Umm-e-Habiba
The analysts have long forecasted that a direct war would one day occur in the middle east between Iran and Israel. Nevertheless, even after numerous crises, assassinations, missile attacks and proxy wars have taken place, such an encounter has not been done in its traditional way. Rather, the region has engaged in the long-term strategic competition which is done in the shadows.
This competition has been extended to various platforms today where we can find covert operations and cyber warfare but also proxy wars in tenuous states like Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The two parties constantly strike against their respective strategic interests and at the same time avoiding the direct war that would cause instability in the whole region. The United States, the most significant strategic ally of Israel and the main Iranian enemy, makes this equation even more complicated by enhancing deterrence and escalating the geopolitical costs. The question that is posed by this emerging environment now is the urgent question of whether the Middle East is going into a new Cold War.
Carl brown defined the Middle East as “a penetrated system, one subject to an exceptional level of external intervention and yet, by the virtue of its cultural distinctiveness, stubbornly resistant to subordination”
In contrast to the classical war that may be characterized by the decisive battle and conquest of the territory, the present-day regional order is becoming more and more defined by the cycles of deterrence, the indirect confrontation, strategic ambiguity. The competition between Israel and Iran has evolved into a shadow war where power, existence and deterrence is a greater concern than victory.
It is the Iran-Israel strategic rivalry that forms the main axis of the geopolitical discord of the Middle East. The two states have been perceiving one another as existential threats since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. However, the distance between countries and the possibility of localized growth have inhibited the conventional warfare.
Rather, the two parties have resorted to approaches that have been based on secret activities, internet warfare, assassinations, and the use of proxy forces. Israel has repeatedly used airstrikes on Iranian military facilities and weapon delivery to Syria, whereas Iran has subsidized a system of armed organizations that can threaten the Israeli interests in the region.
Another battlefield in this rivalry has become cyber operations. In both nations, refined cyber attacks have been used to exploit financial systems, infrastructure and state institutions to put pressure on a state without precipitating an open war. The reasoning behind this type of confrontation exemplifies a larger trend of strategic ambiguity, where each participant is willing to cause costs to their opponent and at the same time possess plausible deniability and are not willing to engage in a full-scale war.
One of the main features of this rivalry is the high rates of proxy actors exploitation. Iran has established a system of affiliate groups, the most notable of them being Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Houthi in Yemen, which acts as the strategic extensions of Iranian influence.
These organizations exist in weak political conditions in which the government has little power. Consequently, Iran/Israel wars are often being waged on the soil of the third countries. Lebanon can be regarded as one of the most unstable arenas. Hezbollah has a broad range of rockets and missiles that can hit far into Israeli soil and that is why Hezbollah is one of the strongest non-state actors in the region. Syria has also become an Iranian logistical corridor. The Iranian troops and the militias have built a transport infrastructure to transfer arms and sustain military presence along the boundaries of Israel. This has become a common characteristic of the security scenario in the region as Israel bombards these installations.
In the meantime, the Houthis in Yemen have already shown their ability to pose threats to international shipping routes and regional security, which underscores the role of proxy warfare in developing the geopolitical competition in the Middle East.
The United States is still a key variable in the strategic equation of the region. The long-term security relationship between Washington and Israel has strengthened deterrence stance of Israel and at the same time increased the sense of strategic encircements to Iran.
The relationship between the United States and Iran has sometimes deteriorated with sanctions, military actions and clashes in the Persian Gulf. These tensions frequently overlap the Iran Israel rivalry resulting in a larger triangular relationship building regional security. The recent escalation between Iran, Israel and the United States has proved how quickly this shadow war could impact the international markets and strategic stability by causing energy cuts as well as maritime security. In this way, the competition in the region is no longer limited to domestic players; it more and more represents the international strategic rivalry.
There are some sharp parallels between the contemporary Middle East security situation and the Cold War dynamics. To begin with, the area is marked with proxy warfare. As opposed to interstate wars conducted on a large scale, the rival powers fight using proxies, ideological power, and political alliances.
Second, regional actors are increasingly motivated by deterrence, as opposed to victory. Iran and Israel are aware of the fact that a direct war would have disastrous outcomes and involve numerous regional and international participants.
Third, the war is perpetuated with the help of escalation and restraint. Every attack, assassination, or cyber intrusion is well dialed to demonstrate the determination of fighting back without any wider war.
This type of dynamics results in a shadow deterrence whereby actors subject their opponents to constant pressure and at the same time ensure that no further escalation occurs beyond some point.
Nevertheless, this balance is volatile in nature. In contrast to the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, there are no consistent diplomatic avenues, official principles of deterrence, or adequate systems of crisis control in the Middle East. This leads to the fact that miscalculation is a permanent threat.
Middle East is not a traditional regional war that is being fought at present. Rather, it is the development of a long-term strategic squabble which is more and more becoming akin to a local Cold War. The Iran-Israel conflict, exacerbated by U.S.-Iran tensions and perpetuated by proxy wars in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen has resulted in a cycle of shadow deterrence. This system does not encourage direct war on one hand but on the other, it keeps the situation unstable.
In this dynamic security environment, the battle field results are no longer the determinant of victory. Rather, the regional actors are keen on keeping various strategic power, upholding deterrence and ensuring that they do not lose dominance to their opponents.
However, there is a certain danger inherent in this balance. The border between shadow war and the open war is becoming thin as the proxy wars escalate and the level of competition on the strategic front grows increasingly intense. The Middle East is not in a full-scale conflict so far – but it is obviously in a new phase of a prolonged geopolitical clash.
The author is an scholar of International Relations based in Islamabad, Pakistan. Her academic interests lie in Middle Eastern geopolitics, regional security, and the intersection of conflict, governance, and resource management. She focuses on analyzing contemporary conflicts through a policy-oriented lens, with particular emphasis on the political, economic, and strategic dynamics that sustain protracted wars in the region.
