Afrasianet - Dr. Karim Al-Mejri - When the major powers change their language, it means that maps are about to change.

Grandiose strategic documents are rarely read as they should. They should not be read as statements of intent or as isolated technical texts, but rather as a mirror of a historical moment in which the balance of power is shifting, the priorities of the major states are changing, and the very meaning of influence is being redefined.

 The  new U.S. security strategy belongs to this type of text, as it does not reveal everything, but it hints at a lot, and it does not announce a rupture, but it documents a profound shift in the way Washington views the world, and the Middle East in particular, and this is what interests us most in this article.

The region, which for decades has been the beating heart of U.S. foreign policy, now finds itself facing a different discourse, one that is less enthusiastic, more cautious, and colder in its calculations.

This does not mean that the Middle East has suddenly lost its importance, but rather that the United States is looking at it from a new angle, an arena in which its turmoil should be controlled, not reshaped, and its crises should be managed without drowning in its solution.

This shift comes at a charged international moment, where the Ukraine war is bringing the logic of the conflict between the major powers back to the forefront, China is continuing its quiet and worrying rise to the West in general, and the international order is oscillating between a remnant of unilateralism that is not yet completely dead and multilateralism that is not yet complete.

In this context, the Middle East appears less centralized, but it is more sensitive, it is less of a priority, but it is more susceptible to widespread imbalances if mishandled.

From Hegemony to Risk Management: The Logic of the New U.S. Strategy

To understand the new U.S. security strategy, it cannot be approached in isolation from deconstructing and understanding a long process of revisions that actually began more than a decade ago.

Washington, which has fought major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and paid a heavy human, financial, and political price, has emerged from these experiences with the central conviction that military superiority does not create a stable order, and that direct domination can turn from a source of power into an unbearable strategic burden.

The new U.S. security strategy is not so much a U.S. withdrawal as a calculated reposition. The United States will not leave the Middle East, but it is changing the way it stays in it. It no longer seeks to play the role of a regional engineer who redraws balances, but rather a manager who sets the upper limits of crises and prevents them from becoming major threats to its broader global interests.

This shift is fueled by two overlapping factors: the first is international, represented by the rise of strategic competitors led by China, and the consequent focus of resources and attention on other theaters, especially the Asia-Pacific axis.

The second factor is regional, and relates to the structural intractability of the Middle East itself. This region has exhausted states, chronic conflicts, non-state actors, and sectarian and national divisions that experience has proven to be costly and unwarranted to break by force.

In light of all this, Washington is reprioritizing its priorities based on a concept that has become a strong presence in American strategic thinking: "risk management rather than solution-making." What is needed is not a fully stable Middle East – a goal that has become utopian – but a Middle East that does not explode in the face of U.S. interests and does not open up unchecked spheres of influence to its international and regional adversaries alike.

But this new approach will not come without a cost: it creates relative vacuums, encourages regional powers to test the limits of movement, and turns frozen crises into time bombs. In the eyes of U.S. policymakers, however, it remains less costly than open engagement and more in tune with a world heading toward unstable multilateralism.

When the instruments of power change, the position of the territory changes

The shift in U.S. power is no longer a technical detail for  the Pentagon or military planning circles, but rather a revealing indication of a deeper realignment in Washington's perception of the Middle East's place within the shifting international order.

When the United States reduces its direct military presence, redistributes its resources, and favors non-hard tools of pressure, it does so in isolation from a new reading of the region's function in the global power equation.

In the decades following the Cold War, the Middle East was run as a central arena for U.S. hegemony, with dense military bases, direct interventions, solid security alliances, and extensive use of hard force as a tool of deterrence and decisiveness.

But this model is gradually eroding, first, because of its failure to produce lasting stability, and second, because of its cost, which has become disproportionate to the strategic return in a world where the nature of competition has changed.

Today, we see that Washington, through its stated security strategy, is moving toward redefining power itself. Geographical control or sweeping military superiority alone is no longer the criterion of influence, but other tools, such as supply chain control, smart sanctions, technological superiority, and the management of maritime and digital spaces, are becoming more present in strategic calculations.

