Indian Strategic Studies: Arab World

Showing posts with label Arab World. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Arab World. Show all posts

9 May 2026

Strategic Implications of the Iran War

Paul J. Saunders, and Nikolas K. Gvosdev

Over two months into the US-Israeli war with Iran, the conflict shows no signs of imminent resolution, with both sides convinced that time is on their side. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up the prices of oil and natural gas, but neither Washington nor Tehran appears ready to back down or make concessions, raising the possibility of a prolonged stalemate of “no war, no peace.” At the same time, the war’s immediate effects on the energy markets and US military posture will have repercussions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s plans for Taiwan, as well as President Donald Trump’s summit in Beijing later this month.

How long can each side endure this state of affairs, and what would it take to force a settlement and reopen the Strait of Hormuz? How does the war intersect with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine? And what lessons is China drawing as it watches another great power struggle to bring a middle power to heel?

Oil Tanker Hijacking Stokes Fears of New Disruption in Gulf Region

Pranav Baskar and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Pirates from Somalia hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Saturday and have diverted it to Somalia’s waters, the authorities in Somalia said Sunday, the third such incident in recent weeks. The hijacking is an embarrassment for the government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and suggests a resurgence of piracy at a time when the Red Sea, which borders western Yemen, has become an even more critical route for global shipping, given the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the war in Iran.

Yemen’s Coast Guard said that unidentified people had boarded the ship, the Togo-flagged Eureka, on Saturday and directed it through the Yemeni part of the Gulf of Aden toward Somalia’s coast. Efforts to monitor and recover the vessel were underway, it added.

Avoiding the Knife Fight: Defeating Iran’s Strait Strategy

David Levy

Iran has long prepared to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a major conflict with the United States, hoping to trigger an energy shock, draw US naval forces into a confined battlespace, and impose enough cost to weaken Washington’s will. The US has been fully cognizant of Tehran’s intent for decades and planned accordingly. In the recent conflict, rather than accept a direct fight inside the Strait on Iranian terms, Washington and Jerusalem widened the campaign, degraded Iran’s command structure, air defenses, naval forces, missile infrastructure, and supporting systems, and only then turned more directly to the Strait itself. Even so, reopening the waterway has proved difficult.

The IRGC’s naval capacity, though significantly diminished, is still sufficient to threaten shipping through mines, small craft, and shore-based systems. As a result, the United States has shifted to a broader indirect approach that combines limited military operations in and around the Strait with strikes and threats of further strikes on vital targets, economic coercion, blockade measures, and a diplomatic alternative. Thus far, that approach appears to be working. Iran’s Strait strategy has not forced the United States into the kind of fight Tehran had spent decades anticipating.

The U.S. Military Was Losing Its Edge. After Iran, Everyone Knows It.

Tierney L. Cross

On paper, the war in Iran should not be much of a contest. The United States spends around $1 trillion a year on its military, more than 100 times as much as Iran. That money buys a vastly larger Air Force and Navy, as well as advanced weapons technologies that Iranian generals can only dream about.

In the war’s early days, the mismatch played out as one might expect. American forces destroyed much of the Iranian military. Now, however, the contest looks less one-sided. Iran has taken control of the Strait of Hormuz, and its missiles and drones still threaten America’s allies in the region. While President Trump seems eager for a negotiated truce, Iran’s leaders do not. Somehow, the weaker nation is in the stronger negotiating position.

IRGC Announces New Maritime Control Zone In Strait Of Hormuz

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Monday announced a new maritime control zone in the Strait of Hormuz, reports Iranian media.

In an official statement, the IRGC said it has declared a new maritime control area in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, reports the Tasnim News Agency, which is closely aligned with the IRGC.

According to the statement, the new zone of “smart control” by the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz is defined as follows: “In the south: the line between Mount Mobarak in Iran and south of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates; In the west: the line between the end of Qeshm Island in Iran and Umm Al Quwain in the United Arab Emirates.”

The Real Center of Gravity in Tehran

Stephen D. Cook

On April 22nd in these pages, I warned that ships and planes are tools of denial, not governance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the theocratic regime it protects can absorb the loss of tankers, missiles, and oil revenue so long as they retain their most valuable resource: armed loyalists on the ground who control the Iranian people. That piece drew on twenty-five years in the U.S. Army, including combat tours as a Green Beret where I watched the same pattern play out in Iraq and Afghanistan. The speed with which the situation in the Gulf continues to evolve compels a follow-up.

We are still fighting the wrong war.

The United States continues to treat Iran as a conventional nation-state whose center of gravity can be found in the familiar pillars of national power: military, economic, information, and political. We impose a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz believing the leadership values its economy. We prepare new precision strikes believing the regime values identified targets—missile sites, air defenses, nuclear facilities—the same way a Western government would. Both assumptions are flawed.

