RealClearDefense | Gedaliah Afterman & Roie Yellinek
The ongoing conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran is increasingly viewed as a global confrontation rather than a self-contained Middle Eastern conflict, intersecting with the Russia-Ukraine war and broader great-power rivalry. Ukraine is sharing drone interception expertise with Gulf states, while Russia provides geolocation intelligence to Iran, and China offers economic backing. This emerging alignment suggests a dangerous shift towards bloc politics, where regional conflicts fuse into a wider systemic confrontation. Moscow leverages the Middle East crisis to erode Western cohesion, exploiting growing U.S. strategic burdens and NATO disputes. Initial miscalculations about a swift victory, mirroring errors in the 2022 Ukraine invasion, failed to account for the enemy's agency and adaptability. China, balancing its Gulf energy dependence with domestic economic pressures, seeks to enhance its regional relevance post-conflict, adopting a restrained neutrality. The confluence of the Strait of Hormuz's closure, the Ukraine war, and potential Taiwan tensions indicates this regional dispute is unfolding within a much broader global context of great-power competition and strategic chokepoints.
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