The current war involving Iran, the United States, and Israel has placed unprecedented pressure on Gulf security. Since 28 February, GCC states have faced sustained missile and drone attacks targeting military facilities, civilian infrastructure, energy assets, logistics networks, and maritime security. Nearly 8,100 Iran-linked attacks have been recorded, with roughly 6,000 directed at GCC countries. Drones accounted for more than three quarters of attacks against the Gulf, while the UAE absorbed a particularly heavy share of the pressure.
The performance of Gulf air defences has been significant. Across the region, advanced systems intercepted large numbers of incoming threats, protecting critical infrastructure and civilian populations. Yet the war has also shown that effectiveness under fire is not the same as long-term sustainability. High-end interceptors such as Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD remain indispensable against ballistic missiles, but they were not designed to serve as the primary response to prolonged waves of lower-cost drones and loitering munitions.
This imbalance has accelerated a reassessment already underway. Rather than abandoning advanced missile defence, Gulf states are rethinking the broader defence framework around it: more layers, greater magazine depth, stronger coordination, and faster integration across sensors and decision-making structures. The war has reinforced a broader lesson already emerging across the Gulf: modern air defence is no longer only about platforms. It is about building a more integrated and sustainable defensive network.
From Crisis Response to GCC Coordination
The GCC’s institutional response to Iran’s attacks began quickly. On 1 March, the GCC Ministerial Council held an extraordinary meeting to address Iranian missile and drone attacks against member states. The statement reaffirmed that Gulf security is “indivisible,” that an attack on one member state constitutes “an attack on all,” and that GCC states retain the right to individual and collective self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Yet the following weeks demonstrated that political solidarity alone was insufficient. As attacks continued, the challenge increasingly shifted toward operational coordination: shared warning, real-time information exchange, crisis management, and coordination across national air defence networks.
This was the broader significance of the 28 April consultative summit in Jeddah. GCC leaders called for accelerating the completion of a joint early warning system against ballistic missiles and intensifying military integration among member states. The war had exposed how rapidly missile and drone attacks could traverse multiple airspaces, compress response timelines, and generate spillover effects across energy infrastructure, logistics, and civilian networks throughout the Gulf.
As a result, GCC discussions focused increasingly on operational integration: improving real-time data sharing and joint situational awareness against cross-border aerial threats. The summit also linked defence to broader resilience, calling for faster progress on energy interconnections, logistics coordination, strategic stockpiles, and critical infrastructure protection. This reflected growing recognition that energy connectivity, supply-chain continuity, and maritime security are increasingly part of Gulf collective security planning, particularly amid concerns over the vulnerability of regional trade routes and the Strait of Hormuz.
The trend continued in May. On 13 May, GCC interior ministers held an emergency meeting in Riyadh amid growing concerns over Iranian-linked infiltration networks operating across the Gulf. The meeting followed the arrest of several individuals allegedly connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in GCC states, as well as Kuwait’s interception of suspected IRGC-linked operatives near Bubiyan Island.
Importantly, this broadened the concept of collective defence beyond missile interception alone. GCC coordination increasingly extended toward hybrid threats, including infiltration, sabotage risks, critical infrastructure protection, and internal resilience during periods of regional escalation. Together, the March, April, and May meetings suggest that GCC coordination is gradually evolving across three interconnected tracks: military defence, internal security, and infrastructure resilience.
Shared Warning and Interoperability
The Jeddah summit’s emphasis on early warning was particularly significant. In the Gulf, where several states possess limited strategic depth and critical infrastructure is concentrated near coastlines and urban centres, even a few additional minutes of warning can prove decisive.
Separate national air pictures are increasingly insufficient against cross-border missile trajectories, mixed salvos, and saturation attacks. A more integrated early warning network would help create a common operational picture across the GCC, improving tracking, prioritisation, and interception timelines throughout the region. Steps already taken by the GCC point in this direction. In September 2025, the Joint Defence Council agreed to transmit the air situation to operation centres across member states and accelerate the work of the Gulf Joint Task Force for the Early Warning System against Ballistic Missiles.
