March 28th, 2019 - 11:49 GMT Qatar's New Foreign Policy: How Massive Defense Spending, a Pivot East and Assertive Diplomacy are Beating the GCC Blockade The June 2017 blockade of Qatar was designed to punish the Gulf State for its patronage of the Muslim brotherhood and a maverick foreign policy that often privileged Doha’s dynastic interests over those of the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Read more