Kharg Island: Why a U.S. Seizure Would Reshape Gulf Security
President Donald Trump’s public threat to seize Kharg Island marks a significant escalation in U.S. coercive signalling toward Iran. Kharg Island is not simply an oil facility. It…
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Iran’s Naval Mine Capability in Hormuz: Why the Strait Cannot Be Cleared Quickly
Intelligence Brief — Maritime Iran’s Mine Campaign in Hormuz: The Threat, the Gaps, and Why Clearance Will Take Longer Than the Pentagon Admits Iran has reopened naval mine…
The Strait is open. The risk hasn’t gone anywhere.
Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is open. Technically, that’s true. Ships can pass, provided they coordinate with Iranian armed forces first. That condition is doing a lot…
Gulf air defenders are winning every intercept. They’re losing the war of attrition.
Every time a cheap drone gets shot down with an expensive missile, the maths moves in the wrong direction. Not dramatically. Not immediately. But across a sustained campaign,…
Resilience, not firepower, defines UAE defence posture after 40-day test
The UAE’s Ministry of Defence has framed its recent performance under sustained attack as evidence that resilience, rather than firepower, is now the defining measure of national strength.…
Qatar’s LNG disruption may last longer than buyers expected
Italian importer Edison said this week that Qatar may extend force majeure on LNG supplies beyond mid-June, after ten contracted cargoes totalling 1.4 billion cubic metres were cancelled.…
Saudi Arabia restores East-West Pipeline capacity after attacks
Saudi Arabia has restored the East-West Pipeline to its full seven million barrels per day capacity after attacks linked to the Iran conflict cut throughput by about 700,000…
Gulf states shift to low-cost interceptor drones as missile stocks come under pressure
Recent reporting from Reuters indicates that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are exploring low-cost interceptor drones as sustained attacks continue to drain stocks of high-end missile systems. The underlying issue…
You cannot shoot down every drone: Gulf operators need a resilience model
Cheap interceptors matter. But for pipelines, terminals and energy sites, the real shift is toward hardening, redundancy and faster recovery when drones get through. In March 2026, a…
The cloud is now critical infrastructure: what the AWS strikes mean for Gulf digital security
Three data centres. Two countries. One watershed moment for how the Gulf thinks about protecting its digital backbone. On the morning of 2 March 2026, objects struck an…