Map source: PGSA – Persian Gulf Strait Authority, Iran.
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By Nima Khorrami – NSSG Intelligence Analyst
The United States and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 19, formally ending more than three and a half months of war. Announced on June 14, the 14-paragraph agreement commits both sides to an immediate and permanent cessation of military operations across all fronts, including Lebanon. Yet the structural drivers of the conflict remain unchanged, and whether the MoU survives even its own 60-day window, let alone produces a lasting peace, is far from settled.
The opening negotiating session, originally scheduled for June 20, was cancelled within 24 hours of signing; Washington cited logistical issues and Tehran demanded visible proof of implementation first. The talk, however, got underway on 21 June and, notably, an emergency session on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict was added to the agenda; a significant development given that neither Israel, Hezbollah, nor the Lebanese government are party to the talks.
Inside Iran, the political choreography around the MoU was itself revealing. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said he had a different view of the deal but permitted it after President Pezeshkian accepted personal responsibility for its outcomes. The message is clear: if the deal succeeds, the Supreme Leader takes credit for allowing negotiations to commence; if it fails, the President absorbs the blame.
The MoU is a significant milestone, but it is not a resolution. In a meaningful sense, it returns the region to roughly where it stood before February 28 with one critical difference. Although still vulnerable on all fronts, Iran is on the verge of emerging from the war materially stronger.
Regional trust dynamics have shifted too. Israel’s prosecution of the war and its continued strikes in Lebanon have damaged its standing in Gulf capitals in ways likely to outlast any agreement; Gulf states now view both Iran and Israel with comparable ambivalence. In an admittedly simplified sense, the war’s biggest loser may be Benjamin Netanyahu: he sought Iran’s permanent strategic degradation but instead watched Tehran emerge richer and intact, while Washington leaned on its closest regional ally to sign the MoU and start negotiations. This is why he has so far refused to fully comply with US demands for a complete ceasefire in Lebanon; his political future, and that of his faction, is on the line.
Looking ahead, the 60-day window is almost certainly too short to resolve Iran’s nuclear file, sanctions sequencing, or the long-term status of the Strait of Hormuz. Domestic politics in particular compounds the difficulty in all three capitals: Iranian hardliners and Israel’s governing right both derive political relevance from having an enemy to define themselves against, while Trump, under pressure from his own isolationist base, needs a deal he can sell as decisive before November, after which his incentives may shift again. The most probable outcome is therefore extension; a no-war-no-peace equilibrium that avoids renewed hostilities without resolving the hardest questions. That is preferable to conflict, but it is not a settlement, and hence uncertainty might very well become the new normal for commercial actors in the region.
1. Treat the MoU as a proof of concept, not a green light — The 60-day window is a pilot phase, not a peace process: a test of whether both sides can deliver basic commitments before harder questions are opened. Shipping volumes will not return to pre-war levels for at least a month, and full operational normalcy is unlikely before late summer. Corporations should not dissolve crisis planning architectures and instead use this period to stress-test and harden the,. Conflict after US midterm in November remains a realistic scenario.
2. Watch whether US-Iran bilateral diplomacy on regional security becomes a routine rather than an exception — Talks in Switzerland include a session on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. If Washington and Tehran can negotiate, enforce, and sustain order in the Levant bilaterally, it might set a precedent for resolving other regional flashpoints through direct US-Iran channels. This could mark the beginning of a genuinely new regional order.
3. The Iran-UAE trade rupture is creating a structural rerouting that will outlast the MoU — Iran’s roughly $20bn annual trade corridor through the UAE has been severely disrupted, and the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce is actively developing Iraq as an alternative route, with Karachi and Indian ports also under evaluation. The pre-war UAE-Iran logistics architecture is unlikely to be fully restored regardless of any final deal, and companies positioned to service the emerging Iraq corridor and Indian Ocean routing will capture the displaced flows.
