In a previous post I discussed the development of Ukraine from a nation dependent on foreign military supplies to a nation on the leading edge of an evolving age of battle space engagement with what Brig Gen de Czege called the “Second Precision Revolution.” I noted that Ukraine signed a 10-year agreement with Gulf State countries for joint production of battlefield innovations developed during the war with Russia. That naturally leads to the question of were Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman to acquire genuinely Ukraine-like capabilities what would become of the Persian Gulf region?

With Ukrainian technology, innovation, and experience – coupled with Gulf States funding, the Persian Gulf would become one of the world’s most densely observed, electronically contested, and difficult operating environments. Virtually a transparent battlespace.

The Persian Gulf is geographically compact. From shorelines, islands, offshore platforms, ships, and aircraft, surveillance systems could observe much of its air and maritime traffic. Thousands of inexpensive reconnaissance drones, passive radio-frequency sensors, commercial satellite feeds, coastal radar, acoustic devices, and civilian reporting networks could be fused into a continuously updated operational picture.

Large formations of weapons would be difficult to conceal. Iranian fast-attack craft leaving port, missile launchers moving toward firing positions, naval mines being deployed, or drones assembling at forward bases might be identified rapidly. Conversely, Gulf air bases, oil terminals, desalination plants, ports, and command centers would also remain exposed to Iranian reconnaissance and attack. The result would not be one-sided dominance but mutual transparency: both sides would increasingly be able to see the other, while neither could reliably protect everything.

Currently the Gulf States have high-end defenses, multimillion Patriot and THAAD interceptors that are optimized largely for aircraft and ballistic missiles. They are being attacked by Iranian drones that cost $35,000 and can be mass produced. With Ukrainian innovation the Gulf states could move from defending a limited number of bases and cities with expensive Patriot and THAAD interceptors to maintaining a distributed, layered network of inexpensive sensors, interceptor drones, electronic-warfare teams, decoys, mobile launchers, all rapidly adapted with updated software. 

The most important maritime consequence would be a growing distinction between controlling the Gulf and making it unusable to an adversary. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman could deploy:

• unmanned surface vessels around ports and shipping lanes;
• inexpensive aerial drones for persistent maritime surveillance;
• autonomous underwater vehicles for mine detection;
• mobile coastal anti-ship missile batteries;
• electronic-warfare systems against Iranian drones and boats;
• decoy ships, false emitters, and expendable sensors;
• interceptor drones protecting tankers and naval vessels.

These systems would make it much harder for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy to operate small boats, minelayers, drone carriers, or coastal missile units without detection. Yet Iran could employ comparable methods against Gulf shipping and Western naval vessels. The Gulf could therefore become a zone in which neither side possessed uncontested sea control, but several actors possessed powerful sea-denial capabilities.

This would resemble Ukraine’s effect on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet: Ukraine did not need a conventionally comparable navy to compel larger Russian warships to operate farther from threatened waters. In the Gulf, however, geography would make the problem even more acute because ships have less room to disperse and many economically essential targets are fixed.

The Gulf states’ most immediate benefit would probably be defensive. A Ukrainian-style system would not attempt to engage every incoming drone with a multimillion-dollar missile. Instead, the defensive network might assign different weapons according to the threat:

• Electronic warfare against drones dependent on radio control or satellite navigation.
• Interceptor drones against slower one-way attack aircraft.
• Mobile guns and short-range missiles around individual facilities.
• Patriot or THAAD systems reserved primarily for ballistic missiles and the most dangerous targets.
• Aircraft and longer-range systems aimed at launch platforms or command nodes.

This would improve what might be called the economics of interception. An inexpensive Iranian drone should ideally be defeated by an inexpensive interceptor rather than by a missile costing many times more. Ukraine’s continuing experience also shows that no technical solution remains permanent: once jamming improves, attackers adopt autonomous navigation, new frequencies, or fiber-optic control, requiring another rapid cycle of adaptation.

The Gulf states possess extraordinary financial resources, but much of their national power is concentrated in vulnerable infrastructure: oil-processing plants; export terminals; desalination plants; electrical grids; airports; ports; data centers; and command facilities. In addition to their offensive and defensive weaponry, Ukraine has developed sophisticated camouflage, decoys, redundant communications, hardened shelters, rapid repair teams, stockpiled replacement components, dispersed fuel and ammunition, and the ability to continue operating when national networks are degraded.

