KUWAIT CITY—By sheer number of strikes, no country in the Gulf has been hit harder by Iran during this war than the United Arab Emirates. By exposure and impact, however, Kuwait may be the country at greatest risk.
This small Gulf nation is best known to Americans as the victim of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s aggression in the early 1990s, which prompted the First Gulf War. Today, it is also known for its oil sector, which accounts for about 90 percent of state revenue before investment income, making it particularly vulnerable to disruptions in Gulf waterways. But Kuwait’s location at the northwestern head of the Persian Gulf means that it is in persistent peril, not only from Iran but also from Iraqi Shia militias backed by Tehran. That risk is exacerbated by the full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in September, which means the deterrent effect of that military presence is no more.
And yet, for Kuwait, as for most Gulf capitals, the current impasse between Iran and the United States is not simply a situation awaiting a conclusion—either through diplomacy or renewed and more intense military action. In the eyes of the region, it is a new normal.
What will endure, and perhaps one of the few things not to change over the past six months, is foreign investment. Despite the war, Kuwaiti leaders remain committed to leveraging the country’s sovereign wealth funds for foreign investments. For the Kuwait Investment Authority, that means keeping around half of its total foreign investments in the United States—something it rarely highlights. Too often, however, Kuwaiti reticence to emphasize its investments abroad puts it at a disadvantage with the current US administration. As a result, Kuwait’s investments are often less visible than those of more boisterous counterparts in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
But if Kuwait’s investment approach has not meaningfully changed, its security thinking has. Across sectors from security to trade, as US, European, and East Asian allies fret about how to fully open and sustain freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz—and other chokepoints, as fighting around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait intensifies—Kuwait has already begun to shift its thinking.
The war has changed Kuwait’s understanding of its own security, leading to an understandable contradiction in thinking in Kuwait City. Kuwaiti officials I have spoken with are frustrated that Washington failed to consult with the region before its war with Iran, and they are skeptical that the United States will ever prioritize the region’s security on par with that of Israel. But at the same time, there is an overwhelming desire for exactly that to happen.
The US withdrawal from Iraq was not at all a surprise but is nevertheless jarring to Kuwaiti officials, current and former, whom I have spoken with in recent weeks. They are concerned it is another indicator that, at a moment when Kuwait needs the United States more than at any time since the First Gulf War, the US presence in the Middle East is contracting. Kuwaiti leaders are aware that this risks leaving their country more vulnerable, including when compared with other states in the region. The UAE, for example, has spent years professionalizing its military and is now moving to diversify its security and defense partnerships. While the threat the UAE faces from Iran is no less meaningful than the threat that Kuwait faces, the UAE is better prepared to manage it as part of the new normal.
Kuwait is working to bolster its defenses and its own capabilities, but it is doing so at the same time every other country is doing the same. Washington’s focus remains on the Strait of Hormuz. But it is Iran’s willingness to strike Gulf countries—an act that Iranian leaders evidently view as no longer taboo—that many officials throughout the Gulf see as Tehran’s most acute point of leverage.
Diversification of military suppliers has become a necessity for every country in the Gulf, something I heard loud and clear from officials in Kuwait City. But Gulf states are also frustrated at being pigeonholed into a narrative that they must choose between security ties with the United States and commercial ties with China.
Gulf leaders are increasingly rejecting this narrative and instead are inclined to take whatever they view as the best deal, regardless of whether it is with Beijing or Washington. In January, before the war began, Kuwait signed a $4.1 billion deal with China to complete construction of the Mubarak Al-Kabeer port. Now, with the war prompting feelings of insufficient US support for the country it helped liberate thirty-five years ago, there is the potential for this trend to accelerate further, including in the security realm.
That is not to say Kuwait does not value, or even prefer, US partnership. But the war has made clear to Kuwait City that this new normal requires Kuwait to prioritize its own security in a way it never has, while also crystallizing the country’s freedom to choose partners on its own terms.