The Gulf at War: What Comes Next?

Hello, and welcome to Sound Strategic. I'm Mayan Owens, Senior Fellow for Chinese Security and Defense Policy and host of the WWS Sound Strategic podcast. Today's episode focuses on the latest WWS Strategic Dossier, The Gulf at War, Strategic, Security, and Geoeconomic Dimensions, which examines the impact of the Iran War on the Gulf states. The conflict has tested the region's politics, defenses, and infrastructure, and raised questions about the Gulf's longstanding security arrangements with the United States. Today, we examine what that means in practice. We'll look at how the war has shaped the Gulf states' approaches to Iran and to one another, how their air and missile defenses performed, the military gaps that the conflict has exposed, including at sea and in the Strait of Hormuz, and how well their economies and critical infrastructure held up under pressure. Joining me today are four colleagues from the Doublet of Less, Dr. Hassan Al-Hassan, Senior Fellow for Chinese Security and Defense Policy, and Senior Fellow for Middle East Policy, Sasha Bruchmann, Research Fellow for Defense and Military Analysis, Albert Vidal-Ribe, Research Associate for Middle East Defense Industry and Procurement, and Noor Ahmad, Research Analyst at Doublet of Less Middle East. Hassan, Sasha, Albert, and Noor, welcome to the show. To start us off, Hassan, your chapters look at the politics behind the conflict, how the war has divided Gulf states and their approach to Iran, what it means for their longstanding reliance on the US, and the uneven economic damage it has left behind. Rather than unifying the Gulf states, the war might have deepened their differences over Iran, with Oman and Qatar leaning towards accommodation and the UAE and Bahrain taking a harder line. How effectively has Iran exploited those divisions? In a sense, the stage had really already been set for Iran to exploit the differences in divisions among the Gulf states. Because in the lead up to the war, it was clear that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been pursuing conflicting regional agendas. They supported different sides of the wars in Sudan. Iran and Yemen. They disagreed over the question of Somalia's territorial unity. They viewed Israel's role in the region quite differently from one another. So these differences, in a sense, predated the conflict. Iran has exploited these differences and these divisions rather effectively through a policy of selective engagement and targeting. During the initial high intensity phase of the conflict, Iran, for example, largely left Saudi Arabia and Oman out of the war, while focusing the bulk of its military assault on the rest of the Gulf states. It also took the Gulf states quite a bit of time to convene emergency ministerial meetings at the level of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which I think illustrates how fragmented this bloc has been, at least politically speaking. And then once the Islamabad MOU was signed in June, which in a sense formalized the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, Iran began singling out Bahrain and Kuwait while engaging in side deals with some of the other Gulf states like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Then more recently, Saudi Arabia has been sucked back into the conflict with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, while the rest of the Gulf states have seen relative calm in recent weeks and months. Although the Gulf states have activated collective alternative trading corridors and logistics corridors to be able to bypass the disruption that Iran has been able to inflict on the Strait of Hormuz, for example, they have nevertheless largely failed to activate their collective defense or security constructs. They have had a number of differences. I think Iran has exploited these differences through this policy of selective engagement and targeting. And unfortunately, I think by and large, the Gulf states have proved to be somewhat willing victims to Iran's divide and rule strategy. The Iran war is unlikely to undo the U.S.-centric security order cemented by the 1991 Gulf War. If U.S. protection is scaled back, can the Gulf states overcome their mistrust of one another to defend themselves? I think what the Gulf states are doing is that even as it undermines regional confidence in the U.S., it deepens the dependence of regional partners on U.S. supplies of defensive equipment, especially interceptor munitions, at least in the short to medium term. So both an undermining of confidence, but a deepening of the dependence at the same time. And I think in the meantime, what the Gulf states are doing is that they're looking elsewhere for protection. Saudi Arabia has forged a trilateral alliance known as the Mecca Defense Agreement involving Pakistan and Turkey. Pakistan has already deployed thousands of troops and aerial assets to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And Turkey and Egypt have also signaled their readiness to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against Houthi attacks. Kuwait, too, for example, has signed a defense cooperation agreement with Pakistan. Conversely, the UAE has reinforced defense and security ties with Israel. Those closer ties materialized in Israel's deployment of Iron Dome air defense batteries, the Iron Beam laser system. And other sorts of surveillance and electro-optical systems to the UAE, marking in certain cases the first ever foreign deployment of some of