The debate over Iran’s missile arsenal has resurfaced following an argument that it is unfair to ask Iran to give up its missile capabilities while other countries in the region possess similar ones.
And yet this line of reasoning overlooks a more fundamental question: Is the problem the existence of missiles held by states seeking to defend themselves, or a vast offensive arsenal built over decades that has become an instrument of regional influence and threat?
Herein lies the paradox. The issue is less about a mutual arms race between comparable actors and more about a strategic imbalance that has imposed itself on the region over decades, one that Iran’s neighbors are then expected to adapt to rather than seek to address or counterbalance.
Iran has not only built a massive missile program; it has turned missiles into a standalone strategic language, using them as a deterrent, a means of pressure, and a message of influence that reaches past its immediate borders.
In contrast, for decades, the Gulf has been on the receiving end, buying defense while lacking the capacity to counterbalance the offensive threat on its own terms.
The deeper problem is that major powers manage this issue not by the logic of fairness or balance, but by the logic of leverage over the parties’ behavior. The Gulf ally is always told to exercise restraint because it is the actor whose conduct can be influenced.
Iran, having imposed its missile program as a strategic fact, is managed through containment, negotiation, and risk management rather than through preventing the capability in the first place.
The Iranian attacks on Gulf states during the 2026 war laid bare this imbalance in its starkest form, showing that Gulf countries can become direct targets of missile strikes even when they are neither the architects of the war nor a principal party to it.
The UAE was the most striking example, hit by intense waves of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. The significance of these attacks lay not only in the volume of munitions but in the lesson they imparted: a stable, open Gulf state integrated into the global economy can find itself at the center of the confrontation when Iran seeks to widen the war’s costs for its adversaries.
A deeper truth emerged here. The attacks were more than a fleeting military event; they showed that economic stability and global openness offer no automatic immunity against the logic of missile power. They also showed that a Gulf state, however successful in its development or integrated into the world economy, can become a direct target when missiles are wielded to impose political or strategic costs on others.
Strategic imbalance
More importantly, the 2026 war showed not just the scale of the threat but the limits of the assumptions that informed regional security thinking for decades. A long-standing belief held that international partnerships, economic strength, and integration into the global system could reduce the likelihood of being directly targeted or raise the political cost for an attacker.
What happened, however, demonstrated that an adversary’s possession of a vast offensive capability remains a decisive factor that overrides many conventional political calculations. From this vantage point, the war was more than another military confrontation; it was a strategic turning point affirming that sustainable security rests not on prosperity alone, nor on external partnerships alone, but on a deterrent capability that raises the cost of aggression above any conceivable gain.
But the lesson of the war reaches past military calculations to how the threat itself is perceived. This is where the double standard in the dominant narrative becomes most evident.
When Iran or its proxies strike, the world is often absorbed in managing escalation, de-escalating, and preventing a wider conflagration, rather than starting from a simpler question: Why is an offensive arsenal of this magnitude allowed to become an almost normalized regional feature?
Why is the Gulf always expected to act as the more rational and less impulsive party, even as it is the most exposed to fire and bears the highest cost of defending itself?
Then there is the economic dimension, far from a minor detail; it is another core of the equation. Past the military shock, Iran is betting on a straightforward attrition formula: relatively cheap offensive tools against exorbitantly expensive defenses.
Each wave of attack is a test not only in the sky but also in the budgets. Gulf states pay not just the security cost of the threat, but the economic cost of continuously deterring it and defending their cities, infrastructure, ports, and vital fields.
The Gulf thus becomes a forced underwriter of a lopsided regional stability, while the attacking party retains the advantage of lower cost and greater capacity to sustain attrition.
Gulf states certainly bear some responsibility for their slow progress in forging a more independent collective deterrence doctrine and for their prolonged reliance on an external guarantor. But that does not change the fundamental fact that the missile imbalance was never the Gulf’s doing – it was imposed by Iran through decades of military accumulation.
Any serious talk about regional security must start from an unambiguous principle: either unified, genuine restrictions on offensive missile capabilities in the region, first and foremost on Iran, or an explicit recognition of the Gulf states’ right to build deterrence that breaks this imbalance.
The problem is no longer the Gulf’s pursuit of its own security, but the continued treatment of a chronic strategic imbalance as a fait accompli to be adapted to.
Anything short of that is no balanced regional security policy, but the diplomatic management of a chronic strategic imbalance, whose security and economic costs are borne by the Gulf while others merely manage its consequences.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.