While Israel finishes counting the votes that will determine the political fate of Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia—fresh from talks in Tehran, the first of their kind since the war began in February—is urging the Trump administration to abandon reported plans to bomb Iran after the US midterm elections. Does this portend efforts to blunt American influence over regional security? A new article in Middle East Policy critically examines the Gulf states’ repeated failures to develop an effective collective defense and casts doubt on their ability to escape the Washington-centered model despite the recent damage to US credibility.
This new open-access analysis, “Visions of Gulf Security in an Era of Uncertainty: Between External Alignment and Regional Autonomy” by Rory Miller and Şaban Kardaş, is available in our special issue, October 7 Legacies: Regional War, Global Crisis. The collection features investigations of Netanyahu’s fostering pre-October 7 security lapses and ginning up enthusiasm for war with Iran, as well as global crises triggered by the Iran War, the clerical hold on power in Tehran, and the Palestinian struggle for autonomy. Fifteen of the 17 articles are outside our paywall and free to read. Also available are our Fall 2026 double issue and our special issue commemorating a quarter century since the 9/11 attacks. If you find this article useful, please forward it to others you believe will benefit. You can register to receive our weekly updates here. And please follow us on the social media platforms X and LinkedIn.
Miller and Kardaş show that the recently forged partnership among Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, dubbed the Mecca Pact, is just the most recent attempt by a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to hedge against reliance on a US-dominated security system that has failed to protect regional allies. The authors interrogate the “long-standing debates over alternative security arrangements, including GCC-centered defense integration, broader mechanisms of cooperative security, and more novel options like a regional nonaggression framework,” finding that the current Gulf efforts are likely to be constrained by the same forces that have kept them bound to the American-led order.
Two of the previous attempts at regional self-reliance focused on military integration, Miller and Kardaş explain. In the 1980s, the monarchies formed the multinational Peninsula Shield Force to protect GCC members against threats, especially from Iran but also from Iraq. However, this did not become a full-fledged defense alliance due to disagreements over command, divergent threat perceptions, and resistance to Saudi dominance. In addition, success in the Gulf War elevated the American option. “During the 1990s, as the security relationship with Washington flourished, the force failed to develop as a viable tool for collective defense against external aggression, remaining confined to regime security,” the authors write. “Despite these limitations, improved defense cooperation combined with high military spending had a political as well as a security objective: demonstrating intra-regional cooperation.”
A similar initiative led by Riyadh in the 2010s sought to transform the GCC into a more unified political and defense union with joint military command. However, Miller and Kardaş show, Bahrain was its only enthusiastic supporter, and other members resisted surrendering sovereignty and accepting Saudi leadership.
While these episodes focused on military integration, states have also tried to formalize regional dialogue. This approach was advanced by Qatar in 2018, as it faced a Saudi-led blockade, as well as by Riyadh and Tehran when they forged a normalization deal in 2023. Miller and Kardaş note similarities between these efforts and a recently proposed
regional nonaggression pact between the Gulf states and Iran. This amounts to a call for a framework in which local actors promote collective moves toward conflict resolution. This ambitious undertaking requires, in the first place, the substitution of exclusionary instincts with confidence-building measures and assurance mechanisms that facilitate and sustain dialogue that can effect regional reconciliation. The hope is that this opens the way toward a form of omni-enmeshment allowing for the gradual integration of the Islamic Republic into a mutually beneficial framework for regional security and peace.
Despite the obstacles to creating an autonomous collective-defense system, Miller and Kardaş identify three important gains from this historical process, though these are most evident at times of crisis: security cooperation, military coordination, and regional collaboration. Such achievements should not be dismissed simply because they fell short of replacing the American security umbrella.
However, the authors contend that while the Gulf states are ramping up their efforts at regional self-help, it is unlikely they will develop real alternatives.
The Iran War has essentially crystallized, rather than healed, the divisions among the GCC members. The centrifugal forces persist such that integration of security-defense capabilities on a regional platform appears highly unlikely in the foreseeable future….It is likely that, at least in the medium term, the US-centric model will continue to offer the least bad, if not the preferred, option.
October 7 Legacies: Regional War, Global Crisis
A Middle East Policy Special Issue
ISRAELI POLITICS AFTER 10/7
Free to read!
Paradigm Lock-In and Strategic Surprise: Explaining Israel’s October 7 Intelligence Failure
Ruth Hanau Santini | Andrea Novellis
Open access!
Israel’s Netanyahu Trap
Bulent Aras
THE US-IRAN WAR
Open access!
The Stability-Instability Paradox and the Evolving Balance of Terror in the Middle East
Thomas Juneau
Open access!
Signals, Red Lines, and Collision: The Israel-Iran Spiral and US Intervention
Buğra Sari
Crisis in the Strait of Hormuz: What Lies Ahead?
Gawdat Bahgat
Open access!
Visions of Gulf Security in an Era of Uncertainty: Between External Alignment and Regional Autonomy
Rory Miller | Şaban Kardaş
Open access!
Trump’s Transactional Diplomacy: Breakthrough or Breakdown?
Guilain Denoeux | Robert Springborg
CAN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC SURVIVE?
Open access!
Iran’s Revolutionary Situation and Digital Authoritarianism: 1979 vs. 2026
Mohsen Askari
Open access!
Qatar and Iran: Market Access Under Geopolitical Conflict
Ahmet Hakan Özkan
Open access!
Between Ideology and Strategy: The Iranian Revolution and the Reconfiguration of Middle Eastern Security
Alabbas F. Alsudani
REGIONAL WAR, GLOBAL DISRUPTION
Open access!
Maritime Disruption in Yemen: The Making of a Hybrid Red Sea Order
Federico Donelli
Open access!
Russia’s Strategic Paradox: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Risks from the Iran War
Namig Abbasov | Emil S. Aslan
Free to read!
Russia and Iran: The Axis of Transactions Unraveled
Federico Manfredi Firmian
PALESTINE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY
Free to read!
Beyond Symbolism: The Effects of Palestinian State Recognition
Dalal Iriqat
Free to read!
‘I Thought I Would Die’: Testimony from Palestinian Women Jailed by Israel
Oqab Jabali | Saqer Jabali
New Political Actors in Palestine: The Digital Efficacy of Gen Z
Abdalraheem S.H. Shobaki | Mahmoud S.H. Shobaki
Free to read!
The Scholar’s Dilemma: Rational Study of Irrational Wars
Annie Tracy Samuel
BOOK REVIEWS
The Wretched of the Earth: Rashid Khalidi, Omer Bartov, and the Palestinian Tragedy
Review essay by Mohammed Ayoob
Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza; El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Reviewed by A.R. Joyce
Azizi, The Axis of Resistance
Reviewed by Mahmood Monshipouri
Lynch, America’s Middle East
Reviewed by Yasir Kuoti
Strand, Israel and the Gaza Strip since 1967
Reviewed by Abdulgani Bozkurt
Manfredi Firmian, War in Syria and the Middle East
Reviewed by Bahram P. Kalviri
Donelli, Power Competition in the Red Sea
Reviewed by Riccardo Gasco
Haberman and Swan, Regime Change
Review essay by A.R. Joyce