s LNG exports—20% of global supply—now vulnerable, potentially spiking prices and straining Europe’s post-Ukraine recovery. Moreover, it fuels anti-Western sentiment, portraying the U.S. as a paper tiger, eroding soft power in the Muslim world and complicating counterterrorism efforts. Yet, this narrative beckons contemplation on the nature of true strength in international relations: it is not the button of destruction that guarantees security, nor the promises of fleeting alliances woven with threads of billions of dollars. Instead, it is the cultivation of profound understanding, the marriage of sagacity with strategic acumen, that constitutes the bedrock of enduring power and resilience. Qatar’s experience emerges not merely as a testament to the limitations of military hardware but as an invitation to reflect on the deeper currents shaping global dynamics—currents navigated not by wealth or weapons alone, but by the penetrating insights of wise leadership. In a world where drones pierce sovereign skies and deals dissolve like mirages, the Doha attack whispers a timeless lesson: power’s essence resides in insight and wisdom, the capacity for astute perception, strategic foresight, and nuanced diplomacy. For Qatar, and indeed for all small states adrift in great-power tempests, the path forward lies not in bigger arsenals, but in mastering the intangible arts that turn vulnerability into enduring sovereignty.