4. Watch the fight over who funds the $300bn, and how it might be operationalised — Washington has signalled it will not fund the package itself and expects Gulf states to carry the bulk of it, yet it is unclear whether GCC governments are willing to underwrite Iran’s reconstruction. Iran may treat any shortfall as grounds to double down on its alternative leverage: renewed insistence on collecting Hormuz transit tolls. is also brewing on the Gulf side of the ledger. GCC states sustained direct damage to critical infrastructure during the war, and some may push for compensation to be carved out of the very fund earmarked for Iran, or for the fund’s overall size to be reduced accordingly. Most importantly, Iran’s Minister of Petroleum has added a third dimension, stating that Western willingness to fast-track investment in Iran’s energy sector could serve as the real test of their sincerity; a signal that part of the $300bn may ultimately take the form of direct investment, and therefore direct Western participation, in Iran’s vastly underdeveloped energy sector. Any of these dynamics could turn the $300bn from a diplomatic deliverable into either the MoU’s second major fracture point, after Lebanon, or a major opportunity for companies in the energy and infrastructure sectors.
By Nima Khorrami – NSSG Intelligence Analyst
The defining paradox of the Iran–US war has rarely been sharper than over the past two weeks: Washington and Tehran are simultaneously closer to an agreement than at any previous point and engaged in the most sustained cycle of military confrontation since the formal ceasefire. US forces struck Iranian drone infrastructure and missile sites in southern Iran on May 25-27; Iran responded with missile strikes against US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. Escalation and diplomacy are not competing tracks; they have become complementary instruments in each side’s negotiating strategy. Assessing either in isolation produces a misleading picture of where this conflict is heading.
Iran cannot afford to lose Hezbollah. Tehran’s insistence on incorporating Lebanon into any agreement is not a procedural preference but a strategic necessity. Having failed to preserve the Assad government in Syria, Iran cannot now be seen concluding a deal that leaves Hezbollah exposed to sustained Israeli military pressure. Its claim to regional leadership, and its ability to maintain influence across its network of partners and proxies, depends on the credibility of its commitment to those it backs. A settlement that stabilises the primary US-Iran front while leaving Hezbollah vulnerable would erode that credibility at precisely the moment Tehran is trying to demonstrate its durability. Iran calculates, rightly or wrongly, that the strategic costs of such an outcome outweigh the economic benefits of a narrower agreement, and that its current leverage is sufficient to hold the line.
Iran’s domestic pressures are intensifying. The end of the 88-day internet blackout reflects economic necessity rather than any recovery of regime confidence. The Intelligence Ministry’s immediate warnings about Starlink and foreign media make clear that the regime is as anxious about the political consequences of restored connectivity as it was about sustaining the blackout itself. Historically, the Islamic Republic has demonstrated a significant capacity to absorb economic hardship. What it faces now is harder: the convergence of rising unemployment, accelerating inflation, and deep-rooted public discontent creates compounding pressures that are more difficult to manage than any single crisis. This is one important reason Tehran is insisting on immediate access to at least 50% of its frozen and blocked assets as part of any deal; the regime needs liquidity, and it needs it soon.
Domestic anxiety is the underreported GCC story. One of the most significant developments across the Gulf over the past two weeks has been the growing emphasis on internal resilience. In the UAE, a government-led national cohesion campaign signals concern about maintaining social unity amid a conflict that has repeatedly brought Iranian fire to Emirati soil. Bahrain’s decision to ban its citizens from travelling to Iraq and Iran represents a notable expansion of domestic control. Economic pressures are also becoming more visible across the region. Against this backdrop, the UAE’s shift in posture is particularly telling: after months of deliberately charting an independent foreign policy course, Abu Dhabi is now calling for a more unified GCC response to Iranian attacks.
Analysis
An agreement may be in the making but its significance should not be overstated. The framework under discussion is less a settlement than a 60-day negotiating mandate that is deliberately ambiguous enough for both sides to claim success to their respective domestic audiences. The more consequential contest will begin the moment signatures are exchanged, centring on implementation, sequencing, verification, and competing interpretations of what was actually agreed. A signed memorandum should therefore be read as the opening of a new phase of uncertainty, not a definitive risk-off signal. Both sides are also likely to use any negotiating window to reinforce their positions, and the US political calendar will not moderate that dynamic. After November’s midterms, Trump’s electoral constraints diminish regardless of outcome. A Republican victory would sharpen his determination to ‘finish the job’ on his own terms; a defeat would shift his focus toward legacy and away from political popularity. In either scenario, and bar any major developments, the structural incentives for renewed pressure on Iran are likely to increase, not ease, in the months that follow.