This shift reflects a recognition that the international system is gradually moving toward complex multilateralism, where it is difficult to impose will by direct force without long attrition.

In this new context, the Middle East is retreating from the "central square" in which it has been for decades to the position of a "sensitive node." It is no longer the main theater of great competition – as is the case in East Asia today – but it remains a dangerous intersection between energy, sea lanes, identity conflicts, and non-state actors.

In the new American perspective, the region is transformed into a space to be controlled, not reshaped, and a realm managed with a delicate balance in a region between deterrence and containment.

This change in location explains the shift in tools. The U.S. military presence has not disappeared, but it has become less intensive and more flexible, based on rapid deployment and air and naval capabilities rather than long-term occupation or land positioning. In contrast, economic and financial pressure tools, as key means of influence, have escalated from sanctions to control access to markets and technology.

But this shift does not mean a quiet withdrawal, but rather a redistribution of risk. When the United States lowers the cost of direct engagement, it shifts part of the burden of managing stability to the regional powers themselves. Here, the Middle East enters a new phase, one in which its states' ability to fill the vacuums, or at least live with them, is being tested in the absence of an international sponsor willing to pay the full costs.

At the heart of this scene is the structural contradiction in the American approach: it wants a region that is stable enough not to threaten its interests, but it is unwilling to make the political and military investment necessary to build that stability. The result is the adoption of a model of "managed stability," in which crises are contained at certain borders, without dismantling their deep causes.

To be sure, this model does not produce peace, but  it does prevent a total collapse. At the same time, it creates a gray environment that allows other powers—regional and international—to test the limits of American influence. Russia sees in military vacuums an opportunity for limited positioning, China invests in economic and technological vacuums, while regional powers move between adventurism and caution at other times.

In this sense, the transformation in the instruments of American power cannot be separated from the transformation in the structure of the international system itself.

The United States, which remains the most important power in the world, is acting as a power that seeks to manage a relative decline rather than deny it, and to distribute the cost rather than bear it alone.

The Middle East, in this context, is no longer the center of the game, but it has not emerged from it either, becoming one of the theaters of testing this complex global transformation.

America from Within: When Domestic Transformations Reshape the Roles of the Outside

Let us agree that the shift in U.S. policy toward the Middle East cannot be understood without returning to the U.S. itself. Washington is not reformulating its foreign strategies in a vacuum, but is doing so under the pressure of structural shifts that affect the nature of the political system, society, the economy, and even the U.S. image of itself and its role in the world.

This interior, which has historically been the source of momentum for foreign expansion, has today become one of the most important foreign policy constraints.

It should be recalled that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has built its strategic narrative on the idea of unrivaled superiority. However, this narrative has gradually eroded with the rise of rival powers, especially China, as well as successive crises that have exposed the fragility of the US domestic economy, such as the global financial crisis, severe political polarization, the erosion of trust in institutions, and the rise of populism that sees foreign engagement as a burden rather than a necessity. 

This shift reached its peak after  the events of September 11,  2001, when the United States rushed into the Middle East with unprecedented force, driven by a purely security logic that required declaring war on so-called terrorism, seeking to reshape the region, and then exporting a political model by force.

Today, Washington is on the other side of that experience. Instead of resorting to the logic of "pre-emptive strike" and "rebuild," the approach has been based on avoiding involvement, controlling risks, and avoiding open commitments.

It is worth recalling that this shift was not so much an ideological choice as a response to an internal reality that imposes new priorities of rebuilding the middle class, investing in infrastructure, and confronting technological and economic challenges with China.

In this context, the comparison to the Cold War becomes revealing. The United States, at the time, saw the Middle East as part of an existential struggle with the Soviet Union, which justified broad engagement and unconditional support for allies seen as a barrier to communist expansion.

Today, the conflict with China is different in nature and tools, and it does not need to extend direct control over the region as much as it needs to prevent adversaries from turning it into an uncontrollable platform of influence.