Tapping into America’s Distaste for Forever Wars: The Spread of Iranian Narratives on Bluesky

Jose M. Macias III and Nico Vacca

The United States and Israel have made battlefield gains in their conflict against Iran, but the United States is struggling to counter Iranian propaganda. Operational successes have removed Iran’s authoritarian supreme leader, dismantled its defense leadership apparatus, and degraded its missile capabilities. However, the opportunity cost of military success for the United States is the loss of ground in the information war for the hearts and minds of American audiences and Western audiences more broadly. While Iran is losing on the battlefield, it is competing effectively in the information space through an aggressive, multiplatform disinformation campaign.

Analysis by the Futures Lab of more than 9,000 Bluesky Social posts finds that messages seemingly designed to exacerbate public divisions, which compose 23 percent of posts in the dataset, are the highest performing, averaging 150 reposts, 470 likes, and 28 replies per post. These same posts have been viewed by an estimated 293,666 users and are statistically significantly associated with a higher sharing volume, with an estimated 41 percent increase compared to other posts.

Have any lessons been learned from US failures in the Iran war?

Stephen Bryen

While the US military has had many achievements in the Iran conflict, it’s been far from cost free. Iran conducted extensive retaliatory strikes targeting high-value US bases. According to international reports and satellite data, the damage to aircraft, radar, and communication systems throughout February and March was more significant than initially reported.

In all, 16 US military sites in eight countries across the Middle East were hit, and some of them sustained enough damage to be unusable.

Did the US learn any lessons as much from the failures as from the successes?

The US clearly made some major blunders, despite far superior air defenses and sophisticated command and control systems. Most spectacularly, the US lost two AWACS aircraft, one totally destroyed and the other possibly unrepairable, and three F-15 fighter jets, downed by “friendly” fire. The US also “missed” an Iranian jet that did substantial damage to Camp Buehring in Kuwait.

Trump’s Project Freedom Isn’t Going to Open the Strait of Hormuz

Max Boot

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that the United States would launch an operation to help tankers and cargo ships trapped in the Persian Gulf transit the waterway. Two U.S. destroyers entered the Persian Gulf on Monday, and two U.S.-flagged commercial ships exited it. Iran hit back by attacking commercial ships and targeting the United Arab Emirates with missiles and drones for the first time since the ceasefire began on April 8. Iranian forces also fired on U.S. warships, and U.S. forces responded by destroying six Iranian small boats.

Trying to open the Strait of Hormuz by force could reignite the wider conflict and expose U.S. warships to Iranian attacks in a narrow waterway with little time to react. All of this could quickly render “Project Freedom”—with its vague pledges of military help but no announcement of actual convoy operations—another improvised half-measure in a conflict that has lurched from misstep to misstep. As long as Iran remains capable of attacking commercial vessels, few shipping lines will risk running the gauntlet.

U.S. War in Iran Leaves Ukraine’s Air Defense in Limbo

Sam Skove

Ukraine and its partners in Europe are holding their breath and waiting to learn just how the war in Iran may affect U.S. military aid—and especially the delivery of the powerful Patriot air defense missiles that Kyiv has relied on to blunt the devastating impact of Russian ballistic missiles.

“Everything will depend on the situation around Iran,” said one European diplomat, who—like others quoted for this story—was not authorized to speak publicly.

8 May 2026

Why Trump Might Come to Regret the Iran War

Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is now entering its third month. The average length of an interstate conflict in the past 200 years is three to four months, though many wars last far longer. This one shows little sign of abating.

But the war may be entering a new phase where prospects for a transformational change on the battlefield or at the negotiating table are receding. We need to adjust our frame of reference accordingly. Instead of looking for a determinative ending, a final resolution, or a negotiated agreement, this war may end up as just another round in an ongoing, half-century confrontation between the United States and Iran. Five politically inconvenient realities now define where we are.

Iran is Not a Monolith: The Case for Exploiting the Country’s Internal Fractures

Ed Husain

Since 1979, Islamist clerics have imposed on Iran a revolutionary Shiite creed of “Guardianship of the Jurist” (Wilayat al Faqih) that seeks to use clerical power to form an “axis of resistance” against Arabs, Sunni Muslims, Americans, and Israelis. This ruling theology has since isolated the country from its neighbors and the world.

It has also led many, like Henry Kissinger, to ask whether Iran is a country or a cause. It is clearly a cause, but the United States is striking a country and failing to tackle its ideology and identity. Therefore, the current conflict’s bombs and blockades have not provided a long-term answer that is much needed. By attacking its Arab neighbors with almost ten thousand drones and missiles in recent weeks, Iran has crossed a red line. The old order no longer holds.

HAYI: Iranian Proxy Targeting Jewish And Israeli Sites in Europe

Jacob Zenn

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) is a newly emerged militant group, strongly suspected of being an Iranian proxy operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Since March, HAYI has claimed over 15 non-lethal attacks across Europe against Jewish and Israeli targets, including synagogues and schools, aiming to instill fear without attracting a terrorist designation.

These coordinated attacks coincide with recent U.S.–Israeli military operations against Iran, raising concerns that HAYI could escalate its tactics to utilize lethal force against broader U.S. and Israeli interests.