By Nima Khorrami – NSSG Intelligence Analyst
The past two weeks have sharpened a contradiction that now defines the conflict: both the United States and Iran are simultaneously exchanging diplomatic proposals via Pakistan and preparing for renewed war. Trump’s much anticipated Beijing summit with Xi produced no Chinese commitment to pressure Tehran — at least not publicly — while Iran’s Foreign Minister used his appearance at the BRICS summit in New Delhi to dampen hopes for a nuclear deal before and/or in parallel with a peace agreement.
Back in Washington, multiple reports pointed to active US-Israeli planning for strikes on Kharg Island and commando raids aimed at seizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile. However, the pendulum of public diplomacy swung back in a more positive direction on May 22, as officials on both sides once again spoke of increased prospect of reaching an agreement. Overall, there appears to be a growing consensus on the ground that the foundations of a limited deal are indeed taking shape but a sustainable long term agreement remains a distant prospect, and that the possibility of a surprise US, or US backed, strike remains unlikely to meaningfully diminish in the interim.
The structural story of this fortnight is Iran’s systematic effort to convert wartime facts on the ground into durable institutional arrangements. The Hormuz Safe insurance platform and the vessel declaration regime are likely to be the architecture of a new maritime order which is being assembled incrementally under cover of a ceasefire that neither side is fully observing. Tehran’s calculus is that the longer these arrangements persist, the harder they become to reverse regardless of what any eventual deal says.
China’s posture at the Beijing summit, meanwhile, confirmed its strategic patience. Although expert opinion differs on this, it is reasonable to assume that Beijing has little incentive to break the stalemate in the short term. The current situation
Beijing ultimately wants an agreement and is contributing to such an outcome both directly and indirectly via Pakistan, but it is in no hurry; it can weather the short-term crisis better than any of its peers while pocketing some easy geopolitical wins.
Inside Iran, the continuing internet blackout is beginning to crack under its own contradictions. A Presidential survey found 70% opposition to restrictions. Moreover, four days of demonstrations at the Petronad Petrochemical as well as students protest across multiple cities in Lorestan Province are the first reported labour action and student-led protests since the war began. These episodes are not yet destabilising but they are a reminder that the war has most probably bought the regime time not a reprieve from its deeper structural problems, and that the regime, in its current form, could still collapse under the weight of its own unpopularity and mismanagement.
For Gulf-based commercial actors, the headline risk remains the strait but the sub-surface risks are multiplying faster. Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain have no pipeline bypass options and are the most exposed to prolonged disruption. Moreover, Bahrain’s return to citizenship-stripping as a tool of political control could surface domestic tensions that complicate the operating environment and, in the worst case scenario, necessitate the involvement of other GCC states to ensure stability in Manama. In this context, the deployment of 8,000 Pakistani troops to Saudi Arabia can also be interpreted as part of a broader force-posture calculation: by reinforcing the Kingdom’s domestic security baseline, Riyadh would retain the capacity to project or deploy Saudi forces elsewhere in the region without significantly weakening security at home.
Lastly, the drone attacks on the Barakah nuclear plant launched from Iraq introduce a less-discussed but pivotal dimension to the UAE’s vulnerability landscape: critical targets can be hit from multiple locations outside Iran. At the same time, revelations of ties between the UAE and Israel that run deeper than initially acknowledged could heighten the threat of lone-wolf attacks carried out by or on behalf of Iran or Islamist extremist groups.
Special Intelligence Report | May 2026 | NSSG Intelligence & Security Analysis
Armenia votes on June 7. On paper, the outcome looks settled. Every methodologically robust poll published between February and May 2026 shows PM Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract ahead — by margins ranging from 10 to 21 percentage points depending on the pollster and methodology. NSSG assesses with high confidence that Civil Contract will win and form a parliamentary majority.
