Qatar looks to bolster its military power with new hub, partnerships

DOHA, Qatar–Wedged between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Qatar has long used artful diplomacy to keep regional conflicts at arm's length: it provides shelter for Hamas leaders, maintains ties with Israel, and hosts the region's largest U.S. military base. But the Israeli strike on this capital city in September 2025 and subsequent Iranian attacks have Qatari leaders racing to secure allies and boost the peninsular nation’s domestic defense industry. 

"It's the first time that a mediator has been attacked. This never happened," Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar's deputy prime minister and minister of state for defense affairs, said Monday at the Global Security Forum in Doha. 

Al Thani said Qatar is exploring new defense partnerships with the United Kingdom and other Western and regional partners. The government is also looking to spin up a domestic weapons-production hub. The country's priorities include air defense, counter-drone capabilities, cybersecurity and electronic warfare, areas identified in a defense review conducted in 2025.

A visit to the Milipol Qatar security exhibition, held alongside the Global Security Forum, suggested a banking trade show as much as a military expo, a reminder that Qatar lacks the large defense-manufacturing base of some regional neighbors.

Qatari officials believe the country can participate more directly in weapons design and manufacturing, rather than simply serving as a buyer. Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdul Latif Al Mannai, a Qatari defense official, said a proposed partnership with Britain could incorporate operational requirements, intelligence and assessments of emerging threats into weapons development. Gen. Sir Roly Walker, chief of the General Staff of the British Army, said the countries were considering a much broader partnership—not just between operators, but their acquisition corps and suppliers.

"We have high-level political ambition for a 50-year strategic partnership to gear ourselves up for the future," Walker said.

"We need to position ourselves almost as a design partner to allow the ingenious engineers and creative entrepreneurs to develop the solutions to our problems."

Qatar is also looking to increase investment in defense companies, rather than simply purchasing their products. Mohammed bin Badr Al Sada, group CEO of Barzan Holdings, said British companies were already involved in discussions about the proposed hub.

"We work very closely with UK industries," Al Sada said. "Actually some of them, they are already in town as we speak. And we hope that we can see this hub active very soon."

Qatar's growing interest in defense production also reflects concerns about the limits of American security guarantees. Iran's June 2025 missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base showed that the presence of U.S. troops on Qatari soil did not, by itself, prevent an attack. And Washington has signaled its intention to play a less interventionist role in regional security.

Tom Barrack, U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq, acknowledged that shift in an onstage interview Tuesday, while emphasizing that Washington was not abandoning its regional partners.

"We're not leaving. But what everybody's doing is saying, 'Okay, I can't rely on America to solve all my problems anymore,” 

Defense One is a media partner of the Global Security Forum.