Mythos, Not the Iran War, Is the Most Significant Geopolitical Warning of Our Time

Frederick Kempe

With the world fixated on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and Donald Trump’s peripatetic presidency, it’s worth a reminder that the geopolitics of artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly have far more lasting consequences than any of that.

We are living through a transformation of similar magnitude to the Second Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That said, the AI Revolution is moving far faster with far less time for global leaders to adapt, so the perils are greater—notwithstanding AI’s considerable promise.

The Industrial Revolution rewired history. It shifted power from agriculture to industry, from landed aristocracies to barons of manufacturing, and from empires to nation-states that could produce, mobilize, and innovate at scale. Out of that upheaval rose capitalism and communism, mass politics and mass warfare, and eventually the cataclysms of two world wars.

The Combustion Mandate

On the morning of February 28, 2026, the official story began: the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, targeting nuclear sit…

China fights back against US pressure on Iran

Micah McCartney

Beijing has ordered Chinese companies to defy U.S. sanctions over refineries linked to Iranian oil, in a challenge to U.S. efforts to extract further concessions from Iran in negotiations for a lasting ceasefire. The unprecedented move sets the stage for a potential showdown just days before President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated state visit to Beijing.

China has regularly condemned unilateral sanctions by the U.S. and others, criticizing them as a form of “long-arm jurisdiction” used to enforce domestic laws extraterritorially. However, the Ministry of Commerce’s Saturday announcement marked the first time Beijing has explicitly directed its firms to defy such measures.

The End of the Axis of Abraham The Arab Gulf and Israel Have Different Visions for a New Middle East

H. A. Hellye

In spring 2024, Iran directly attacked Israeli territory for the first time, launching more than 300 drones and missiles at its adversary. U.S., British, French, and Jordanian forces rapidly intercepted them. The message was hard to miss in Gulf capitals: when Iran attacks Israel, the U.S.-led response will be immediate and collective. But there was an uncomfortable, unspoken question left lingering: What would happen if Iran attacked the Gulf?

That question has now been answered. When the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on February 28—a war that Gulf governments had lobbied against—Iran retaliated by striking Gulf Arab states’ airports, seaports, oil installations, and desalination plants. Although U.S. forces helped intercept some attacks on the Gulf Arab states, damage was done to the region’s reputation as a safe haven for global business—which, no doubt, was the Iranian regime’s intention.

The Real Meaning of the UAE’s OPEC Exit

Amir Handjani

When the United Arab Emirates exits OPEC on May 1, it will not be abandoning a club so much as declaring that the club no longer serves its interests. That distinction matters. Abu Dhabi’s departure is not a reaction to a single grievance but the convergence of three forces: the Iran war, a deepening rivalry with Saudi Arabia, and a strategic realignment with Washington that has been years in the making.

The U.S.-Israel war on Iran has made the UAE a front-line state in ways it did not fully expect. Iran justified targeting Emirati territory by citing Abu Dhabi’s decades-long strategic alignment with Washington, a designation formalized when the United States named the UAE a “major defense partner” in 2024. Iranian strikes hit Fujairah’s industrial zone, rattled Jebel Ali’s port, and sent smoke over Dubai’s skyline. The UAE has absorbed this punishment largely alone. Its Gulf Cooperation Council partners offered solidarity, but, as Emirati presidential advisor Anwar Gargash pointedly noted at the Gulf Influencers forum on Monday, their political and military response was “the weakest historically.”

What Does Landpower Bring to an Air and Naval Fight?

John Spencer

Operation Epic Fury has objectively been a remarkable display of deep strike, naval control, and the rapid suppression of Iranian capabilities with airstrikes and sea-launched weapons. It is no surprise that the public narrative defines it as an air and maritime campaign. That view is incomplete.

The campaign demonstrates something more important about modern war: Even in a fight centered on airpower and naval dominance, the joint force cannot succeed without landpower. For two decades after 9/11, air and naval forces played a supporting but indispensable role in land-centric wars. In Operation Epic Fury, the roles have shifted, but the reality has not. From the operation’s beginning, Army capabilities were not additive or symbolic. They were essential to protecting the force, enabling joint operations, and delivering effects that air and naval power alone could not achieve. Examining how landpower made the joint campaign possible is vital for understanding how ground forces and their unique capabilities will contribute in other theaters where airpower and seapower will be central—like the Indo-Pacific.

What IBM's Quantum Computer Thinks About the Iran War

The processor was unambiguous. Iran de-escalates at ninety-eight per cent of measurement shots. Israel and the United States escalate at ninety-five. Saudi Arabia and the UAE de-escalate at ninety-six and ninety-seven. Hezbollah escalates at seventy-three. The Houthis split. Russia and China — encoded together as a composite Eastern bloc — lean into Iranian oil purchases at sixty-three per cent.

At the same time I ran a different question on the same chip. Thirty-two of the world’s most plurilaterally active economies. The G20 plus twelve middle-power architects of the post-WTO trade order. Same instrument. Same processor in Poughkeepsie. Different couplings.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)