these Israeli systems to help the UAE counter Iranian missile and drone attacks. To make matters even more complicated, the Gulf states do not agree over how best to deal with Iran. And so, for example, Bahrain takes a hard line and refuses on principle to engage diplomatically with Iran, so long as there isn't a comprehensive and real ceasefire between the two countries. By contrast, Saudi Arabia's defense minister was reportedly in Tehran just today to meet with Iranian, Pakistani and Turkish counterparts and to discuss the outlines of a potential new regional security order. Whereas, for example, the UAE refuses Iranian proposals to control or impose tolls over the Strait of Hormuz, others like Oman and Qatar have proved to be more accommodating of Iranian preferences. On the bright side, the Gulf states' disagreements at least aren't stopping them from coming together as an economic solution. The GCC power grid, for example, played a very significant role in helping Bahrain and Kuwait overcome the Iranian attacks against their power infrastructure. And logistical corridors have allowed the Gulf states to secure supplies of vital goods and keep up industrial exports, despite the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz. On that point, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have kept exporting and benefited from higher prices, whilst Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar have not. How serious is this? Is the economic damage for the states hit hardest and does the war put the region's diversification plans at risk? The economic damage that the conflict has inflicted on the region is very serious and we're seeing it reflected in projections of deep economic contractions across the Gulf states, across the GCC bloc. But there are very significant differences in the way that the economic pain from the conflict is distributed among the Gulf states. What seems to be the determinant factor is both geography and infrastructure. Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, which rely fully on the Strait of Hormuz to export crude oil, LNG or refined products, have no bypass infrastructure that allows them to bypass essentially this maritime choke point. And so these three countries, as a result, have been hit the hardest. And the latest IMF figures project economic contractions for these three countries between 11 and 16 percent in 2026. On the other hand, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have, overlooking the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea or the Red Sea, and they've built bypass infrastructure such as the east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia or the Hibshan-Fujairah pipeline in the UAE. This sort of infrastructure has allowed them to keep on exporting hydrocarbons despite the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz. And so as a result, these countries have taken much less of a hit. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to contract by three to four percent, while Oman is expected to grow by 4.1 percent. And so really the distribution of the economic consequences of this conflict is highly uneven. Yet again, there is a perverse dialectical logic here at play, because in a sense, the war has re-emphasized the need for economic diversification, given Iran's clear ability to place the Gulf states' hydrocarbons exports and infrastructure at risk. However, the war has also made this economic diversification all the more difficult, because it has placed the Gulf states' hydrocarbons exports and infrastructure at risk. And so we're seeing signs that the Gulf states are readying themselves to deploy more of their sovereign wealth at home to counteract some of these damaging economic outcomes of this conflict. Saudi Arabia's public investment fund is raising its domestic investment target from $1.5 billion to $1.5 billion. And so we're seeing signs that the Gulf states' hydrocarbons exports and infrastructure at risk. And so we're seeing signs that the 70 to 80 percent of its portfolio for the next five years, Qatar Investment Authority is consolidating its domestic holdings under a single entity, which suggests that domestic deployments are likely to acquire greater priority. And interestingly, I think the Gulf states have also maintained much of their deal-making momentum around the build-out of data centers and AI-related infrastructure. And so they clearly see this as a structuring force in the global economy looking forward, and which they're not willing to compromise on even amidst a highly damaging and unprecedented disruption in their recent history. Sasha, your chapter looks at the air and missile defense of the Gulf states, how well their defense is held up under thousands of Iranian missiles and drones, where they fall short, and what that means going forward. It's been claimed that interception rates of Iranian projectiles has been around 90 percent. Should Gulf air defenses be judged if it does? There are two things to consider here, and the first one is probably a very purist, cold military logic, and the other one is a bit more of a wider strategic perspective, thinking from the strategic effect. Starting with the latter, I think it's important to note that the Gulf states have a lot of I think we have seen that things were hit. There were U.S. bases that were hit. Famously, this is now amplified in the running up to the midterm elections in the U.S. But we've also seen refineries, LNG plants hit, airports, ports were