But the vote’s significance extends well beyond its likely result.
This is the first regularly scheduled parliamentary election in Armenia since 2017. The two previous cycles — 2018 and 2021 — were snap votes called in the aftermath of constitutional crises. This one follows a different kind of shock: the 2023 loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, which displaced over 100,000 ethnic Armenians and permanently altered the country’s strategic calculus.
Since then, Armenia has frozen its CSTO membership, hosted an EU civilian border monitoring mission, passed EU accession legislation, and signed a strategic framework with the United States. In February 2026, US Vice President JD Vance visited Yerevan — the first such visit by a sitting VP — returning with a nuclear cooperation deal, drone sales, and a $4 billion AI data centre agreement (the Firebird facility). A historic first Armenia-EU Summit was held in Yerevan on May 5.
The structural question this election decides: does Armenia’s westward reorientation hold, or does it reverse?
That question has direct consequences for billions in US and EU strategic commitments, the August 2025 Washington Declaration peace framework with Azerbaijan, and the TRIPP trade corridor. It also has consequences for export-controlled AI infrastructure that the United States has a direct national security interest in protecting.
Civil Contract holds 69 of 107 parliamentary seats going into the election. Its lead is real and consistent. Pashinyan’s campaign frames the vote as a binary choice between peace and its opposite — and IRI polling shows the share of Armenians citing national security as their primary concern dropped from 44% to 21% between June 2025 and February 2026. The normalization narrative is landing.
The leading opposition force, Strong Armenia Alliance, is backed financially by Armenian-Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan — currently under house arrest with assets seized — and structurally by networks tied to former President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party. Its nominal PM candidate, Karapetyan’s nephew Narek, carries little independent political standing. The platform advocates what it calls a “balanced” foreign policy. International analysts read that as re-engagement with Russia.
The other opposition forces — former President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance (polling 4-11%) and oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia (3-8%) — are near or below the 8% coalition threshold. More consequentially, deep personal animosity between Kocharyan and the Karapetyan/Sargsyan networks has prevented any coordination. The opposition cannot unify. That structural failure is arguably the election’s most decisive factor.
Russia is the most active foreign actor in this cycle. International observers and diplomats describe its operations as operating at unprecedented scale. Documented tactics include Doppelganger operations (cloned websites mimicking legitimate Armenian outlets), Matryoshka disinformation (Russian state narratives circulated through fabricated local sources), and Storm-1516 AI-generated deepfake content distributed through multilingual fake news networks. Russian television reaches an estimated one-third of Armenians daily, with no regulatory restrictions.
Putin has explicitly endorsed Karapetyan’s candidacy.
Russian money flows through charities, businesses, and the Armenian Apostolic Church — whose Catholicos received a Russian State Honor in 2022. The Catholicos has publicly demanded Pashinyan’s resignation and is actively backing opposition parties. The arrest of bishops has opened an identity-level fault line in the electorate that goes beyond policy disagreement.
NSSG assesses Russian narratives as having limited resonance with the general public — Russia’s credibility has not recovered from its refusal to intervene during Azerbaijan’s 2020 and 2023 military campaigns. But Russia’s primary post-election objective may not be to change the result. It will likely attempt to delegitimise whatever Pashinyan wins, regardless of actual vote counts.
A 30% pension increase announced April 1, 2026 — absent from the December 2025 budget — has been characterised by multiple international observers as a calculated pre-election measure. Campaign finance disclosures are deferred until February 2027. Donation limits were quadrupled by recent legislative amendments. Two Electoral Code changes were passed within 24 hours each in early 2026, including a ban on naming alliances after individuals — directly targeting Strong Armenia — both assessed as inconsistent with Venice Commission norms.
The chair of the Central Electoral Commission previously served as a Civil Contract MP.
These concerns do not, in NSSG’s assessment, change the likely outcome. They do affect the post-election environment and the credibility of international validation.
NSSG’s base case assigns roughly 45% probability to a Civil Contract first-round majority and 40% to a second round triggered by opposition consolidation — with the outcome unchanged in either scenario. An opposition upset sits at approximately 15% probability and would require a major pre-election scandal, military shock, and opposition unity. None of those conditions is currently in evidence.
