Gulf security is going local. Pakistan is already inside it.

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Two developments last week indicate that the security situation in and around the Gulf region is evolving, and that both deserve close attention in Islamabad. Kuwait ratified a defense cooperation agreement with Pakistan, signed in Kuwait City in June 2023, through a decree-law published in the official gazette on July 26. It is a standard defense cooperation agreement, but the timing of its ratification is significant. Second, fourteen states agreed in Riyadh to establish a Maritime Defense Alliance, to be headquartered in the Kingdom. The coalition aims to protect commercial shipping, trade and oil carrying vessels through the chokepoints of the Gulf of Aden and Bab Al-Mandab in the Red Sea. It is a response to the recent threat of a naval embargo by the Houthi militia in Yemen. Pakistan is among the states that signed up to it. 

Kuwait has reported that Iranian projectiles struck its international airport, a water desalination facility and electricity generating units, though Iran initially denied the allegation. A foreign military base and Kuwaiti air defenses limited the damage by engaging the projectiles in the air, but they did not prevent it. It also became clear that foreign military bases in GCC countries had themselves become magnets for Iranian fire. For all their sophisticated weaponry, those bases performed below expectations, to the exasperation of local populations. The situation made the case for greater self-reliance through regional........

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