Khurram Shahzad Siddiqui
THE most consequential measure of Qatar’s defence capability may be how quickly it can restore damaged equipment when overseas suppliers cannot deliver. Doha is expanding its domestic defence industry, but the test of that investment will not be the number of factories inaugurated or agreements signed. It will be whether essential military systems remain operational when foreign supply chains are under strain. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Qatar was the world’s third-largest importer of major arms during 2020–24. Advanced procurement has transformed its arsenal but also created dependencies. Aircraft, sensors and interceptors require software support, specialized components, trained technicians, authorized repairs and replenished stocks. During regional conflict, several militaries may compete simultaneously for the same scarce supplies.
Qatar is not starting from zero. Barzan Maintenance Shield is developing maintenance, repair and overhaul capacity through international partnerships, including a five-year agreement with Singapore’s ST Engineering covering military land platforms, technical expertise, workshop equipment and digital maintenance systems. In January, Barzan Holdings signed a letter of intent with Boeing to strengthen aircraft readiness and sustainment, alongside an agreement with the UAE’s EDGE Group to establish a defence-technology joint venture. These initiatives provide a foundation for domestic sustainment capability. On 19 October, Minister of State for Defence Affairs Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced plans for a domestic defence-production hub involving regional and international partners. He identified air defence, counter-drone measures and cyber threats among Qatar’s priorities. The strategic task now is to translate industrial partnerships into measurable crisis readiness. Defence-industrial sustainment is a dimension of strategic autonomy: the capacity not merely to acquire advanced military systems, but to maintain, repair and replenish them when external support is delayed or disrupted.
Doha should assess the planned hub against operational shortfalls rather than industrial ambition alone. A confidential assessment could identify failures most likely to degrade national defence, mapping critical spares, foreign-controlled intellectual property, repair bottlenecks and replenishment times. It should also model simultaneous demand from allies relying on the same manufacturers. The findings would distinguish capabilities requiring local control from those better secured through reserves or reliable external supply. Existing Barzan partnerships offer a practical starting point. Procurement authorities should establish which diagnostics, replacement parts, software permissions and technical documentation can be accessed locally. US export controls, end-use restrictions and supplier licensing conditions can constrain independent repairs, even for close security partners. Another priority is affordable defensive depth.
Drone and missile attacks across the Gulf during the 2026 war involving the United States, Israel and Iran exposed vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. For Qatar, the strikes on Ras Laffan demonstrated how disruption to a major energy hub can become a national economic and security concern. Doha could develop local capabilities involving replaceable sensors, counter-drone components, electronic protection and rapid repairs, subject to rigorous testing. Industrial scale remains a constraint. Qatar’s domestic market is too small to justify duplicating entire weapons supply chains, while local assembly dependent on imported parts may simply relocate vulnerability. Reciprocal arrangements with trusted Gulf and European partners could provide specialized repair capacity, shared inventories and alternative production routes. Such arrangements require clear export permissions and emergency-access provisions to remain dependable during crises.
The harder challenge is ensuring these investments deliver measurable wartime resilience. Rather than creating another administrative structure, Qatar could embed a confidential wartime-sustainment assessment within its planned defence-production initiative, involving defence authorities, Barzan, finance officials and technical experts. Investment decisions should reflect repair timelines, emergency inventories, locally maintainable components, trained personnel and stock endurance. Such assessments must distinguish peacetime availability from wartime surge capacity. A repair facility performing adequately under normal conditions may falter when transport corridors close, specialists become unavailable or replacement orders arrive simultaneously. Classified exercises involving military operators, industry and customs authorities could test promised turnaround times under these pressures.
Qatar’s established alliances remain indispensable. Selective domestic control over critical sustainment functions would strengthen those alliances by reducing avoidable demands on shared supply chains, not replace their protective value. Doha’s comparative advantage lies in using financial resources and international relationships to secure that control. Its next security achievement should be judged not by how much capability it has purchased or promised to produce, but by how reliably that capability can be restored when it matters most.
—The writer is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Strategic Studies at the National Defence University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