hit, disruptions at ports and airports and data centers. So if you think about the Vision 2030, or a version that many of the states have, you see in the past, it's hydrocarbons. In the present, it's the tourism, the hotels, the connectivity. And in the future, it's the data centers. And all of these have been hit by the Iranians. So they sent this message successfully that we can hurt you where you think your present and your future lies. And from that point of view, obviously, you cannot protect countries 100% with air defense. On the other hand, 90%, whether that's true every day and in every country, is a really, really good intercept rate. And we have in the chapter an estimate of about just 1,400 missiles, just to take that one number, 1,400 missiles that made it onto the Gulf states. And it makes all the difference in the world to those political leaders, whether you have 140 missiles coming down to you with varying levels of degree, or whether you have 1,400. So in that sense, yes, things came down and there was hurt inflicted by the Iranians on the Gulf states. But the intercepts gave the political leaders the options and the breathing space to take different political options than what 1,400 impacts would have done. And so if we compare these two things, I think, on balance, I come around and say, yes, it was a success. But we need to acknowledge that. What the world has seen and what has been amplified by the news and also by Iranian propaganda, there were impacts on the ground. Nonetheless, I think the strategic effect was diminished so much by the high intercept rates that we would have lived in a different Middle East had 1,400 missiles come down. The chapter describes Gulf air defenses as national rather than regional and highlights particular challenges around their integration. What does that look like in practice and what has been the cost of this? Integration is a huge endeavor. It's politically tricky. You allow people. Some of your most sensitive military networks and they see what you see. It is technologically tricky because it requires a lot of integrated radars, data and computational architecture behind it. And all of that is very costly. So it's financially tricky. There is a level of integration among the Gulf states and has been a political issue for, I think, at least the last five U.S. presidents. Where we got to was there's an institution called the CAOC, the Combined Air Operations Center that was run out of Al Udeid base in Qatar, where the forward headquarter of CENTCOM was. And that was a lot of work. And that was kind of the backbone of regional integration. But because the way this war was run by the Americans, mostly out of Tampa, Florida, and offshore air force base in the continental U.S., it's hard to replicate that regional integration that was here with liaison officers in the U.S. in different time zones. And the U.S. has the infrastructure to run. I think this was their first AI run war, network centric war. But the partners had difficulties integrating and tagging along with that. So the U.S. brought additional patriots and additional air defense crews to the trainers and the relatively large defense-strategic sections that are already here on the ground. And these people stepped up. So you have this bilateral coordination that happens organically as the missiles start flying, as the shooting starts. And doctrines are rewritten, you know, on the fly as it happens. That happened between the people on the ground, between the American Patriot Battery and the Kuwaiti or Qatari or Bahraini Patriot Battery that was defending in parallel and at the same time, the same ground. And the other thing that I think we need to consider is the Iranians have played with this like every military from, you know, the platoon infantry there or the company level upwards. You don't attack an enemy head on. You will always try to feel where the borders between the defending units are and you strike there. That's their weakest spot. And that scales up in military logic to national borders in that case where responsibilities for who gets the air defense and who has the authority to shoot. The Iranians, I think there's some evidence that at least the UAVs, the Shaheds that can be programmed along a certain path were skirting along borders. But the air defense picture becomes a little unclear and only then at the last moment were tilting left or right towards a direct threat. It costs time for one or the other country to scramble a combat air patrol or an interceptor in that direction. The Iranians have played with that. And as any good military has understood this weakness, this weak spot and has tried their best to utilize this in their favor. Reports note that Russia and China have helped Iran scale up its missile and drone production and that foreign satellites have similarly helped provide. The necessary intelligence for Iranian targeting. How much has outside support changed the threats that the Gulf now faces? Quite a bit. There's a lot of debate out there whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea are in an alliance, this crink idea. And that's hotly debated. I think at least for me, I can see it applied here to this conflict. What we underestimate, or I think the Americans may have underestimated, is the Iranian precision that we've seen during this war. If we compare this to 2024 and 2025, where we thought we gathered data and experience from the United States, we thought we gathered data and experience from the United States. If