Lessons Kenya can learn from current war in the Gulf

Ukrainian soldiers learn how to use a FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile system at an undisclosed location in Zaporizhzhia region on January 7, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [AFP]

There is little doubt that the world has entered an unusually fraught moment. Long-simmering tensions between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other have now spilled into open confrontation that risks becoming a drawn-out conflict rather than a brief flare-up. It remains too early to judge the full consequences. Financial markets, ever sensitive to geopolitical shock, have yet to deliver a settled verdict. The true scale of the disruption may not be apparent for days, perhaps weeks, as investors digest both the military realities and the political calculations that will shape what comes next.

Still, consequences are already discernible. Most striking is the failure of protracted diplomacy and de-escalation overtures. The long-assumed stabilising power of dialogue has given way to open confrontation. In its wake, states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, until recently regarded as islands of predictability in a turbulent region, find themselves drawn into an ever-expanding theatre of insecurity. Dubai and Doha have been shaken by the reverberations of Iranian retaliatory strikes on Gulf states, undertaken in response to continuing attacks by the US and Israel on Iran. The geography of the conflict is widening, and with it, the illusion that distance confers safety.