Six months into the Iran war, a new Gulf security architecture is emerging

Six months into the war with Iran, it is worth taking stock of what has actually changed around the Gulf.

What happened

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.

The bottom line

In short, six months into the Iran war, a new Gulf security architecture is is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.