we compare this to the attacks against Israel and the region, this was more precise. And I think it was a bit of a surprise. I gather that this has to do with the Chinese satellite, with the Russian satellite imagery support, and with the GPS, so GLONASS and Beidou that was used to help target. And the other thing, I think Russia and Iran especially are very, very closely intertwined on the drone production and the development and the technology side of the UAVs. And we know this from the GERAN, GERAN-2, which is the Shahid-136-139. It's a big production facility inside Russia that helps them. But there's also still, I think, technology being exchanged, so to speak. It might be in details like CRPA antennas, jam-resistant antennas, or guidance systems where this plays out now. But it helps, again, with the precision that we haven't quite expected. Cheap precision, especially by GPS, is what allows this term cheap mass, right? We now talk about this term cheap mass in opposition to exquisite systems. But how do you get to mass being cheap? Well, GPS guidance modules is one of the cheapest ways to guide anything. If the Iranians were forced to put radar seekers or infrared seekers on, it would increase the individual cost of a Shahid, and thereby make it more expensive, make it more prohibitive for them to field these swarms that we have seen. And the last aspect is, on the missile side especially, we've had many incidents, especially one in early 2025, when one of the Iranian ports, when there was an explosion at the Bandar Sin, the Chinese port, where we saw mishandled, smuggled precursor materials. In that case, I think it was ammonium perchlorate that exploded. So we see that a lot of the solid missile fuel that is in the Iranian missiles is basically fueled by chemicals that were smuggled out of China. Albert, in your chapter, you look at the defense gaps that the war has exposed across the Gulf, from depleted air defense docks to weaknesses at sea and the efforts to build alternatives to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf states have approached suppliers from China and India to Ukraine and Turkey to replenish their air defenses. Is any of them a realistic alternative to the U.S. or are Patriot, and that's simply irreplaceable? The air defense systems are the main procurement priority for the Gulf states. On the one hand, we see that these countries are still very, very keen on buying air defense systems and interceptors from the U.S. For example, there's over $50 billion in possible foreign military sales to the Gulf states coming from the U.S. since March. Around 40% of those were allocated to replenishing Patriot interceptors. There's other major approvals, such as radar, short-range air defense systems, command-and-control systems, but the problem is that the U.S. will need some time to ramp up its production of interceptors, and even then, it might choose to prioritize restocking its own interceptor inventories rather than selling them. The possible European alternative, SAMPT, might also be out of reach for the Gulf states in the short to medium term because, as with the Patriot, on the one hand, demand outpaces annual production, and then European countries, which have plans to increase their air defense forces, might also be prioritized over extra-regional customers. Then Europe might also be wanting to help fulfill Ukraine's requests for additional interceptors. This could push the Gulf states to look toward other actors, such as South Korea, Turkey, and Israel. We've already seen examples of Korean missile defense systems in the UAE, and very soon they're coming to Saudi Arabia. There's also Israeli missile defense systems in the UAE, which are roughly in the Patriot category, but with differences in terms of engagement range, cost, and other characteristics. The Gulf states have also been engaging countries like China, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the UK for the lower layers of air defense. And the idea is that by approaching all of these countries at the same time, the Gulf states can get their hands on counter-UAS systems in greater numbers and at speed. And this is more realistic when it comes to counter-UAS technology because it's less exquisite than ballistic missile defense, which means that there's a lot more options available in the market. As you say, Iran's drones are cheap and the missiles used to shoot them down are not. Interceptor drones and gun-based systems now exist. So what is stopping Gulf states from fielding these at scale? It is true that some Gulf states use missile interceptors quite liberally, especially in the early stages of the conflict. But we have to understand that there was a learning curve for them to get comfortable with a range of cheaper and shorter range alternatives, which are also usually deemed riskier. Let's not forget that the Gulf states have used a wide variety of systems in their arsenal and not just Patriot missiles to shoot down cheap Iranian drones. We have evidence of the Gulf states using helicopter guns, air-to-air missiles from fighter aircraft, and we are almost certain that they've used short-range air defense systems and air defense artillery, of which they have hundreds. They've also used interceptor drones and electronic warfare. Unfortunately, there is no publicly available breakdown of how much they have relied on each of those options. whether gun-based systems were used effectively or not. But what we know is that in the weeks and months following