The Gulf Arab dilemma: Countering geostrategic encirclement with temples of poop

Despite reaping trillions in oil and gas revenue over the decades, Gulf Arabs nations have failed to construct infrastructural lifelines in any direction

The geographic pivots of global trade can be discerned just by looking at a map. Expansive landmasses, with their erratic terrains and often hostile populations, had traditionally acted as a barrier against long-distance trade and conquest. This deadlock was broken from the mid-1400s onwards when Portugal, under the helm of Prince Henry the Navigator, e…