The more consequential scenario risk is post-election contestation. Russia will seek to amplify any claim of irregularities. If no pro-Western democratic opposition crosses the parliamentary threshold — which current polling makes likely — Civil Contract governs without institutional check. That raises democratic backsliding concerns flagged across the political spectrum, including by Armenia’s Western partners.
The Firebird AI facility, the peace process with Azerbaijan, nuclear cooperation, the TRIPP corridor: all of it is premised on political continuity. The election is expected to deliver that continuity. Whether it delivers the institutional conditions for Armenia’s longer-term democratic consolidation is a harder question.
This article draws on NSSG’s Special Intelligence Report: Armenia Parliamentary Elections 2026 — Strategic Assessment & Predictive Analysis. Download the full report here. NSSG delivers electoral forecasting, hybrid threat assessment, and strategic risk advisory to governments, institutional investors, and multinational organisations.
By Nima Khorrami – NSSG Intelligence Analyst
This analysis was prepared as of 7 May 2026; subsequent developments may not be reflected in the situational assessment below.
Tensions remain high, and in fact spiked toward Critical on May 4. Uncertainty remains elevated, but recent reports indicate that a deal might be in the making. Hence, it is plausible that the risk level could be downgraded to “Elevated” within the coming days.
The ceasefire absorbed its most serious test on 4 May after US President launched Project Freedom; a naval operation to escort stranded commercial ships through the strait of Hormuz. Iran responded by striking oil and gas facilities at Fujairah as well as a residential area in Oman, and hitting South Korean and Emirati tankers. Iran also reportedly fired on US naval vessels. Washington responded by striking seven IRGC fast boats. Within 48 hours though, Trump paused Project Freedom which Iranian state media has since described as a retreat.
The diplomatic track has moved in parallel, if tentatively. Iran advanced a phased framework through Pakistan — end the war and the maritime standoff first, address the nuclear programme later. Trump rejected that sequencing but indirect exchanges continued, and by 6 May, reports of a near-final 14-point, one-page MOU sent Brent crude down 6% from $108 to $102. At the time of writing, Washington is awaiting Tehran’s response within 48 hours.
On the other end of the equation, Lebanon remains active beneath the surface of the ceasefire. Israeli strikes, new evacuation orders, and a deepening buffer zone have continued while Iran insists any final settlement must fold in the Lebanese front. This could constrain how far US-Iran diplomacy can progress without Israeli acquiescence.
Beyond the immediate fronts, the regional architecture continues to shift: Pakistan has opened six designated transit corridors to Iran, further undermining the blockade’s economic bite, and US officials were in Tajikistan to hold talks with officials on a myriad of issues including Iran. Iran’s Foreign Minister met Putin in St. Petersburg and then held talks with China’s Wang Yi in Beijing during which he also called his Saudi counterpart. Last but not least, the UAE formally exited OPEC on May 1.
Iran is negotiating from a weakening economic position it is working hard to conceal. The rial has collapsed to between 1.81 and 1.9 million per dollar, against roughly 1 million before the war. Steel production capacity has fallen 25–30% following US-Israeli strikes which has compelled Tehran to ban steel exports to conserve domestic supply. And yet its negotiating posture remains maximalist: sanctions relief, an end to the blockade, and a full ceasefire across all fronts before nuclear talks begin. That is not irrational; Tehran believes sustained control of the strait imposes sufficient global cost to extract concessions without moving first on its core strategic assets.
The Gulf is not moving as a bloc, and that fragmentation carries its own commercial weight. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman are invested in keeping the ceasefire alive and prefer a negotiated resolution that restores, rather than reconfigures, the pre-war navigation order. The UAE and Bahrain have adopted a harder posture: publicly accusing Tehran of regional interference, deepening security ties with Israel (in case of the UAE), and signalling they will neither accept a post-war strait governed by Iranian discretion nor will they forgo the idea of seeking compensation from Iran after the war. For commercial actors, intra-GCC fragmentation means there will be no unified Gulf position on the post-war regional order nor will there be unified approach towards Iran.
