The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1], from Ljubljana, regularly analyses developments in the Middle East the Balkans and global affairs. In his latest article, “Can the Gulf States Achieve Sustainable Peace and Regional Stability? Strategic Assessment of the Emerging Gulf Security Architecture,” Vladimir Norov, former Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan, former Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and Vice-President of the IFIMES Advisory Board, examines the Gulf’s evolving security landscape and proposes a regionally owned Gulf security architecture. At its core is the Muscat Process, an inclusive framework for regional dialogue, confidence-building, crisis prevention, and gradual institutional development, inspired by the experience of the CSCE/OSCE. The proposal is designed to complement existing international security partnerships while strengthening regional ownership, strategic autonomy, and long-term stability.
The strategic landscape of the Gulf has fundamentally changed following the Iran-Israel confrontation and the direct attacks against Gulf states in 2026. For decades, Gulf security depended primarily on external powers—especially the United States. Recent conflict has demonstrated both the strengths and limitations of this model.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) successfully defended much of its critical infrastructure through integrated missile defence systems and close cooperation with the United States and other partners. Yet Gulf states were nevertheless drawn into a conflict they neither initiated nor controlled.
The central question is therefore no longer whether the Gulf can defend itself militarily, but whether it can develop a regional security order capable of sustaining peace while reducing its vulnerability to external great-power competition.
The answer emerging from recent developments is cautiously optimistic. The Gulf possesses unprecedented financial resources, political cohesion, military modernisation and diplomatic influence. Yet several structural obstacles remain, including unresolved regional rivalries, the Iranian challenge, the Palestinian issue, maritime insecurity and dependence on foreign military technology.
The most realistic path toward sustainable peace is not military dominance but a multilayered security architecture combining deterrence, diplomacy, economic integration and regional ownership.
For nearly fifty years, Gulf security rested on three pillars:
Major turning points included:
Each crisis increased external military involvement while simultaneously exposing regional vulnerabilities.
The latest conflict differs because it directly targeted GCC infrastructure rather than proxy battlefields. The Gulf states have therefore entered a new strategic phase characterised by greater confidence, deeper regional coordination and a stronger emphasis on self-reliance.
Their investments in integrated air defence, critical infrastructure protection and diversified diplomatic relationships have enhanced resilience. At the same time, recent conflicts have demonstrated that military capability alone cannot guarantee peace if the surrounding political architecture remains fragile.
A durable regional order is therefore most likely to emerge from a layered approach: preserving strong partnerships with the United States, China and Europe while strengthening GCC institutions, expanding practical cooperation with regional partners, developing indigenous defence industries and maintaining channels for dialogue with adversaries. Progress on the Palestinian question, maritime security and confidence-building measures with Iran will remain central to any sustainable settlement.
Overall, the evidence from leading strategic institutions broadly supports the idea that the Gulf is moving from dependence towards greater strategic agenda. However, this transition should be viewed as an evolution rather than a completed transformation. The region’s future stability will depend less on replacing external security guarantees than on complementing them with credible regional institutions, economic resilience and inclusive diplomacy.
The Gulf region stands at a strategic crossroads. Recent regional conflicts have exposed the limitations of a security system based predominantly on external guarantees while highlighting the growing need for a regionally owned framework capable of preventing crises, managing disputes and promoting long-term stability.
What the Gulf therefore requires is not another externally designed security arrangement, but a process through which regional states themselves can gradually develop the habits, mechanisms and institutions of cooperative security.
The proposed Muscat Process – in circulation as a proposal since June by the Group of Friends inspired by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), if facilitated by the Sultanate of Oman, offers an opportunity to establish an inclusive multilateral security dialogue for the Gulf and West Asia. Rather than replacing existing bilateral partnerships or military alliances, the initiative would complement them by creating permanent mechanisms for political consultation, confidence-building and practical cooperation among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Iraq and Iran, and even beyond.
The objective is not to resolve all regional disputes immediately, but to institutionalise dialogue, reduce strategic mistrust and gradually develop a cooperative regional security architecture.
The experience of the CSCE is instructive precisely because it did not begin with a peace treaty or a comprehensive settlement. It began with the recognition that sustained dialogue, agreed principles, confidence-building and practical cooperation could gradually transform relations among states whose political and security interests remained deeply divided.
The lesson of Helsinki was therefore not simply the text agreed in 1975, but the process that followed it. The CSCE demonstrated that states deeply divided by ideology, security interests and geopolitical rivalry could nevertheless begin with principles, regular dialogue and practical confidence-building, allowing a broader cooperative framework to develop gradually. The relevance of that experience for the Gulf lies precisely in this evolutionary character: the objective need not be a comprehensive settlement at the outset, but the creation of a process through which such a settlement may eventually become possible.
A further lesson is that such a process should not necessarily await the end of hostilities. On the contrary, dialogue is often most valuable when relations are at their most difficult. Establishing channels of communication, confidence-building measures and practical cooperation during a period of confrontation can help reduce miscalculation and create conditions for de-escalation. The Muscat Process should therefore be conceived not as a mechanism to be activated only after a political settlement, but as an instrument capable of contributing to the emergence of that settlement.
For more than five decades, Gulf security has largely depended on external powers. While this model contributed to regional stability, recent developments have demonstrated that external security guarantees alone cannot prevent regional escalation or protect regional interests from broader geopolitical competition.
