The Day After the War: Towards a New Security Architecture?

The post–October 7 period marked a critical turning point for the Gulf. Israel’s war on Gaza triggered a wider regional escalation in which Iran emerged as a prominent actor, both through its proxies and through direct confrontations with Israel and the United States. This dynamic profoundly destabilized regional security architecture. Gulf states increasingly found themselves exposed as the spillover zone of this escalation cycle. As part of asymmetric warfare, critical Gulf energy and connectivity infrastructure, as well as U.S. military bases in the region, came under attack. As this represents a first of its kind since the First Gulf War, it has intensified questions about the United States’ conventional role as the Gulf’s primary security guarantor. In this context, the future of the traditional “oil-for-security” formula underpinning Gulf–U.S. relations has increasingly become a matter of debate.

This session seeks to explore how the Gulf’s future security architecture may evolve in light of these developments. It will examine whether a growing trust deficit toward the U.S. among Gulf states could lead to the diversification of strategic partnerships or the deepening of existing forms of cooperation. It will assess the future of regional multilateral frameworks, particularly the GCC and, more broadly, the Arab League, and whether the post-war context may foster greater internal cohesion or deepen existing fractures. In addition, the discussion will address the future trajectory of Arab-Israeli normalization initiatives, such as the Abraham Accords, as well as the potential roles of actors like Türkiye and Pakistan in shaping the Gulf’s evolving security landscape through defense-industrial cooperation and emerging understandings of collective security.

Discussion Themes:

1. Following the war involving Israel and the United States against Iran, how will Iran–Gulf relations evolve, and what implications will this have for the regional security architecture? 
2. What future is ahead for the Arab-Israeli normalization in the post-war period?
3. Will the collective action potential of the Arab League at large and the GCC in particular lead to greater internal cohesion, or to deepening fractures?
4. What roles might actors such as Türkiye and Pakistan play, in terms of defense industry cooperation and collective security frameworks, in shaping the future of the Gulf security architecture?