Based on the above, this shift in the American vision is directly reflected in the way regional actors are classified. Washington no longer views them with a rigid logic that classifies them as "ally and foe," but rather with a more pragmatic logic, based on evaluating behavior and the ability to contribute to relative stability.

Countries that can manage their internal crises and share security burdens become a preferred partner, while actors dragging the United States into open confrontations are viewed with suspicion.

On the other hand, regional actors are reading these shifts carefully. They are aware that the U.S. is no longer tolerant of major foreign adventures, and that the ceiling for intervention is lower than it was in the 1990s or after 2001.

This realization is what drives them to recalculate, as some seek to test the limits of U.S. retreat, some prefer to adapt by presenting themselves as responsible partners, while others diversify their alliances in anticipation of U.S. policy fluctuations.

Thus an interactive circle is formed, in which the American interior redefines the outside, and the outside, in turn, reshapes its behavior based on this new definition. At the heart of this circle stands the Middle East as a region that is deeply affected by the vicissitudes of U.S. policy, but can no longer rely on it as the ultimate guarantor of stability.

Regional Actors in the Cold American Administration

The moment the United States decided to move from a logic of decisiveness to a logic of management, it was not a one-sided decision. Regional actors, accustomed to reading U.S. signals as a key determinant of their behavior, quickly picked up on this shift and began to reframe their roles in a new environment whose primary theme was the absence of a final guarantor and the presence of undeclared but tangible ceilings.

This shift has thus created a complex regional landscape, in which the major powers are moving according to a delicate equation of rushing enough to expand influence, on the one hand, and retreating at the moment when the cost of a direct confrontation with Washington looms.

Hence, we cannot understand the behavior of any regional actor today outside of this broader American framework.

In the case of Iran, this logic is clearly demonstrated. Tehran has realized that the United States is no longer willing to engage in an open confrontation, but at the same time it is unwilling to accept the shift of Iranian influence into outright regional hegemony.

As a result, Iran has adopted a strategy of "controlled expansion," that is, strengthening its presence through proxies, testing U.S. deterrence on the periphery, and taking a step back when escalation approaches unwritten red lines.

Israel, on the other hand, finds itself facing the opposite dilemma. It does not suffer from the absence of American support, but the nature of this support has changed. It is no longer politically or strategically unconditional, especially in light of international pressure, the erosion of the image of deterrence, and the rise of non-state actors who do not meet the traditional rules of confrontation.

This is a reality that pushes Israel to combine localized escalation, the pursuit of regional arrangements, and adaptation to an American approach that does not want an all-out regional war, but accepts calculated margins of tension.

The Gulf states, on the other hand, seem more aware of the nature of the moment. They are aware that the U.S. umbrella is no longer automatic, and that unilateralism has become a strategic risk.

Hence, they are moving toward building relatively more independent policies, ranging from diversifying partnerships, investing in diplomacy, and trying to mitigate conflicts rather than indulge in them. But this path does not mean a break with Washington, but rather an ongoing renegotiation of the terms and roles of the partnership.

Turkey, for its part, is a model of a middle power that tries to capitalize on the American transformation as much as possible. It is moving between Washington and Moscow, filling in the gaps in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean, and presenting itself as an indispensable actor in crisis management.

But this role remains fragile, and is governed by its ability to maneuver without exceeding the ceilings of a clash with major powers.

In Gaza, Washington does not seek to impose a final settlement, but rather to prevent the expansion of the war. In Syria, it is content to manage a limited presence that prevents the complete collapse or total domination of any party.

In Yemen, Washington prefers a fragile truce to a decisive military decision. In the Iranian file, America balances between deterrence and avoiding direct confrontation, and between pressure and containment.

What unites these issues is the absence of American willingness to invest in long-term solutions in exchange for a clear willingness to use influence in order to prevent worst-case scenarios.

This creates a gray regional situation: no all-out war, no sustainable peace, but rather a series of managed crises that are sometimes used as tools of pressure and sometimes as safety valves.

