Thomas Demmelhuber, Marius Bales, Kristin Diwan & Yasmine Farouk: SECURITY IN THE GULF: THE DANGER OF RIFTS AMONG MIDDLE POWERS AMID THE IRAN CRISIS

SECURITY IN THE GULF: THE DANGER OF RIFTS AMONG MIDDLE POWERS
AMID THE IRAN CRISIS





The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) publicly reaffirms the
principles of collective cooperation, however, as demonstrated in
the Iran war, military defence is one of the areas which are far
from integrated. During the last months the GCC witnessed a
growing rift between once friendly rivals, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates (UAE). The strategic divergences of these
two Gulf monarchies carry serious implications not only for the
Gulf but the wider MENA region and even stretch to Yemen, Sudan
and the Horn of Africa. The differences span from economic
competition, foreign policy priorities, and approaches to
regional conflicts – including domestic challenges ahead. Will
the Iran war deepen these rifts or even increase the chance of
building collective security frameworks?





With high level scholars and practitioners, we will examine the
roots of this rift and assess its potential consequences and ways
of deescalation.





Marius Bales is a researcher at the Bonn
International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC), where he has
worked since 2016. He studied Political Science and German
Studies at the University of Trier and focuses on military
technology, arms dynamics, and contemporary forms of warfare,
particularly in conflict regions such as the Middle East.


Yasmine Farouk is the Gulf and Arabian
Pensinsula Project Director at International Crisis Group. She
studied political science at Cairo University, Sciences Po Paris
and was a fellow at Yale University. She previously worked at the
office of the Egyptian prime minister after the 2011 revolution,
supporting civil society participation in the national dialogue
and constitutional processes. From 2016 to 2017, she was the
director of research at the Cairo International Center for
Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, a think-tank
and training centre affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.





Thomas Demmelhuber is a German political
scientist specializing in the politics and societies of the
Middle East. He is Professor and Chair of Politics and Society of
the Middle East at Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nuremberg and Visiting Professor at the College of
Europe in Natolin. He is also an author and editor of several
academic publications, including the 2025 handbook Die Arabische
Halbinsel: Geographie und Politik.





Kristin Diwan is a senior resident scholar at
the Arab Gulf States Institute. Her current projects concern
generational change, nationalism, and the evolution of Islamism
in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Her analysis of
Gulf affairs has appeared in many publications, among them
Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. She
was previously an assistant professor at the American University
School of International Service and has held visiting scholar
positions at the George Washington University and Georgetown
University.





Gudrun Harrer, Lecturer in Modern History and
Politics of the Near and Middle East at the University of Vienna
and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna; former Senior Editor at Der
Standard (until 2025).