[IISS] In light of recent attacks on nuclear facilities and energy infrastructure in the region, Gulf states looking to nuclear energy will have to consider security risks and mitigation measures.
| Always wise in a rough neighbourhood like the Middle East. |
Nuclear power has always come with a high-risk tag. The attacks by Israel and the United States against the Iranian nuclear programme in 2025 and 2026 and the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) in Ukraine since 2022 have brought this risk into hyperfocus.
| Iran has been, and will continue tobe attacked because it has a nucleare bomb program. If it only had non-breeder nuclear power plants, neither Israel nor America would care. |
Nuclear-security risks are very real, and the laws and norms meant to prevent them are under severe strain. For potential nuclear newcomers in the Gulf, these risks might prove high enough to make them rethink their nuclear plans.
The case of the 2025–26 US/Israel–Iran conflicts is both familiar and novel. Both Israel and the US have carried out preventive attacks against nuclear and weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities they regarded as potential proliferation risks in Iraq in 1981 and 1991 and in Syria in 2007. Yet the scale of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme since 2025, coupled with the attacks on energy infrastructure in this recent conflict, may compound the perceived risk to NPPs, which run the highest risk of radiological emergencies.
Norms do not exist in a vacuum and nuclear facilities are not sacred. The norm against attacking them exists to prevent the catastrophic consequences of such an attack. While greatly strained, the norm against attacking NPPs specifically has held.
Gulf states’ nuclear-energy ambitions – which have materialised in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and are in the planning stages in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – are not merely prestige projects. They are intended to address real needs that underpin their economic and energy strategies. Gulf states have shown keen interest in acquiring traditional reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs), both of which have vulnerabilities. Therefore, this situation warrants a sober assessment of the risks and possible mitigation measures associated with pursuing nuclear power in a conflict-prone environment.
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