Gulf states have long used strategic hedging to balance U.S. security ties with broader relations with China, Europe, India, and regional actors. While this approach preserved autonomy, growing regional threats have made it less sustainable. As missile, drone, and maritime risks increasingly affect Gulf security and economic stability, states are moving toward more reliable and specialized partnerships (Lons 2024; Alhasan 2024). This brief argues for selective multi-alignment: the United States for deterrence, Europe for resilience and maritime security, and Asian partners for economic cooperation in less sensitive sectors.

The Policy Problem

Strategic hedging has been a useful concept for understanding how middle and smaller powers manage uncertainty in a changing international system. In the academic literature, hedging refers to a strategy in which states avoid full alignment, diversify partnerships, and maintain room for manoeuvre under conditions of risk. Figiaconi (2025) argues that hedging is rooted in strategic calculation rather than formal neutrality or legal status. This is particularly relevant to the Gulf monarchies, which have sought to balance security reliance on Washington with broader ties to Beijing and other partners. Recent academic work on Saudi Arabia’s U.S.-China hedging strategy and on Gulf hedging more broadly shows that this behaviour has become a central feature of Gulf foreign policy in the context of multipolarity and intensifying great-power competition (Bakir & Al-Shamari 2025; Wang et al. 2025).

However, the conditions that made broad hedging effective are weakening. The current Gulf security environment is no longer defined only by distant strategic competition; it is increasingly shaped by direct threats to maritime routes, energy infrastructure, logistics systems, and domestic stability (Lons 2024; Bianco 2026). As of late March 2026, the regional conflict surrounding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has intensified pressure on Gulf states, global shipping, and energy markets. Reuters (2026) reports that about one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments normally transit Hormuz, and the disruption has produced a major upward revision in oil price forecasts. This means that for Gulf governments, security is no longer an abstract geopolitical issue; it directly affects fiscal stability, trade credibility, and national resilience.

Defining Resilience in Gulf Security Strategy

In this brief, resilience refers to the capacity of Gulf states to absorb, withstand, and recover from disruption without suffering major strategic or economic breakdown. It is distinct from security, which concerns deterrence and defence against military threats, and from economic diversification, which focuses on reducing dependence on hydrocarbons or single markets. Resilience instead occupies the middle ground: it concerns whether ports, shipping lanes, cyber networks, energy facilities, and critical infrastructure can continue functioning during crises and recover quickly afterward. This is why Europe is identified as a useful resilience partner. Unlike the United States, which remains central for hard security, European actors are better positioned to support maritime coordination, cyber defence, infrastructure protection, and regulatory preparedness (Bianco 2026). In this sense, resilience is not an alternative to security, but a complementary layer of state capacity that reduces vulnerability when deterrence alone is insufficient (Leber 2025).

Why Existing Approaches Are No Longer Enough

The old Gulf model of “keeping all options open” is under strain because external partners do not provide the same kinds of value. The United States remains indispensable for hard security. It still offers the air and missile defence architecture, intelligence capacity, basing network, and coercive capability that no other actor can match in the Gulf. Yet Gulf states have also become aware of the political limits of relying too heavily on Washington, especially when U.S. priorities can shift quickly or when Washington expects burden-sharing from others (Department of War 2026, 18). Recent statements by U.S. officials urging other countries to help address the Hormuz crisis reinforce this uncertainty (Bakir 2025; Bateman & Venkatraman 2026).

China, by contrast, is economically central but not a substitute for the U.S. security role. Carnegie’s analysis shows that China’s importance in the Gulf derives from its manufacturing capacity, import profile, and high-tech economic presence, but it does not replace Washington as the region’s security guarantor (Leber 2025). China’s role in Gulf security is not insignificant, but it remains primarily indirect, rooted in trade, technology, investment, and diplomatic engagement rather than deterrence. This gap between economic centrality and military utility helps explain why broad hedging may increase strategic flexibility while offering only limited additional security (Leber 2025; Sinfield 2023).