the start of the conflict, the Gulf states moved very fast to build their menu of counter-UAS options. First, they've been buying dedicated ground-based counter-UAS systems, such as the FS-LITS from the US and TOLA from Turkey. Second, when it comes to interceptor drones, most of the Gulf states started negotiating acquisitions from Ukraine just weeks after the conflict began. US companies have also been really active when it comes to interceptors. For example, Power US or Powers has sold its interceptors to a client in the UAE. Another company has been selling its MIRPs to US forces in the Gulf. And then Andoril is planning to sell its interceptors to Kuwait. And then there's a UK company, Cambridge Aerospace, which is also selling low-cost missiles to Gulf partners. We then have a system called Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, or APKWS, which several Gulf states have been buying in the thousands. APKWS is a low-cost guided rocket for counter-UAS purposes that is being integrated into several aircraft and helicopters in several of these Gulf countries. And then more anecdotally, the UAE has been installing metal cages around all storage stacks to protect against drones. So we see that there's a lot more that they're doing and not just relying on missile interceptors. Now, assuming that they. they can successfully acquire all of the above, the Gulf states will then face other challenges. They will need to integrate the systems into their forces, and then have to create adequate training pipelines, and then they'll have to adjust their doctrines and defensive postures. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has declined dramatically since the war started. The US has been trying to restore a degree of normalcy, but so far it appears mostly unsuccessful. Can the Gulf states realistically build enough alternatives to bypass it? The war has shown us that shifting part of the flow of goods through land corridors, mostly across Saudi Arabia, slightly less through online, is possible if you want to bypass Hormuz. But it has also highlighted that there is a series of key bottlenecks, including the number of trucks and the number of drivers that you meet, also port congestion, the sometimes poor state of the road infrastructure, as well as border crossing issues that complicate land commerce. Now, think of this. You need between 5,000 to 24,000 trucks per container ship. Now, this depends on ship and truck size. And so this really should make us think about the practicalities of substituting ship-based transport with land-based transport, and also the costs of such a solution in the longer term. Now, land routes can certainly act as a pressure relief valve for essentials such as food, pharmaceuticals, and other types of high-value cargo, but overland trade cannot realistically fully replace the bulk shipping that used to transit the Strait of Hormuz. And so, depending on how long the disruption of this trade persists, and the level of instability that follows the potential official end to the war, governments and firms may choose to invest in these land corridors for greater resilience and future contingency. But again, given the structural limitations of land trade and the higher costs, I think that most of the trade flows are likely to return to the sea once the risk decreases. The above applies to goods. When it comes to oil, we saw Saudi Arabia shifting its oil exports to the east early in the war, thanks to its east-west pipeline, and Yanbu became the kingdom's main oil export terminal. But when the Houthis entered the fray in the summer and announced that they would conduct a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, and there were attacks on the east-west pipeline from Iranian-aligned militias, as well as on Yanbu oil export terminal, we now face a much more complicated problem. If passage through Hormuz is disrupted, assuming that the east-west pipeline and Yanbu are now functional again, Saudi oil exports out of Yanbu, most of which go to Asia, now need to circumvent all of Africa. And this adds four weeks to what was a three-week trip. So these diversions mean increased fuel costs, Suez Canal fees, and logistical complications. Like in the past, these costs are being passed on to consumers. Noor, turning to you. In your chapter, you looked at how the Gulf states held up under the economic strain of the war, the vulnerabilities the war has exposed in their critical infrastructure, and what needs to change before the next crisis. When the Strait of Hormuz closed and the attacks started, many expected the lights to go out and the shelves to empty across the Gulf, but that mostly didn't happen. Instead, the Gulf states kept electricity, water, and food flowing, what made them more resilient than many had expected. Beyond the strength of the Gulf states' defensive military measures in protecting key civilian infrastructure, it's important to contextualize Gulf success as a dividend of the investments they've made towards improving their resilience over the past decade, as per targets they've set for themselves in their various national visions plans. When it comes to managing food reserves, the Gulf states have invested heavily in building strategic food stockpiles, increasing domestic production levels of key goods, creating strategic reserves of key commodities, investing internationally in agriculture and diversifying import sources, and also expanding their resources of key goods. Qasr is a particular leader among the