Yet early warning is not simply a technical issue. Effective integration also requires trusted procedures, secure communication systems, compatible data-sharing protocols, and clear rules governing how information moves from sensors to command authorities and ultimately to interceptors operating across different national networks.
Interoperability remains the core challenge. GCC states operate advanced systems from multiple suppliers, with different radars, software layers, command-and-control interfaces, maintenance chains, and engagement doctrines. Diversification strengthens resilience, but only if integration keeps pace. Otherwise, it risks creating parallel systems that struggle to communicate effectively during wartime.
Full standardisation remains unrealistic given the diversity of suppliers across the Gulf. A more practical objective is to strengthen coordination while preserving national control: national systems remain under sovereign control, while becoming increasingly connected through shared procedures, joint exercises, and real-time data exchange.
This approach would preserve national flexibility while improving collective effectiveness during high-tempo regional crises.
Partners as Enablers
External partners will remain essential to this transition. The United States continues to provide the backbone of Gulf air and missile defence, not only through Patriot PAC-3 systems — with Saudi Arabia and the UAE also operating THAAD — but through intelligence-sharing, logistics, early warning, training, and command-and-control ecosystems. In January 2026, the United States and regional partners activated a new air defence operations cell at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to coordinate integrated missile defence and threat warning across the region.
Other partners increasingly occupy more specialised roles within the emerging regional defence network. South Korea is strengthening the medium-range interception layer through the Cheongung-II KM-SAM system, with the UAE becoming both the first export customer and reportedly the first combat user, while Saudi Arabia is also moving toward acquisition.
Gulf interest in Ukrainian counter-UAS solutions has expanded following Kyiv’s adaptation against Shahed-type attacks. Several GCC states — including the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain — have reportedly explored interceptor drones and lower-cost counter-UAS concepts developed through the Ukrainian battlefield experience.
Türkiye has also gained momentum as a supplier of scalable SHORAD and counter-drone systems. Platforms associated with Aselsan’s Korkut, the Hisar family, Roketsan’s C-UAS missiles, and broader elements of Türkiye’s emerging “Steel Dome” architecture have generated increasing Gulf interest because of their affordability, rapid production, and openness to localization.
The key point is that external partners are no longer viewed solely as security guarantors. Increasingly, they function as enablers of integration, capability diversification, and operational adaptation within a broader GCC-centred defence framework.
A Hybrid Security Model
The GCC is therefore moving toward what some regional analysts describe as a hybrid security model, combining greater internal integration with continued reliance on external security partnerships. In this framework, collective resilience increasingly depends on the GCC’s ability to coordinate national capabilities while drawing on external partners for technology, intelligence, interoperability, and operational support.
This transition will remain gradual. National priorities will continue to differ, procurement patterns will remain uneven, and interoperability gaps will persist. Yet the broader direction is increasingly visible. The war demonstrated that missile and drone threats, energy disruption, maritime insecurity, and infrastructure vulnerability cannot be managed effectively through isolated national systems alone.
The discussions surrounding the Jeddah summit reflected the clearest political expression so far of this shift. The next step is implementation: linking sensors, harmonising procedures, expanding joint training, and building defensive networks capable of functioning under prolonged pressure.
That implementation is already visible on the ground. On 30 June, GCC chiefs of staff convened in Manama for a Supreme Military Committee meeting to align common defence structures and coordinate emergency responses across member states. The next day, Bahrain hosted a broader CENTCOM-led security dialogue bringing together twelve regional militaries beyond the GCC alone to discuss safeguarding transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Gulf forces then translated that coordination into practice through the multinational “Bahrain Shield” exercise of 28–30 July, a large-scale field drill designed to unify military concepts and test readiness against hostile security threats. The cycle closed on 2 September, when GCC air force and air defence commanders concluded their 30th coordination meeting in Bahrain, hosted by the Royal Bahraini Air Force, to synchronise air defences and coordinate responses on aerial sovereignty.
If sustained, this moment may become comparable to the post-2019 Abqaiq shock, but with a deeper and more durable impact. It is not only changing what Gulf states buy. It is changing how air and missile defence is conceived, organized, and executed across the region.
