Bahrain and US sign symbolic security pact

What’s happened?

Bahrain has signed a wide-ranging agreement with the US on enhanced security and technology co-operation. The deal, signed during a visit to the US by Salman bin Hamad al‑Khalifa, Bahrain’s crown prince and prime minister, is of limited practical import, instead formalising existing close military and economic ties, but is intended to reaffirm US commitment to regional security (amid China’s increasing diplomatic and military outreach to the US’s traditional Gulf partners) and serve as a template for similar agreements under negotiation with the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Why does it matter?

Bahrain already plays a role in the US’s regional security architecture as host to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and a base for US-led efforts to police the Gulf and the Red Sea, primarily against threats from Iran. Bahrain’s existential fear of Iran’s irredentist intent has made it the US’s most-reliable regional ally—less inclined than larger peers to flirt with alternative strategic partners (namely China and Russia). Bahrain already receives advanced US weaponry, and US officials have acknowledged publicly that the so-called Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C‑SIPA), the first of its kind, merely formalises ongoing work to expand security and defence collaboration, including increased military interoperability and intelligence capacity building. It also codifies a US commitment to support the growth of Bahrain’s technology sector (through co-operation in areas like artificial intelligence and chip supply)—a key plank of Bahrain’s economic development strategy and also intended from a US perspective to limit Chinese involvement in the region’s technology architecture.

The agreement’s importance lies chiefly in its symbolism and potential extension to include other regional allies. The US’s military and diplomatic retrenchment from the Gulf in recent years has prompted key allies to diversify strategic alliances and especially to deepen ties with China, which helped to broker the recent Saudi-Iranian reconciliation and held its first joint fighter drill with the UAE in August. Officials expressed hopes others would join the C‑SIPA framework. Crucially, however, the deal contains no mutual defence guarantee—as reportedly being demanded by Saudi Arabia (in return for potential normalisation of relations with Israel) and the UAE (and which the US will not give for fear of being drawn into another regional war), both of which have come under direct Iranian-linked attack in recent years.

What next?

The US will remain Bahrain’s primary strategic international partner throughout 2024‑28, and military co-operation will remain deep, underpinning Bahrain’s security and deterring its collaboration with rival global powers. The US alliance will also remain the central strategic relationship for other Arab Gulf states, but a lack of explicit security guarantees and the states’ wider geopolitical strategies will induce continued diversification of alliances, including closer Chinese ties.

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