Kuwait Defence and Security Report Q2 2008

Relations between the dominant Sunni and the minority Shi'ite communities in Kuwait were strained in February 2008 as a result of a controversy over the killing in a Damascus car bomb attack on February 12 of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Lebanese Hizbullah commander. The killing sparked a major controversy in Kuwait when two Shi'ite legislators, Adnan Abdul-Samad and Ahmed Lari, attended a rally in his memory and described him as a 'martyr hero'. The Sunni community reacted with outrage, given that Mughniyeh was widely held to be responsible for the hijacking of a Kuwaiti Airways flight 20 years earlier and the murder of two Kuwati passengers on board. After the two parliamentarians attended the rally, the Kuwaiti cabinet condemned their comments, warning their words could cause civil strife, and saying that it was taking unspecified legal measures to 'safeguard national unity'. A cabinet statement said Mughniyeh was a 'terrorist whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent martyrs and who was behind many terrorist and criminal attacks'. Four local lawyers said they were initiating a complaint accusing the two deputies of endangering national security and splitting Kuwaitis along sectarian lines.

Any public prosecution of the two deputies would first require parliament to vote to lift their immunity, however. The two were also expelled by their parliamentary group, the opposition Popular Action bloc, which said it 'utterly rejected and condemned' their role in the rally. As a result the bloc's strength fell from seven to five deputies. Around 30% of Kuwait's 1mn-strong population are Shi'ites. There have been intermittent signs of tension between Sunnis and Shi'ites, but no major incidents of violence.

Although Kuwait enjoys a generally high inter-state security rating, with the US and Iran continuing to square off in a confrontation over the latter's nuclear programme, these are nervous times in the region.

Iran has implied that any attack on its territory will be met with a missile-led counter-attack on US forces in the Gulf, including those stationed in Kuwait. This worry lies behind Kuwait's current focus on a US$9bn upgrade and extension of its Patriot missile defence system. Some analysts have gone as far as suggesting that the installation of the Patriot system is a major factor in US planning around any 'window' for some kind of military action against Tehran during the course of 2008.

Setting the Iran wild card on one side, an ongoing issue for Kuwait is how it responds to both domestic and international pressures to undertake political reforms with the aim of increasing democracy in the state. The deadlock between the government and parliament, while reflecting the country's relative political openness, is also getting in the way of economic reforms and development - the danger is that it may end up being a real source of domestic instability and therefore generate insecurity.

Kuwait has a small number of indirect security threats, but benefits from the external security endowed upon it by the US. In the past, its geo-strategic location made it precarious to threats, from an Iraqi invasion in 1991 and the possibility of an Iraqi missile strike on Kuwait prior to the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. Kuwait faces a limited internal threat from al-Qaeda-linked militants operating on Kuwaiti soil. As with many of the region's ruling regimes, there is a degree of protest from within disaffected sections of the population. The emirate will remain concerned with the ongoing instabilities in post-war Iraq and the possibility of Kuwaiti jihadis returning from Iraq.

Kuwait lacks an established indigenous defence industry of significance, and its armed forces are almost entirely reliant upon procurements from foreign sources for equipment and training. The Kuwaiti economy is currently able to support a high level of military expenditure as high oil prices raised the oil revenue in recent years, leading to record excess budget surpluses. The continuation of the upgrading of Kuwaiti military hardware and equipment is unlikely to decrease in the near future given the ongoing US involvement in the region and the current strength of the Kuwaiti economy. On this basis, high military expenditure is therefore likely to continue into the foreseeable future. US foreign military assistance will continue to dominate Kuwait's imports trade with the vast majority of its arms procurements being supplied by US-based companies. Kuwait does, however, increasingly obtain arms from a wider source of suppliers, including European and Asian states. The emirate does not have an extensive arms export industry.