Gulf States Shift Security Strategy as US Commitment Questioned

GULF STATES REASSESS SECURITY PARTNERSHIPS AS WASHINGTON PURSUES OWN INTERESTS

Five or six decades of American military protection underpinned Gulf prosperity. That foundational assumption is now fracturing, as mounting tensions across West Asia force a fundamental recalibration of how Gulf Cooperation Council governments view their security arrangements with Washington.

Additional reference context is available at https://thefederal.com/category/international/gulf-nations-rethink-west-ties-iran-crisis-256914.

The question dominating policy circles across GCC capitals is direct: can American strategic commitments be trusted when regional crises demand action?

Dr Waiel Awwad, a senior journalist and regional analyst, has tracked a decisive shift in Arab thinking. Speaking to The Federal about the future of Gulf-Western relations, he articulated a sentiment spreading through GCC capitals: “America has abandoned us. America has abandoned and betrayed the Arab cause. They are only searching for their interests first and cannot assume that their interests will always coincide with ours.”

The grievance has a specific trigger. When Iran retaliated against American military bases in the region following the escalation of hostilities, Arab nations absorbed the consequences. The arrangement inverted: Gulf states found themselves protecting American installations while absorbing Iranian strikes, rather than the reverse. The security guarantee, in practice, ran the wrong direction.

The Strait of Hormuz has crystallized these concerns. Commercial shipping lanes remain contested, with neither Iranian nor American forces exercising clear control. Negotiations that were supposed to proceed in Muscat have been complicated by American policy decisions, including the blocking of Iranian commercial vessels while Iran maintains its own blockade. Global commerce pays the price for a standoff that neither party can definitively resolve.

Awwad identified a consistent pattern in American regional strategy: provide weapons, logistics, and protection, but avoid direct military engagement. Washington has made clear it will not fight Gulf nations’ wars. President Trump’s administration has negotiated more than 500 billion dollars in military equipment deals with Arab countries, yet the protection implied by those transactions has not materialized. Gulf governments are buying American hardware and conducting their own operations, while Washington collects the revenue.

This transactional logic extends beyond the Gulf. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States similarly declined direct confrontation, instead pressing NATO members to raise their own defense spending. American involvement in any region, Awwad argued, depends on whether strategic resources or allied interests align with Washington’s priorities, specifically access to oil and the protection of Israel.

Whether Israel could serve as an alternative security partner for Saudi Arabia or other Gulf states receives a definitive answer from Awwad: no. American regional strategy, he contends, rests on two pillars, securing oil access and ensuring Israeli military, economic, and political dominance. Israeli leadership has openly discussed territorial ambitions extending from the Euphrates River to the Nile, encompassing portions of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Those ambitions make Gulf states inherently vulnerable, not protected.

Meanwhile, the Houthi attacks on Saudi territory, including strikes near Mecca, appear designed to pressure the kingdom into joining the Abraham Accords, which Riyadh had previously resisted on religious grounds. The pattern is familiar: American and Israeli interests advance through a combination of incentives and coercion, with Gulf governments caught between active security threats and diplomatic pressure to align with arrangements that may not serve their own interests.

Awwad contends that Gulf nations are actively exploring alternative security frameworks built around regional stakeholders rather than Western powers. Iran proposed a regional security arrangement more than 30 years ago based on mutual non-aggression, but Western pressure prevented Gulf states from seriously engaging with it. Now, behind-the-scenes diplomacy is testing whether a negotiated resolution to current crises might be possible through dialogue involving Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Houthis, and Iran directly.

The broader implication is structural. Western dominance in shaping regional outcomes is eroding, and Gulf governments increasingly recognize that American protection arrives with conditions that may not align with their own security requirements. The region is searching for new frameworks of cooperation that do not depend on Washington to define threats or determine which conflicts are worth fighting. Whether those frameworks can be assembled before the current standoff in the Strait of Hormuz produces a wider rupture remains the open question.