Gulf, having learned many valuable lessons during Gulf blockade. To supplement their existing strategies, the Gulf states put into place emergency customs measures to facilitate the flow of goods from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman, that were less affected by airspace and maritime disruptions, to the more vulnerable countries within the Strait of Hormuz, like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. Existing stockpiles also enabled the Gulf to minimize the impact of inflation and price hikes due to the shipping disruptions. When it came to water and electricity supplies, a key factor here was the quick response of national emergency response units to minimize damage and ensure quick repairs. Our data suggests that desalination and power plants were only hit in three countries: Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE, although the UAE later denied this. This could be due to a combination of Iranian targeting patterns, Gulf interceptions, and underreporting. But what's key here is the risk that in a more sustained conflict, the Gulf states' early successes could change. Your chapter flags the region's reliance on a small number of desalination plants as a clear vulnerability. With the ceasefire, fragile, and weapons stocks depleted, how exposed are the Gulf states if attacks resume? First of all, it's important to highlight the extent of the Gulf states' reliance on desalination across both industrial and domestic use in the Gulf. Drinking water in particular is a primary concern for the Gulf states. Four of the Gulf states, namely Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, source over 85% of their drinking water from desalination. The primary risks are twofold. First, the Gulf states' strategic water reserves are not designed to withstand long periods of conflict. In some cases, notably Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, water reserves are sufficient only for a couple of days of regular consumption. In a worst-case scenario, rationing at the emergency levels necessary to stretch water reserves out over a period of one to two months would entail a major disruption to public life. The Gulf has successfully avoided this thus far, and Gulf populations' reliance on high consumption levels may mean that Gulf populations are not prepared to take the necessary measures in this case. Secondly, concentration is a major factor. We noted in the chapter, for example, that a single plant in Bahrain provides up to 75% of the country's drinking water. This risk is amplified by the co-location of power plants and desalination plants, meaning that malicious actors can target both water and electrical systems in a single attack. We should distinguish, however, between various Gulf states, some of which may be more prepared than others. Bahrain, for instance, operates a much larger number of desalination plants across the country than Kuwait or Bahrain are capable of doing, and is in the process of constructing large underground reservoirs of drinking water to provide more long-term water security. Looking ahead, you call for decentralizing infrastructure, building bigger reserves, and producing more food and water at home. Regional cooperation would help Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar most, but political differences can, of course, run deep. Is a regional approach realistic, or will each state default to going it alone? In what I think is the preferable scenario, the Gulf states would seek to improve, build on, and create new regional solutions. This would entail expanding the electrical grid, ensuring transparent and equitable cross-border pricing, enhancing the customs union, and creating a unified water grid. However, progress on these initiatives was already slow prior to the war, and unfortunately, the war has only exacerbated the Gulf states' political differences. What we have seen from the Gulf states is a readiness and a willingness to expedite emergency measures during emergency situations, such as by improving customs procedures during the war, but on the other hand, a more gradual and sometimes obstructive approach to building on these processes during normal situations. Beyond the bureaucratic, this is often a direct result of political infighting between the Gulf states. As existing regional systems are set up in a modular system, what this likely means is that each Gulf state will work on improving their national capabilities and engage with regional systems that are beneficial in bilateral or sub-regional multilateral arrangements. So while the envisaged international, non-regional, or inter-regional issues will continue to be discussed, it is also possible that these issues will be addressed in a more comprehensive way. For example, in the Gulf states of the United States and the United Arab Emirates, there is the possibility that the region of Qatari-Saudi-Saudi inter-connection projects and Emirati-Bahraini coordination will take priority. Ultimately, this could actually reinforce the developing groupings and divisions within the Gulf and reinforce existing dependencies that smaller Gulf states may have on their larger neighbors. That's all we have time for today, so thank you Hassan, Sasha, Albert, and Noor for sharing your insights, and thank you all for listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode. You can find more in our show notes, and for further analysis, visit the IISS website at IISS.org. 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