In this context, the Middle East is becoming a permanent laboratory for testing the limits of American power and the limits of regional reactions. Every escalation is measured, every truce is tested, and every crisis is turned into a practical exercise in what the United States can and cannot tolerate.

When the center retreats. International Powers and the Test of the American Vacuum in the Middle East

Given the above details, it can be said that the shift in U.S. behavior toward the Middle East was not an isolated event, but rather opened the door to a new phase of redistribution of international roles.

In the international system, a vacuum does not last long, and when a central power retreats from its traditional role, other forces advance without necessarily filling the vacuum entirely, but rather reshaping it to serve their interests and the limits of their capacity.

In this context, Russia appears to have been the first to try to test the limits of U.S. retreat. Since its military intervention in Syria, Moscow has presented itself as a player capable of decisive, or at least imposing realities on the ground that Washington cannot ignore. But the Russian experience has quickly revealed the limits of this role.

Moscow is undoubtedly capable of disrupting existing paths in the current international order, but it is certainly unable to build an alternative regional order or to bear the cost of long-term stability in a region as complex as the Middle East.

As it preoccupies itself with the war in Ukraine, its regional presence has become more selective, focusing more on political and symbolic influence than on seeking to re-engineer the region.

China, by contrast, is taking quieter and deeper steps. It is not seeking to compete with the United States militarily in the region, nor to play a direct security role, but to redefine the very meaning of influence.

Through its economy, energy, infrastructure, and quiet diplomacy, Beijing is proposing a different model of international presence, one that does not promise protection, but offers long-term partnerships. But so far, this model has been unable to deal with acute security crises, making China more of a beneficiary of stability than a maker of it.

Europe, on the other hand, is in a more ambiguous position. It is the closest geographically, the most affected by the repercussions of instability, but the least able to act independently.

The lack of unified political will and the continued reliance on the American umbrella make Europe's role limited, often confined to diplomacy and aid, with no real ability to influence the major trajectories of conflict.

The interaction of these roles with the new U.S. model creates a fragile regional situation. The United States remains the most influential actor, but it is no longer the only actor, nor is it the only force that sets the pace alone. In contrast, other powers have neither a common vision nor a singular capacity to manage stability.

The result is a multiplicity of centers of influence in the Middle East without a clear decision-making center. This international fragmentation is directly reflected in regional stability. On the one hand, it limits the ability of any party to have full dominance, reducing the likelihood of all-out wars.

On the other hand, it exacerbates the state of strategic fluidity, where crises become chronic, settlements are temporary, and the boundaries between deterrence and implosion are very thin.

In this context, the Middle East is becoming an open testing ground, a test of the United States' ability to manage a retreat without losing influence, a test of the willingness of other powers to assume greater responsibilities, and a test of regional actors themselves in their ability to adapt to an international order that is no longer static and whose outcome is not easily predictable.

Middle East Scenarios Under the New American Model

In light of the profound transformations taking place in the instruments of American power and the multiplicity of international actors in the region, it is not possible to talk about a single path for the future of the Middle East.

It is more likely that we are facing a set of overlapping scenarios, none of which are realized in their pure form, but their elements intersect according to the development of the international environment and the adaptation of regional actors to this structural shift in the international system.

The first scenario: stable chaos management. Continuing at the Lowest Cost

The scenario that is closest to reality, and is most in line with current American behavior, is the scenario of managed chaos. In this model, Washington does not seek to re-engineer the region, nor to impose major compromises, but rather to prevent all-out collapses, control the lines of engagement, and protect its vital interests with limited tools.

This scenario is based on the assumption that full stability is not possible, and that the cost of imposing it is outweighed. Therefore, the administration prefers to keep crises within a manageable level, i.e., low-frequency conflicts, fragile understandings, and mutual deterrence that prevents a big bang without ending the causes of tension.

This model carries structural risks. Chaos, even if managed, tends to spiral out of control over time. Prolonging crises also weakens nation-states and gives non-state actors a wider room to maneuver, which can lead to strategic surprises that do not serve both U.S. and regional interests.

