Who Will Protect the Gulf
For generations, the central question of Arabian Gulf security was simple: Who would protect the Gulf?
That question shaped a regional order built around oil, military power and external protection. But the Gulf that this order was designed to defend has changed profoundly.
Today, the Arabian Gulf states are global centres of energy, finance, aviation, logistics, technology and investment. Their growing power has created new capabilities—but also new vulnerabilities. A state no longer needs to lose territory to suffer a strategic blow. Electricity grids, desalination plants, ports, data networks, financial systems, supply chains and maritime routes can all become instruments of pressure and coercion.
In Gulf Security in an Age of Transformation, Middle East expert Gabriel G. Tabarani traces the evolution of Gulf security from the age of armies and external protection to an era shaped by missiles and drones, critical infrastructure, technology, economic interdependence and competing regional and global powers.
Drawing on more than five decades of engagement with the Middle East, Tabarani argues that the Gulf’s challenge is no longer simply to acquire more power or replace one protector with another. It is to convert military capability, economic strength, resilient infrastructure, diversified partnerships and regional cooperation into something more consequential: strategic agency—the ability to preserve meaningful choice under pressure.
The future of Gulf security, therefore, will not be determined by whether outside powers disappear. They will remain essential. The deeper question is whether the Gulf states can build a security order in which external power strengthens their security without determining their choices.
The age of protection is not over. But protection is no longer enough.
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