Gulf States Face Security Reckoning as U.S.-Iran Tensions Reshape Regional Order

Gulf Cooperation Council states are confronting the structural limits of their security arrangements as the United States-Iran conflict reshapes regional dependencies, according to Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Speaking on The New Region’s GeoSpace podcast, Cafiero outlined how the crisis is forcing GCC governments to reckon with the fragility of American protection and the governance costs of sustained instability.

The reputational damage has already set in. Cafiero noted that the Gulf’s international standing has deteriorated sharply since late February. “It’s going to take quite a bit of time to restore that previous image of stability,” he said.

Regulatory and economic exposure varies sharply across member states. Cafiero highlighted the asymmetric impact of disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz, where blockade pressures have fallen unevenly across GCC members. Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar face the most acute exposure because they lack alternative ocean access and remain dependent on the strait for exports. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman have managed partial rerouting of shipments, though their relief is temporary.

Additional pressure points are now compounding the problem. Disruptions at Bab el-Mandeb are threatening Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea shipping lanes, while a recent drone attack on the Suez Canal raises the prospect of a third critical waterway closing. “If there are more of those acts of sabotage, the Saudis would be really cut off, and their economy would face huge, huge problems,” Cafiero warned.

Proposed alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz offer limited policy relief. Cafiero dismissed the notion that alternative pipelines and trade corridors could meaningfully substitute for the strait’s role. Smaller GCC states seeking to bypass the chokepoint would need to route energy through neighboring countries, a dependency that would require robust intra-GCC cooperation at a moment when such unity is fragile. The result is that regional economic diversification efforts face structural constraints that policy alone cannot overcome.

The crisis has directly undermined the economic transformation agendas that GCC governments have staked their legitimacy on. “This ongoing crisis has posed an enormous threat to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the visions of the other GCC states,” Cafiero said. “Their ability to move forward with these visions has taken a hit, and progress will certainly come at a slower rate.”

Iran’s military strategy has evolved in ways that suggest deliberate targeting of governance fractures within the GCC. The initial focus on the UAE served dual purposes: punishing Abu Dhabi for its ties with Israel and disrupting global commerce. “Attacking the UAE so aggressively was an effective way for Iran to disrupt the global economy,” Cafiero explained.

More recent targeting patterns reveal a shift toward Bahrain and Kuwait, countries where the United States maintains significant military presence and which sit in geographic proximity to Iran. Cafiero interpreted this pivot as part of a broader Iranian strategy to exploit GCC divisions. “Iran was trying to send a message to Saudi Arabia that it could be spared if it distances itself from the UAE, as well as the US and Israel,” he said. By keeping diplomatic channels open to Riyadh while pressuring other GCC members, Tehran has sought to prevent unified regional opposition from forming.

The prospect of independent GCC defense capabilities remains distant. Cafiero was direct on this point: “There’s no other power in the world that has the capacity and the willingness to replace the United States as a security guarantor.” Regional military capacity, in his assessment, cannot substitute for American protection, leaving GCC governments structurally dependent on external actors regardless of how the current conflict resolves.

Meanwhile, speculation about Saudi normalization with Israel has become disconnected from current realities. Cafiero dismissed the idea as implausible under existing conditions, arguing that regional security concerns take precedence over diplomatic realignment.

The broader geopolitical consequence favors non-Western powers. Iran has emerged emboldened, having witnessed two nuclear-armed states, Israel and the United States, fail to achieve regime change. This perception of resilience strengthens Tehran’s regional standing. China, Cafiero argued, stands as the crisis’s principal beneficiary. “When the dust settles, the Gulf region is going to be more oriented toward China, and that is going to have a huge impact on the geopolitical and geo-economic order of the Middle East,” he said.

The open question for GCC governments is whether that reorientation, once consolidated, leaves room for the kind of Western-backed security architecture they have relied on for decades, or whether the current crisis marks the point at which that architecture began its irreversible decline.