The ability to separate deterrence and control from unintended slippage towards wide confrontation is receding, not only in the Middle East but globally. Conflict arenas increasingly overlap, and pressure tools accumulate and interact. The danger lies not only in the outbreak of deliberate wars or those triggered pre-emptively, but in managing proximity to war.
Europe experiences this transformation with suppressed anxiety. The war in Ukraine has become a full test of the fragility of the European system in confronting a weakened Russia, which insists on redrawing the rules of engagement with the West, betting on erosion in European political will and American hesitation driven by internal calculations.
The US manages an interconnected web of crises – Ukraine, the Middle East, the South China Sea, Venezuela, tariff wars and the global economy – in a way that preserves room to manoeuvre while carrying the seeds of strategic exhaustion should it be forced to move from risk management to direct confrontation. In the Middle East, the world watches the limits of Iranian deterrence, the ceiling of American support for Israel and the ability of regional powers to adapt. Where the region is heading, and how major powers intersect with regional actors, has become a comprehensive test of balances.
At the international level, the US seeks to maintain its hegemony through military, political, economic and diplomatic tools, carefully monitoring the movements of other powers.
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