Gulf turns to Israel for security as Washington pivots inwards - opinion

The 2025 US National Security Strategy points to a deep shift in how Washington thinks about the world. This is more than a routine update. By announcing the revival of the Monroe Doctrine and making the Western Hemisphere its top priority, the US is moving to protect its own sphere first.

The US remains a present guarantor for defense systems. But the condition is that allies take on a larger share of the cost for security and stability – politically, economically, and militarily. Put plainly, Washington is no longer willing to run the regional system by itself. However, it has not quit the business of providing security assurances.

This moves beyond the logic of calling for help from a distant power. It moves toward weaving a connected defense network with a partner that has its own independent decision-making and strong ability to act. In my view, betting on emotional alliances or temporary alignments in a highly unstable region is like building security on shaky ground.

Here, I believe, the talk about partnership with Israel moves from political theory to practical reality. According to an investigation published in the Israeli financial paper Calcalist, a major strategic defense deal was finalized. The deal, worth about $2.3 billion, is between Israel’s Elbit Systems and the United Arab Emirates to develop a very advanced, sensitive security system.

The meaning of this deal is not really in the money. It is in its sovereign nature and what it shows: a high level of trust in sharing technology and building long-term security systems.

Countries do not bring short-term partners into the heart of their defense structure. They only bet on this level of cooperation with parties that have proven they can commit and last.

From this view, one cannot see more cooperation and normalization with Israel as just a passing political choice or a temporary tactic. It must be seen as part of a state’s own protection plan in the Gulf.

Relations between countries are not built on rhetoric or historical memory alone. They are built on shared interests and calculations of gain and loss. They are built on the real ability to manage risks in a regional environment full of uncertainty.

In the wider context, the most serious threats to the Gulf in the next phase might not come through direct military conflict. They may come through projects of regional domination. These projects try to use societies as arenas for indirect conflict.

The methods are political incitement, exploiting social divisions, and building cross-border influence networks. Here, we are not talking about a traditional conflict between states only. We are talking about a conflict over the very form of the state itself. It is a conflict over the state’s relationship with its citizens and its place on the geopolitical map.

In summary, the period after 2025 asks not just about the shape of alliances. It asks a deeper question: who guards the state when the priorities of great powers change, and the maps of interest are redrawn?

I believe the state that does not build its own security with its own hands, and does not manage its networks of interest with conscious pragmatism will find itself alone. It will be in an arena whose timing and tools it did not choose.

In a world where conflicts are sometimes managed without armies and sometimes without missiles, awareness becomes the first line of defense. The ability to see the danger while it is still an idea, not only when it becomes real, is the true difference. That is the difference between a state that stands firm and a state that slowly falls apart.