First published in Arabic in Elaph on June 20, 2026.
The war Iran waged on the Gulf states in recent months should be the starting point for any reading of the region’s new strategic realities. It did not merely add new threats. It redefined the nature of risk, the limits of deterrence and the very idea of safe strategic depth. It showed that protecting the Gulf’s economic and sovereign gains is no longer a purely defensive matter, but part of a broader and more complex deterrence equation. Missile deterrence in the Gulf is therefore no longer a theoretical luxury, or a subject to be shelved until calmer times. It has become one of the central questions of the region’s security future.
This war, like the experience of recent years, made clear that the missile threat is no longer hypothetical. Energy installations, vital economic infrastructure and strategic hubs are no longer beyond direct reach. Iran and its network of proxies have entrenched a new security environment in which missiles and drones serve as tools of political, military and economic pressure. Under this equation, the question is no longer only how to intercept attacks, but how to convince whoever launches them that the price will exceed any gain they expect.
This shift in thinking did not come from nowhere. The attacks the Gulf states have endured, and the faster build-up of joint defense networks and wider cooperation with regional and international partners that followed, showed that the era of sheltering behind a thriving economy and open trade alone is over. Deterrence in the Gulf cannot rest on prosperity alone; it requires a clear capacity to deny and to punish. Shifts in US security doctrine in recent years also point to a growing expectation that allies carry a larger share of their own defense. That pushes Gulf states to think harder about building national sources of strength that bolster their ability to deter and to respond to crises.
Building a Gulf missile arsenal does not have to mean a slide into adventurism or a blind arms race. It can be part of a disciplined, integrated defense doctrine. Modern deterrence does not rest on missiles alone, but on a system that includes intelligence, air defense, cyber capabilities and reconnaissance. Yet missiles remain one of the main tools that give this system its punitive edge and force an adversary to recalculate before any adventure. Defense limits the damage, but it does not stop the adversary from testing the limits again and again. The ability to respond shifts the equation from absorbing the blow to deterring it before it lands. The aim is not to match the region’s vast arsenals, but to build enough capability to make any adversary understand that landing a strike will not mean achieving its political or military goals.
What makes this more pressing today is that the region has exposed the limits of relying on defense alone, while Gulf defense structures have matured and become more capable of absorbing and developing advanced technology with their allies. In my assessment, the danger of this moment lies not only in the scale of the threats, but in the habit some actors have formed of testing Gulf deterrence, convinced that the cost of escalation is still bearable.
The strongest argument for this path, however, is strategic, not technical. A party that believes it can strike and then shelter behind distance or proxies will not change its behavior until it is convinced that its own vital assets can also come under credible threat. Deterrence is not built on statements, but on persuading the other side that the cost of aggression will outweigh any possible gain.
Real deterrence is not limited to preventing the first strike either; it includes the ability to withstand it. States with effective deterrence build not only the means to punish, but the ability to keep functioning, deciding and responding even under attack. An adversary is not deterred when it knows you can respond. It is deterred when it knows you will still be able to respond after its first strike.
None of this means leaping straight into a vast, open-ended missile program. It means a gradual path that combines procurement, industrial partnerships, knowledge transfer and a national base that supports security and defense. The issue is not only owning weapons, but being able to sustain and develop them without being wholly dependent on outside decisions at critical moments.
Any Gulf missile arsenal should also be seen as part of a wider project to protect the national economy. Ports, sea lanes, energy lines and supply chains are now all part of the national security equation. What is the value of giant economic projects if they can be disrupted or held to ransom in a crisis? Prosperity cannot last if its security rests on incomplete deterrence. Missiles, in this sense, are not merely military tools; they are part of a broader system that protects economic sovereignty and sustains growth.
Talk of a new arms race also ignores the fact that the imbalance has existed for years. What is needed is not a new race but the correction of an existing imbalance, turning the Gulf from an object of deterrence into an actor in it. Nor should deterrence be confused with recklessness. Missile capability built under strict rules of operation and control is an instrument of stability, not adventurism: it raises the cost of aggression and forces every party to weigh the consequences before resorting to force.
At its core, this is not a love of missiles but an understanding of the region. Anyone who reads past experience with Iran and its proxies knows that good intentions do not protect vital installations, that diplomatic condemnation does not stop attacks, and that complete reliance on an outside ally is not always enough in the first hours of a crisis. Building a conventional Gulf missile arsenal, integrated into a wider defense, intelligence and industrial system, is therefore not a slide toward militarization. It is the belated correction of a strategic gap for which the region has paid more than once.
Above all, the recent war proved that the security equations that governed the region for decades are no longer enough on their own to guarantee deterrence. Security in the Gulf cannot be bought ready-made forever. It is built over time, through partnerships and long-term investment in national instruments of power. A disciplined Gulf missile arsenal is not a declaration of war. It is a declaration that war on the Gulf will no longer come cheap, and that anyone contemplating aggression must understand in advance that what awaits is not merely the interception of a first strike, but an integrated capacity to endure, respond and impose a cost that makes the gamble itself not worth the risk.