Israel, meanwhile, is preparing for a longer contest while nominally observing the ceasefire. Its May 3 approval of a major F-35 and F-15 procurement plan signals that Israeli planners are designing for a recurrent, multi-front campaign rather than a negotiated resolution. That posture creates structural friction with any US-Iran framework that leaves Tehran with residual strategic capacity, and it means the any ceasefire will remain fragile for the foreseeable future.
The generational shift at the top of the Islamic Republic has been underappreciated. First, Mojtaba Khamenei is a marginal figure whose political career is dependent on the good will of the IRGC. Second, Iran has cooperated quietly with Washington before, most notably over Afghanistan, when strategic interest overrode ideological posturing. Most importantly, Tehran’s most durable deterrence may ultimately be making the US a commercial stakeholder in Iranian stability even though the obstacle is real: visible accommodation with Washington corrodes the anti-American identity on which domestic legitimacy rests. However, the absence of clergy at the apex of power, combined with existential economic pressure, makes a turn more structurally conceivable than at any previous moment. Model this scenario now.
The UAE’s departure from OPEC is only partly about oil. Its timing reveals something larger: the UAE no longer recognise the Saudi-led regional order as fit for purpose. Its deepening security relationship with Israel, its financial confrontation with Pakistan (demanding $3.5 billion repayment precisely as Islamabad is mediating US-Iran talks), and disagreements with Riyadh in Yemen are expressions of that recognition. OPEC+ price stability assumptions need revision and so do the operational assumptions for firms headquartered in the UAE with operations in Saudi or vice versa.
Amazon Web Services has confirmed that cloud infrastructure in Bahrain and the UAE, which were struck by Iranian drones in March, will take several more months to restore. Looking ahead, GCC states may begin partnering with companies to move critical infrastructure like data centres underground. Equally likely is a greater use for localisation of supply chain. ADNOC’s recently announced $55 billion localisation programme is a harbinger of what lies ahead. Last but certainly not least, defence start-ups and local manufacturing capacity are being actively cultivated across the region and the UAE has taken the lead on this by announcing plans for a defence free zone in Abu Dhabi. Redundancy plans built for a pre-war environment require urgent reassessment, and therein lies attractive commercial opportunities for firms with the right vision and resources.
By Nima Khorrami – NSSG Intelligence Analyst
The ceasefire framework brokered on April 8 is intact in name but little else. Rather than pulling both sides back from the brink, the pause has become a new arena of contest with Washington and Tehran competing over who gets to dictate what de-escalation looks like. For commercial actors operating in or dependent on the Gulf, this matters enormously. Corporations should treat continued strait disruption as the baseline for at least the next 60–90 days, and model for the realistic possibility that it deteriorates further, even though neither side wants a resumption of full hostilities.
When Iran briefly reopened the Strait of Hormuz last week, it was not conceding the principle of free navigation; rather, it was demonstrating that it controls the terms on which the strait operates. Iran’s leadership – best understood at present as a collective body of conservative factions managed by the IRGC – views any hint of compromise as surrender, and thus it appears determined to demonstrate that it is operating from a position of strength. This framing sets the floor for any negotiated outcome: Tehran is likely to accept only a deal it can credibly present to its small yet emboldened domestic constituency.
That domestic constraint, it is important to point out, is as much structural as it is tactical. Just as the Iran-Iraq war once allowed the regime to consolidate authority and suppress dissent behind a rallying narrative of national survival, the current conflict is serving a similar function. A genuine peace settlement risks triggering the domestic reckoning the regime has spent years deferring. With the economy shattered, public anger suppressed rather than resolved, and the regime’s popularity at historic lows, the leadership has rational reasons to manage the conflict’s intensity rather than ending it.
Washington responded to Iran’s managed reopening not by easing pressure but by raising it imposing its own naval blockade and seizing two Iranian-flagged cargo vessels in the Indian Ocean. Iran responded in kind: IRGC gunboats have attacked and seized at least three commercial ships in or near the strait, citing permit violations. Moreover, the blockade, which Washington frames as maximum leverage, has a structural limitation that Tehran understands well: Russia and China could, in the worst case scenario, supply Iran via its northern land and maritime corridors through Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, and thus a total trade embargo on Iran is not achievable. And the hardliners in Tehran know it.