The Gulf now faces a historic opportunity to become an active producer rather than a passive consumer of regional security.
For smaller and middle-sized states in particular, participation in shaping the regional order is itself a matter of security. Those who are absent from the process through which the regional order is shaped risk becoming objects rather than authors of that order. A permanent regional process would therefore give smaller states not merely a voice in moments of crisis, but a continuing capacity to shape the rules, norms and arrangements by which their security is affected.
The major powers will continue to pursue their interests through strategic competition, deterrence and periods of selective détente. Smaller and middle-sized states, however, have a different instrument of statecraft – if timely, available to them: institution-building.
Their influence is well beyond the military weight alone. It can derive from convening, mediation, rule-making, connectivity and the creation of institutions in which larger powers also have an interest in maintaining stability. This is a form of statecraft particularly suited to a region in which no single power can impose a durable security order.
The Muscat Process would provide several strategic advantages:
By maintaining continuous dialogue during both periods of stability and crisis, the Process would help transform episodic diplomacy into a permanent mechanism for regional cooperation.
Oman is uniquely positioned to facilitate such an initiative.
Its long-standing policy of neutrality, balanced regional relations and proven mediation record has earned the confidence of major regional actors. Muscat has consistently served as a trusted venue for discreet diplomacy and dialogue during periods of heightened tension.
The credibility of the Process therefore derives not only from its institutional design but also from the reputation of Oman as an impartial and respected facilitator.
The Muscat Process should evolve gradually through three successive phases.
The first phase would focus on establishing regular consultations among GCC member states, Iraq and Iran.
Meetings would be chaired by Oman and conducted on the basis of consensus, ensuring equal participation and political ownership by all members.
Initial discussions should concentrate on practical areas where cooperation is both feasible and mutually beneficial, including:
At this stage, the emphasis should remain on confidence-building rather than formal negotiations on politically sensitive disputes.
Once regular dialogue has become established, participants could agree to create a modest permanent secretariat in Muscat.
Working groups composed of governmental officials and technical experts would support cooperation in specific policy areas, while annual ministerial meetings would provide strategic guidance.
A small administrative structure would ensure continuity without creating excessive institutional costs.
Over the longer term, the Process could gradually evolve into an institutionalised regional organisation comparable in function—though not necessarily in structure—to the OSCE.
Possible future instruments may include:
Such evolution would depend entirely on consensus among participating states.
The Muscat Process should remain an indigenous regional initiative.
External actors would not participate in decision-making but could provide technical expertise and share institutional experience through a “Friends of the Process” mechanism (already diplomatically active).
An advisory panel composed of distinguished former senior officials from organisations such as the OSCE, the United Nations and other international institutions could support the initial establishment of the Process by providing expertise in mediation, institutional design and confidence-building.
This approach combines international experience with regional ownership, ensuring that solutions are developed by Gulf states while benefiting from lessons learned elsewhere.
If successfully implemented, the Muscat Process could generate substantial long-term benefits for regional stability.
Politically, it would institutionalise dialogue among states with divergent strategic interests, reducing the likelihood of escalation through regular communication.
From a security perspective, it would promote transparency, confidence-building and practical cooperation on shared challenges, including maritime security, cyber threats and protection of critical infrastructure.
Economically, greater regional stability would strengthen investor confidence, safeguard international energy markets and protect strategic trade routes such as the Strait of Hormuz.
Institutionally, the Process would establish a comprehensive Gulf security framework owned and led by regional states themselves, complementing rather than replacing existing bilateral and international security arrangements.
To maximise the prospects for success, participating states should:
The Muscat Process represents a realistic and forward-looking response to the changing strategic environment in the Gulf. Drawing on the successful experience of the CSCE while adapting it to regional realities, it offers an inclusive framework capable of transforming dialogue into sustained cooperation.
Rather than seeking immediate solutions to deeply rooted geopolitical disputes, the initiative aims to establish the habits, institutions and confidence necessary for durable peace. In doing so, it could lay the foundations for a new Gulf security architecture—one that is regionally owned, internationally supported and designed to promote stability, prosperity and peaceful coexistence for decades to come.
Well aware that statecraft will ultimately be judged by history, and building on their personal experiences, the ‘Friends of the Process’ have a simple message: statecraft achieves better results the sooner it recognizes the challenge—especially for smaller states in geopolitically overcrowded neighborhoods. After all, the Bretton Woods institutions and the foundations of the United Nations architecture began to take shape well before the Second World War was over.
As President Roosevelt understood in the early 1940s, the Gulf does not need to wait for the perfect moment to begin. It needs a process capable of helping create one.
About the author:
Vladimir Norov is a distinguished international expert on the European Union, China, and Central Asia. He previously served as Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan. He has been awarded honorary citizenship by the Chinese cities of Lianyungang, Qingdao, and Yangling. He currently serves as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan and as Vice-President of the IFIMES Advisory Board.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or official position of IFIMES.
Ljubljana/Vienna/Tashkent, 12 August 2026
[1] IFIMES - International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has a special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council ECOSOC/UN in New York since 2018, and it is the publisher of the international scientific journal "European Perspectives.", link: https://www.europeanperspectives.org/en
