Six months into the war with Iran, it is worth taking stock of what has actually changed around the Gulf. After Iran’s June 2025 missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, I argued that the years ahead would be more perilous for the Gulf and that deeper defence cooperation and integration would eventually become unavoidable. Earlier this month, I wrote here that the Gulf could no longer rely entirely on the old security toolkit and would need to build more of a security ecosystem of its own.
So far, events have borne out the broad direction of both arguments. What has become clearer over the past six months is that the war is not simply changing defence budgets or generating new security agreements. It is beginning to change how Gulf states think about security itself: who they should work with, what they should expect from their partners and what cooperation needs to look like when a crisis actually begins.
Some of these changes are obvious. The war has demonstrated, in the most direct possible way, the vulnerability of cities, energy infrastructure, airports, ports and shipping lanes to missiles, drones and other forms of disruption. Threats that were often discussed in exercises and planning documents have become immediate operational problems.
For decades, Gulf security rested on a familiar structure: the United States provided the main external security umbrella, Gulf states maintained bilateral relationships with Washington and other Western capitals, and the GCC provided a regional framework in which defence integration remained uneven. That system has not disappeared. The US remains indispensable to Gulf security and will continue to play a central role for the foreseeable future.
What is changing is the assumption that this structure, by itself, is enough. The war has accelerated the move towards a more layered security system. Gulf states are strengthening cooperation among themselves while deepening relationships with a wider range of partners.
Turkiye is becoming more important. European states have greater potential to play an operational role. Existing bilateral military relationships are being asked to deliver more, while new regional arrangements are emerging alongside older ones.
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