Iran’s missile strikes against US forces and installations across the Persian Gulf have exposed fundamental weaknesses in a security arrangement anchoring American power in the region for nearly half a century. That is the assessment of Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration and a former White House National Security Council official focused on Arabian Peninsula affairs during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
The vulnerabilities the attacks revealed point to a structural problem. The decades-old US security guarantee to Gulf partners, rooted in President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 pledge to defend vital American interests in the region, no longer reflects either American capacity or willingness to deliver on that commitment. Minor and Alina Romanowski, a former US ambassador to Kuwait and Iraq, have jointly argued that Washington and its Gulf allies must fundamentally reimagine their relationship, moving from a model centered on unilateral American security guarantees toward one built on regional integration, shared capabilities, and collaborative defense.
The current crisis demonstrates how far this shift has already progressed in practice, even if policy has not caught up. Gulf states have grown increasingly frustrated with Washington, particularly over the Iran conflict that has placed them on the front lines without adequate consultation. The escalatory spiral between the United States and Iran has proven difficult to arrest, with the Iranian regime signaling its intent to resolve the confrontation on its own terms and showing no hesitation about sustained conflict with American forces.
Minor argues that the traditional security model, which relied on large US military bases as the foundation of American power projection, has become unsustainable. The question now is not whether the partnership must change but what should replace it.
Her answer centers on a transition from guarantor to integrator. Under this framework, the United States would work collaboratively with Gulf partners to help them develop their own defensive capabilities against external threats and address broader regional instability, rather than independently leading military campaigns or making unilateral security commitments.
This concept is not entirely new. The idea of pivoting from guarantor to integrator has circulated within policy circles for years, including during Trump’s first administration, and the 2023 CENTCOM operation plan formally addresses it. The challenge lies not in embracing the concept but in actually operationalizing it and fundamentally changing how the United States operates in the region.
Meanwhile, the immediate obstacle to any such reset is the ongoing Iran conflict itself. Until that war ends and a sustainable cease-fire agreement is reached, deeper strategic conversations with Gulf partners will remain difficult. The conflict has made other actors, whether in Europe or the Gulf, hesitant to become entangled in American-led campaigns. De-escalation, a durable cease-fire, and a new agreement governing the Strait of Hormuz represent the necessary first steps.
Once that foundation is laid, the conversation can shift to rebuilding consensus among partners about how to address regional threats and construct a more durable security architecture. The role of Gulf powers themselves will be critical. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increasingly seek greater strategic independence and are competing for regional leadership. Significant divisions between Gulf countries persist, making a fully unified security architecture unrealistic in the near term, but those same divisions underscore why the US role as an integrator remains valuable.
Success in this reset would manifest in measurable ways. In the near term, lowering tensions between Washington and Gulf capitals would signal a shared understanding of what the relationship should look like and a sense that both sides are meeting their commitments. Over three to five years, the primary measure would be whether the security architecture deters potential adversaries. If the integrated Gulf security architecture, supported by the United States and trusted partners in Europe and beyond, appears sufficiently robust, resilient, and diversified, then future Iranian regimes and nonstate actors like the Houthis would face a deterrent strong enough to discourage direct confrontation.
That outcome, Minor suggests, would represent genuine success in transforming how American power operates in one of the world’s most strategically vital regions. Whether Washington and its Gulf partners can agree on the terms of that transformation, before the next escalatory spiral forces the question, remains very much open.