Oil and dynastic rule have led to an idiosyncratic pattern of state formation in the Gulf, and in few parts of the state are the idiosyncrasies more pronounced than in the security sector. Oil income has allowed the ruling families of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to engineer a relatively soft, rent- and patronage-based authoritarianism characterized by multiple centers of power and huge institutional redundancies. Having constructed their police and military forces along these lines, their monarchical rule has become more resilient, but their armed forces also more hapless.