Europe occupies an important middle ground that Gulf policymakers have often underused. The EU cannot replace the United States militarily, but it can contribute more in maritime security, cyber resilience, sanctions coordination, and infrastructure protection. The Council of the European Union’s decision of 30 March 2026 to update the mandates of EUNAVFOR ASPIDES and ATALANTA shows that Europe is not only a diplomatic actor but also an operational one in the maritime space linking the Gulf and Red Sea (Council of the European Union 2026). That makes Europe increasingly relevant to the “resilience layer” of Gulf security.

Policy Argument: From Broad Hedging to Selective Multi-Alignment

Gulf states should not abandon strategic autonomy, nor should they be pushed into a binary choice between Washington and Beijing. Instead, they should replace broad strategic hedging with selective multi-alignment. This means assigning different external partners to different policy functions rather than expecting one relationship to satisfy every security, economic, and diplomatic objective. Bianco (2026) argues that current conflict conditions have reduced the viability of traditional hedging, while Alhasan (2024) usefully qualifies that Gulf states are not simply aligning but also trying to act as political and economic brokers. Taken together, these perspectives suggest that the next phase of Gulf strategy is not abandonment of autonomy, but its reorganization.

Selective multi-alignment may offer Gulf states a more realistic security strategy, but it would not be equally accepted by all external partners. The United States would likely remain the main provider of deterrence, missile defence, naval crisis response, and high-end military coordination, yet Washington may resist a Gulf approach that combines reliance on U.S. security with deeper Chinese involvement in sensitive sectors such as telecommunications, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, or ports (Bartesaghi & Melgar 2025). In this sense, the U.S. is likely to tolerate diversification only where it does not threaten interoperability or expose strategic technologies. Europe would probably be more comfortable with a differentiated role, particularly in maritime security, cyber defence, and infrastructure resilience, although it may expect closer Gulf coordination on sanctions, export controls, and regulatory standards in return. Asian partners would also react differently. India is well placed to accept a role centred on trade, logistics, and connectivity, which aligns with its broader regional interests. China, however, may be less willing to remain confined to a purely economic role, even if it still lacks the capacity or intention to replace the United States as the Gulf’s principal security guarantor (Ahmad 2025). Ultimately, Gulf states cannot assign roles to partners unilaterally; selective multi-alignment would require ongoing bargaining with powers whose interests and expectations do not always align.

Recommendations

First, Gulf governments should adopt a tiered partnership framework that formally separates hard security, resilience, and economic diversification. This would help policymakers clarify which partnerships are meant to deliver deterrence, which are meant to build resilience, and which are meant to expand economic options. Such a framework would reduce the strategic confusion created when economic and security goals are blended too loosely (Figiaconi 2025).

Second, Gulf states should deepen structured cooperation with European partners in maritime domain awareness, cyber defence, critical infrastructure protection, and Red Sea-Gulf shipping coordination. Recent EU decisions updating the mandates of EUNAVFOR ASPIDES and EUNAVFOR ATALANTA create an institutional opening for such cooperation, particularly through expanded information-sharing on suspicious activity linked to critical submarine infrastructure and stronger links with EU maritime initiatives such as CRIMARIO (Council of the European Union 2026). Existing EU-GCC dialogues on maritime security, cyber issues, and broader security coordination provide an additional basis for a more formal Gulf-Europe resilience agenda. Such an agenda would strengthen regional security and resilience without requiring full military dependence on Washington.

Third, Gulf states should preserve economic engagement with China and other Asian partners, but ring-fence sectors that create acute strategic vulnerability. This includes telecommunications backbones, sensitive digital infrastructure, defence-adjacent supply chains, and crisis-time logistics nodes. Leber (2025) suggests Gulf leaders are likely to continue deep economic ties with China; the task for policymakers is therefore not disengagement, but risk management.

Conclusion

The Gulf’s traditional hedging strategy emerged in an era when diversification increased autonomy at relatively low immediate cost. That environment has changed. Direct threats to shipping, infrastructure, and fiscal stability mean that broad ambiguity is now less sustainable than before. Gulf states still need flexibility, but flexibility must be organized more deliberately. Selective multi-alignment offers a more realistic model: the United States for deterrence, Europe for resilience, and Asian partners for economic diversification. That approach would preserve Gulf autonomy while making external partnerships more credible under crisis conditions (Bianco 2026).

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