The last two years, geopolitics in the Middle East has been volatile, unpredictable and explosive. War in Gaza acted as a catalyst, and what followed was Israel's 12-day war with Iran, a volatile situation in Yemen, a fragile peace plan in Gaza, reintroduction of the Abraham Accords, Pakistan's defence deal with Saudi Arabia, the uncertainty on the formulation of an international peace force in Gaza and the current uprising in Iran.

In the remilitarisation of regional politics, not just the Middle Eastern States but the Iranian-aligned non-state actors in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria find themselves at the threshold of an escalating security situation. In the midst of this fluid geopolitical situation, the role of external powers is clearly determined by their regional and global preferences.

The United States, as a global hegemon, has at best managed crises rather than shaped any significant outcome. China is content managing economic pursuits rather than becoming a stakeholder in Middle Eastern security leadership, and Russia is visibly constrained by Ukraine from performing a security leadership role in the Middle East. The result is that the United States is unilaterally pushing the security agenda and formulating a new security architecture in the Middle East.

In a diplomatically fluid, highly militarised and structurally unstable Middle East, relying and depending on one great power's assurance is a dodgy business. It reflects a time-tested historical assumption that the less dependency a state has, the greater autonomy it holds in state affairs. It is in this context that I view Saudi Arabia's defence agreement with........

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