The second scenario: a fragile regional balance. More players, less guarantor

In this scenario, the region adapts to the absence of a dominant U.S. sponsor by building new regional balances, based on understandings between the middle powers, and flexible alliances that change according to issues.

Countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Israel play more autonomous roles here, with a supportive but uncontrolling international presence. This balance is supposed to reduce dependence on the outside and push domestic actors to take greater responsibility for their own security.

However, the fragility of this scenario lies in the absence of institutional mechanisms to control conflict. Without inclusive political frameworks, the balance of mutual deterrence remains susceptible to any major shock, be it military, economic, or internal.

The third scenario: a conditional American return. From retreat to selective intervention

The scenario of a partial U.S. return to the region cannot be ruled out, but not in the post-9/11 format, nor in the spirit of the Cold War. Rather, it is a selective, conditional, and limited return that is imposed by emergency developments, such as the outbreak of a broad regional war, the emergence of a serious direct threat to Israel, or the collapse of an allied regional order.

In this context, the United States will be less willing to shoulder long-term burdens and more inclined to strike quickly, build temporary alliances, and use economic and technological tools rather than heavy and costly military deployment.

The success of this scenario will depend on how well Washington can learn from its past failures, and on the extent to which the region accepts a U.S. role that does not promise comprehensive protection, but rather conditional partnership.

Scenario 4: Broader international repositioning. The Middle East as an Open Arena of Competition

The most turbulent scenario is that the Middle East becomes an arena of open international competition between major powers without clear rules. In this model, the U.S. role diminishes to the point where contradictory initiatives and overlapping Russian, Chinese, and European influence are diminished, and uncoordinated regional roles are on the rise.

This scenario raises the level of uncertainty and holds stability hostage to momentary balances, not long-term strategies. This scenario may produce opportunities for some countries, but it carries high risks for fragile states, which may become proxy battlegrounds.

These scenarios reveal not only the future of the Middle East, but also the future of the U.S. role itself. The shift underway is not just a policy adjustment, but a redefinition of the meaning of leadership, the limits of power, and the center's relationship with the parties in an international order that is no longer unipolar, at least as it once was.

The End of American Certainty and the Beginning of the Time of Regional Testing

What the Middle East is witnessing today is not merely the result of local shifts or transient crises, but a direct reflection of a deeper shift in the United States' position within the international system.

Washington is no longer the remapping force, nor the player with the luxury of stabilizing or managing chaos at will. What has changed is not only the level of American interest in the region, but also the nature, limitations, and tools of this interest.

The United States has moved from the role of "comprehensive guarantor" to the role of "selective manager," from the logic of direct intervention to the policy of cost-cutting, and from making balances to monitoring them from a measured distance.

This shift was not so much an ideological choice as a response to internal fatigue, political division, and greater strategic challenges in Asia and Europe. In this context, the Middle East is no longer the center of gravity in American strategy, but one of its secondary theaters, albeit one of the most flammable.

However, the vacuum left by the decline of the American role is not automatically filled by self-stability. The region is entering a real testing phase, a test of the ability of regional powers to assume their responsibilities away from the American umbrella, a test of the maturity of the new balances, and a test of the possibility of building forms of cooperation instead of being dependent on the logic of permanent conflict.

At the same time, it is a test for the rising international powers, which seek to expand their influence without having – until now – an integrated model for managing stability.

The most important conclusion is that the Middle East is no longer an arena managed only from the outside, nor is it a space closed to its internal crises.

Today, it is a crossroads between an internal American transformation, open international competition, and regional dynamics that are looking for their role in a less certain and more complex world.

Anyone who misreads this shift as a final U.S. withdrawal, or an easy opportunity to fill the vacuum, may discover belatedly that the new phase does not reward the impulse, but rather punishes miscalculation.

In this transitional time, stability does not appear to be a matter of grand decisions or final agreements, but rather the result of delicate balances, adaptability, and a deep understanding of the transformation of the instruments of power, not just their manifestations.

For the foreseeable future, the Middle East will remain an open laboratory for this transformation, not only its victim, but also one of its consequence makers.