Today large permanent bases are fixtures but are perhaps on the way to becoming liabilities unless protected through dispersion and deception. Fighter aircraft might be moved frequently among military and civilian fields. Aircraft shelters would be supplemented by decoys. Fuel and weapons would be divided among numerous locations. Command posts might operate from mobile vehicles or ordinary buildings rather than recognizable headquarters.

Ports would face a similar transition. Tankers and warships gathered in predictable anchorages would present attractive targets. Maritime traffic might be routed through controlled corridors, escorted by unmanned systems, and protected by continuous counter-drone patrols. Oman’s geography would become particularly important because its ports face the Arabian Sea outside the Strait of Hormuz. Duqm, Salalah, and other facilities could provide strategic depth unavailable inside the Gulf.

Ukrainian-style capability would not remain purely defensive. The Gulf states could acquire large inventories of inexpensive long-range drones capable of striking: Iranian naval bases; air-defense radars; missile storage sites; drone production facilities; petroleum infrastructure; and transportation and electrical networks.

The critical innovation would be scale. Rather than relying primarily on a limited number of exquisite aircraft and cruise missiles, Gulf states could maintain thousands of expendable systems. These could be launched in waves to exhaust defenses, expose radar positions, or compel Iran to disperse its forces.

That capability might strengthen deterrence by demonstrating that attacks on Gulf infrastructure would bring comparable disruption inside Iran. It could also weaken stability: because drones can be launched quickly, concealed easily, and attributed imperfectly, leaders might feel pressure to act before their systems are destroyed.

“Ukraine-like capabilities” cannot simply be purchased. Ukraine’s effectiveness derives from a combination of highly motivated personnel; decentralized initiative; civilian technical expertise; direct communication between front-line units and manufacturers; tolerance for rapid experimentation; acceptance of equipment failure during development; and the ability to alter software and production continuously.

Gulf militaries have traditionally depended upon centralized command, foreign contractors, and sophisticated imported platforms maintained through external support. Ukrainian technology placed inside that organizational model would improve capabilities, but it would not reproduce Ukraine’s adaptability. To achieve the full effect, Gulf governments would need to permit junior officers, technicians, private companies, and operational units to redesign systems without lengthy approval processes. That institutional change might be more difficult than manufacturing drones.

The maximum defensive benefit would occur only if Saudi, Emirati, Qatari, Omani, Bahraini, Kuwaiti, American, and perhaps other sensor networks shared information in real time. A drone detected over the Gulf might cross several national surveillance zones within minutes. Fragmented command systems would create gaps that Iran could exploit.

Yet Gulf cooperation has often been constrained by differing threat perceptions, political rivalries, concerns about sovereignty, and unwillingness to expose sensitive intelligence. Oman, for example, has traditionally maintained a different relationship with Iran from Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Qatar also follows an independent foreign policy. Therefore, technical architecture might become integrated more quickly than political decision-making.

Recent Ukrainian agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE appear designed to combine Ukrainian operational knowledge with Gulf financing and production capacity, but the degree of real operational integration remains the decisive issue. 

What about the role of the U.S. military? Ukraine-like Gulf forces would reduce dependence on the United States for routine defense against drones and small maritime threats. They could provide much of their own surveillance, interception, coastal defense, and infrastructure protection. The United States would still supply capabilities difficult to replace: space-based intelligence; strategic warning; ballistic-missile defense; advanced aircraft; submarines; long-range strike; command-and-control integration; large-scale logistics; and protection of shipping beyond Gulf waters.

The relationship could therefore shift from American protection of dependent partners toward a distributed coalition in which Gulf states provide substantial local defensive mass. CENTCOM’s current emphasis on regional AI, counter-drone, and integrated-defense cooperation points toward that model. 

The Paradox of it All

The result might be simultaneously greater deterrence and greater instability. Deterrence would improve because Iran could no longer assume that inexpensive drone or missile attacks would overwhelm a few high-cost defensive batteries. Gulf states would be better able to protect infrastructure, locate launch sites, and retaliate proportionately.

Instability might increase because the entire region would possess large numbers of rapidly launched, difficult-to-attribute, dual-use systems. Warning times would shrink. A cluster of drones approaching an oil facility might be reconnaissance, a limited attack, or the first wave of a major offensive. Commanders might have only minutes to decide.

Thus, the probable Gulf battlespace would not look like the 1991 Gulf War, with a powerful coalition methodically destroying a centralized opponent from the air. It would look more like a continuous contest among sensor networks, drones, electronic warfare systems, decoys, mobile missiles, cyber operations, and dispersed human teams, interrupted periodically by high-intensity missile and air strikes.

