{"id":4295,"date":"2026-06-18T13:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/?p=4295"},"modified":"2026-08-21T13:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T13:11:04","slug":"the-future-of-gulf-defense-what-roles-for-ukraine-and-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/the-future-of-gulf-defense-what-roles-for-ukraine-and-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Gulf Defense: What Roles for Ukraine and Israel?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On June 18, 2026, TRENDS US hosted its sixth strategy session titled <strong>\u201cThe Future of Gulf Defense: What Roles for Ukraine and Israel?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>The discussion underscored the increasing roles of Ukraine and Israel in Gulf security \u2013 in particular, sharing expertise in counter-drone systems and other military capabilities to more effectively confront threats from Iran and Iranian-backed groups.<\/p>\n<p>The panel featured <strong>Jack DeSantis<\/strong>, founder &amp; CEO of OMIRA Systems, and an engineer and former foreign volunteer, drone Pilot and battalion-level advisor on drone and electronic warfare in Ukraine; and <strong>Assaf Orion<\/strong>, Liz and Mony Rueven International Fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a retired Israeli brigadier general and defense strategist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).<\/p>\n<p>The conversation was moderated by <strong>Bilal Y. Saab<\/strong>, Senior Managing Director of TRENDS US.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Insights and Recommendations\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ukraine\u2019s role in Gulf defense is still limited but strategically important, centered on counter-UAS expertise and battlefield-tested drone-defense lessons.<\/li>\n<li>Before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s Gulf tour during Operation Epic Fury, Ukrainian specialists from the Nemesis group were already advising Gulf militaries and briefing them on counter-drone capabilities.<\/li>\n<li>At Prince Sultan Air Base, Ukrainians demonstrated Sky Map, a platform that integrates sensors, radars, and air-defense systems into a common operational picture for Saudi and U.S. personnel.<\/li>\n<li>Kyiv has been careful to avoid any appearance of direct military participation in the war against Iran, framing its engagement as defense-industrial cooperation rather than operational involvement.<\/li>\n<li>No Ukrainian systems are known to have been deployed in the Gulf; negotiations continue, but the relationship remains exploratory and unproven.<\/li>\n<li>Israel\u2019s role in Gulf defense is more developed but often less visible, operating largely through the U.S.-led CENTCOM security network.<\/li>\n<li>Israel benefits from regional strategic depth, while Gulf states benefit from Israeli intelligence, early warning, air-defense experience, cyber capabilities, and home-front defense lessons.<\/li>\n<li>Reported Israeli contributions, including Iron Dome deployments and possibly more advanced systems, suggest real operational cooperation beyond what is publicly acknowledged.<\/li>\n<li>The core value of both Ukraine and Israel lies not simply in technology, but in battlefield learning, adaptation, doctrine, training, and operational culture.<\/li>\n<li>Gulf states face a major challenge in absorbing these lessons because Ukrainian and Israeli systems are embedded in broader ecosystems, not stand-alone products that can be bought off a shelf.<\/li>\n<li>Ukraine\u2019s counter-UAS ecosystem combines sensors, radars, acoustic detection, thermal and visual cameras, software fusion tools, electronic warfare, mobile firing units, and trained operators.<\/li>\n<li>Gulf cooperation with Ukraine and Israel carries political costs: Ukraine must avoid antagonizing Russia or Iran, while Israel\u2019s involvement raises reputational, diplomatic, and public-opinion sensitivities.<\/li>\n<li>Successful cooperation will require patience, trust, discretion, gradual confidence-building, and a willingness to adapt foreign lessons to Gulf military cultures and operational requirements.<\/li>\n<li>CENTCOM remains indispensable as a facilitator, integrator, and convening platform that can help connect Gulf partners with Ukrainian, Israeli, and broader allied expertise.<\/li>\n<li>The larger strategic lesson is that Gulf defense must become part of a wider learning network capable of adapting faster than the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis of military innovation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 18, 2026, TRENDS US hosted its sixth strategy session titled \u201cThe Future of Gulf Defense: What Roles for Ukraine and Israel?\u201d\u00a0The discussion underscored the increasing roles of Ukraine and Israel in Gulf security \u2013 in particular, sharing expertise in counter-drone systems and other military capabilities to more effectively confront threats from Iran and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4298,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions\/4298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendsgroup.org\/trendsusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}