The term “Middle East” reflects the region’s historical importance to Western powers. Introduced in 1902 by the American military strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, it described the land between Arabia and India, mainly to emphasize their strategic importance to British imperial interests.
So it was not surprising that the transfer of world supremacy from Great Britain to the United States after the Second World War took place most effectively in the Middle East, its geographical center shifting from the colonial power of London to Washington’s Cold War and oil security interests.
The Middle East was soon included in the US-led order in which Washington provided military protection and imposed political conditions for the region’s integration into the world economy. The United States protected sea trade routes, guaranteed energy flows, and established a dollar-based oil market. Oil revenues flowed into Western financial markets, the region’s economy turned to US-led globalization, and US military power served as the main guarantor of stability.
The unity of the order depended on the fact that its economic and security measures were guided by the same force. Today, that alignment is deteriorating like redistribution of economic power towards China reshapes geopolitics. While the United States now extends its influence through the provision of military and security forces, China has expanded its reach through trade, infrastructure, economic engineering, and more by presenting itself as a predictable player on the global stage.
The current balance may take decades to materialize, but rarely have economic dependence and security provision rested in separate hands. For 70 years, the US-led order survived because trade and security went hand in hand. The Middle East is the first major arena where this bond is breaking. The unit of economic and security dependence in different directions, and the result is not a clean hand from one hegemon to another but the possibility of the division of the hegemon itself.
For many In the postwar period, China was a minor actor in the Middle East—a buyer of oil with little political weight or strategic goals. That changed with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, which ushered in a new era of focused cooperation. energy and infrastructure.
The rate of change is staggering: Trade between China and the Arab world it grew from about 36 billion dollars in 2004 to almost 400 billion dollars by 2024. China has become the largest importer of crude oil in the world and the Middle East. largest trading partner. At the same time, Beijing has expanded its diplomatic presence across the region, in particular to amend the 2023 compromise between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It has a series avoid direct military involvement and has no military bases in the area.
In contrast, the United States maintains military installations in at least 19 locations in the Middle East and continues to underwrite the defense of the Gulf states through the deployment of carriers and missile defense systems. It leads counter-terrorism operations, arms its allies tens of billions of dollars in sales, and considers the free flow of energy of the Gulf states as an ongoing strategic commitment. Since 2019, it has been an energy exporter that competes with regional producers in international markets.
But while the United States continues to strengthen security, it no longer carries the economic weight of the region.
The Iran War brought this revolution into sharp relief. As the conflict heated up in the Strait of Hormuz, the most exposed power was not the United States, Israel, or Iran—it was China. As a major importer of oil that passes through the strait, China found its energy saving hostage for confrontations that had no hand or power to manage them. The United States, for its part, relied on a naval blockade of Iran’s ports as a major means of leverage, providing military resources to control a populous region largely in Asia.
This mismatch between where trade flows and where military power resides means that economic interdependence no longer reflects alliance structures. Nations sell their oil to one superpower while relying on another for protection, and their economic and security partners increasingly operate according to different strategic priorities and threat perceptions.
The problems of this power are already obvious: While the United States asked several NATO allies, including China, Japan, and South Korea, to help control the strait, they refused-leaving the United States to bear the burden whose economic rewards accrue elsewhere.
As Washington’s commitments seem increasingly disconnected from its economic stake in the Middle East, the result is thin deterrence, a greater risk of being mishandled by adversaries, and a growing tendency to hedge rather than align. Countries in the region are now judging China economically, the United States militarily, and Russia or others for opportunity.
Along with security and economy dependence towards opposing sides, Middle Eastern nations are pushed towards a self-regulated equilibrium. A fence alone cannot stabilize an area where outside guarantors have different interests and unequal commitments. The more the international order becomes more widespread, the greater the incentive for Middle Eastern states to reduce their potential for great power competition by managing tensions between them.
What is emerging is not independence in the traditional sense, but something narrower and more pragmatic: a gradual shift from a system of external mediation to the presence of regional dialogue.
Evidence that Middle Eastern nations are increasingly opting for non-intervention—engaging directly rather than through foreign clients—is hard to ignore. The 2023 deal between Saudi and Iran has survived repeated setbacks. Turkey and the Gulf states have moved away from open competition towards legalization of labour. Many Arab capitals have reengaged with Damascus, ending more than a decade of formal isolation.
The Gulf states are cooperating with their neighbors on energy infrastructure, transportation, and logistics in ways that would have been politically unthinkable a decade ago. The quiet corridors between Riyadh and Tehran, Ankara and Cairo, and Abu Dhabi and Doha are increasingly replacing the good offices of Washington.
The US-Iran war would seem to disprove this theory. At the moment, it doesn’t look like it will continue indefinitely, given the current situation peace treaty he holds. But the way to resolve the conflict has increased the bad situation of the region instead of reducing it. The United States demonstrated that it can still initiate, escalate, and end wars, while the region’s largest economic partner stands by.
Moreover, although the war devastated the entire region, it was managed according to the schedule and conditions set between the United States and Iran. For the Gulf states, the lesson was not that their security guard can’t be trusted, but that his commitments—increasingly detached from economic interests—have been unpredictable. This disclosure is pushing these countries towards more liberal arrangements.
In May, Saudi Arabia was reported it floated a regional non-aggression pact involving Iran and other nations, partly modeled on the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which helped reduce Cold War tensions through coordinated rules and confidence-building measures. European governments and EU institutions urged the Gulf states to support the proposal as a way to reduce the risk of future conflict while giving Iran a small security guarantee. Its reception, however, has been mixed, reflecting the ambivalence that drives the self-help turn in the first place.
Fears among Gulf capitals that a war with Iran will leave a weaker but more assertive leadership in Tehran, which still has the power to threaten its neighbors, makes the regional system attractive but its durability uncertain. None of this is the equivalent of a strong regional order, but it is the first sustained attempt in two generations to create one without an outside guarantor.
Helsinki was based on stable bipartisanship, established arms control procedures, and a shared recognition of a tragic strategic stalemate—conditions that do not currently exist in the Middle East. But the underlying logic remains important: States do not need to trust each other to agree to set their course of action, coordinate their disagreements, and create mechanisms that can withstand conflict.
Success will not require a complete regional order. It will require a common architecture capable of absorbing shocks without immediately triggering external interference; a credible commitment to cease arms embargoes on the allies’ borders; and common behavior, direct participation.
Previous attempts at regional integration—from the Arab League to the Gulf Cooperation Council—have introduced two similar obstacles: ongoing competition among would-be architects and the existing option of calling on the United States to underwrite. What’s different today is that Washington is less linear. Its power has not disappeared, but its use has become harder to predict. And predictability is the foundation on which the security bond rests.
Failure to build an architecture that can foster cooperation, however, would leave the region trapped as a competitive arena for superpowers rather than an actor within it, increasingly dependent on sponsors whose attention and resources are diverted. After putting it off for half a century, Middle East leaders must now choose whether to build a regional architecture themselves or remain mired in conflicts that they are increasingly unable to control.