Ukraine-like capabilities would probably make a successful Iranian surprise attack or temporary closure of the Gulf more difficult, but they would not make the region safe. They would transform it into a mutually denied battlespace in which fixed infrastructure was vulnerable, traditional naval operations were hazardous, and strategic advantage belonged to the coalition that could learn and adapt fastest.

That last point is decisive. The Gulf states’ money could purchase enormous quantities of hardware. Ukraine’s greatest contribution would be teaching them that the real weapon is the institutional cycle connecting detection, combat experience, engineering, manufacture, and immediate redeployment.

And does all this mean for Persian Gulf oil supplies to the world?

From MAD to MAED

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was the cold war era idea that as long as both sides had similar nuclear arms capability, that one side’s launch assured the other side’s response – all leading to mutual destruction. And thus the rational actor stood on alert with the hope of never using the weapons of mass destruction.

Perhaps the modern equivalent is mutually assured economic destruction (MAED). If Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman developed Ukrainian-style capabilities, Iran would have to assume that any attack on Gulf oil infrastructure would be answered quickly and effectively against its own. Likewise, the Gulf states would know that Iran retained the ability to strike. Neither side would emerge economically unscathed.

There is also the historical evidence that oil markets are remarkably resilient as shown over the past fifty years. Consider the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the Iran-Iraq “Tanker War”, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, repeated attacks on Saudi infrastructure, and the recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Each caused significant disruption. Yet oil exports eventually resumed because every major producer had a strong financial incentive to restore production.

Oil is not simply a strategic weapon. For producing states, it is also the principal source of national income. That creates a powerful incentive for restraint.

Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated that infrastructure can be damaged, repaired, dispersed, defended, and restored remarkably quickly.  This includes electrical grids, bridges, railroads, and logistics hubs. In Ukraine’s experience these  have often returned to operation far sooner than military planners initially predicted. One might speculate that Gulf oil infrastructure would evolve similarly.

Future export systems would likely feature such as greater redundancy, modular repair components, dispersed storage, multiple export terminals, autonomous inspection systems, and pre-positioned repair equipment. The objective would not be to prevent every attack. It would be to reduce recovery time from weeks to days or even hours in some cases.

It might even be the case that the Strait of Hormuz becomes less decisive. Traditionally, analysts asked whether Iran could close the Strait. In the future, the more relevant question may be can Iran keep it closed? Even if shipping halted briefly after a major exchange, the combination of coalition naval forces, Gulf-state drone surveillance, unmanned mine-clearing systems, distributed air defenses, autonomous escort vessels, and other developments could gradually reopen shipping lanes.

Traffic might not immediately return to pre-conflict levels, but the objective would shift from absolute security to acceptable risk which is at the heart of commercial shipping operators and insurance.

A Different Cold War

An odd name for that region of the world, but nonetheless, the Gulf could become like Eastern Europe in the 1950s into the 1980s. For decades, NATO and the Warsaw Pact maintained enormous conventional forces facing one another. Both understood that a general war would devastate Europe. As a result, crises tended to remain limited. A similar dynamic could emerge in the Gulf.

But there is a major difference. Conventional troops moved at glacial speeds compared to modern warfare. There is time to communicate and differentiate.

The greatest danger would probably not be deliberate escalation. It would be a miscalculation.  Ukraine has shown that drone warfare dramatically compresses decision times. Imagine this sequence:

• Hundreds of unidentified drones appear over the northern Gulf.
• Air-defense operators have perhaps five minutes to decide.
• Some drones are reconnaissance.
• Some are decoys.
• Some carry electronic warfare payloads.
• Some may be armed.

A commander who assumes the worst could unintentionally trigger a much broader exchange. Thus, the greatest instability may arise from the speed of events rather than from anyone’s desire for a prolonged war.

Where does that leave us? The strategic objective of the region would shift from making infrastructure invulnerable to making attacks insufficiently rewarding because the defender can recover quickly and the attacker knows it will suffer comparable losses. In that sense, the equilibrium would not be “peace” in the traditional sense. It would resemble what political scientist Thomas Schelling called the diplomacy of violence: stability resting not on trust, but on each side’s understanding that coercion beyond a certain point becomes self-defeating. That may become the defining strategic logic of the Persian Gulf in the coming decade.