More importantly, Washington’s own position is more constrained than its posture suggests. Another round of bombings, especially if aimed at critical infrastructure such as electricity girds, could cost the United States its relative popularity amongst the already war-torn population. Also, Republican fatigue in Congress is gaining traction not least because voter sensitivity to fuel prices is sharpening ahead of the November midterms. A planned US-China summit is approaching, and Trump, acutely sensitive to ratings and eager to command centre stage at the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations, has domestic political incentives to show progress, not prolongation. His mixed messaging is a reflection of these countervailing pressures.
Diplomatically, a second round of Pakistani-mediated talks in Islamabad was cancelled after Tehran refused to send a delegation while the blockade remained in force. Trump extended the ceasefire on April 21 and has since signalled mix messages: on April 22, he suggested that talks could resume within days yet the next day he ordered the navy to shoot any boat laying mines in strait. Meanwhile, structural gaps remain vast. Iran’s nuclear rights, sanctions sequencing, and the future of the strait all remain unresolved issues on which neither side has shown a willingness to compromise.
The Lebanon front offers a parallel. The 10-day ceasefire announced on April 16 has quieted the guns but Israel is using the pause to consolidate a 10km buffer zone inside southern Lebanon. The pattern across both theatres is consistent: ceasefires are being used not to reverse wartime gains but to lock them in.
Fuel shortages in Europe and Asia and their budgetary implications are here to stay since transit across the strait remains near-zero, and the alternative routes, such as those in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are approaching capacity. In addition, the downstream effects are already cascading. Naphtha shortages are filtering through into plastics, rubber, and pharmaceutical supply chains globally while medical supply shortages could begin to impact public heath services in Asia Pacific. In addition, elevated food insecurity is now a certain side effect that governments, international organisations, and corporations across the world need to plan for at a moment when humanitarian supplies are likely to experience major delays as Dubai Airport – a major humanitarian logistic hub – operate below its full capacity.
GCC GDP is forecasted to contract 5.95% in 2026 representing a sharper revision than most corporate planning cycles had anticipated while Infrastructure programmes, including data centres and mining operations, face execution delays of 12–18 months. The cyber dimension also warrants attention. As conventional escalation becomes politically costly, attacks on GCC financial infrastructure, energy management systems and logistics networks offer Tehran a lower-risk way to demonstrate it retains meaningful leverage.
The deeper structural issue for commercial actors is one of exposure architecture. In a world of weaponised interdependence, connectivity without geographical or human depth is a vulnerability, not a source of resilience. Businesses that built Gulf operations on the assumption of frictionless transit and stable maritime rules are now discovering that those rules have been suspended, and that what replaces them is, as yet, undetermined. The pre-war navigation order is functionally gone. Whether what follows is Iranian managed passage, a new multilateral arrangement, or an entrenched grey zone will define operating conditions across the region for years.
In this emerging environment, planning for a return to the pre-February status quo is a recipe for failure. And the longer this impasse holds, the faster GCC states may accelerate their strategic hedging toward China, toward multipolarity, away from exclusive US alignment
Iran has already responded to the US vessel seizure through its IRGC maritime operations. The question is no longer whether it will react, it already has, but whether the current pattern of controlled friction hardens into the new normal, or whether miscalculation graduates it into something neither side can manage. The good news is that both parties have strong domestic reasons to avoid a full resumption of hostilities. The bad news is that the mechanisms of escalation in narrow waterways operate faster than the mechanisms of diplomatic restraint.
Two additional structural constraints shape all three scenarios. First, Israel and the GCC will not accept any deal that does not address Iran’s missile and drone capabilities. Any framework that fails on this test will face active efforts by both Jerusalem and Gulf capitals to undermine it, regardless of what Washington and Tehran agree. Second, even a signed nuclear deal is unlikely to result in Iran genuinely surrendering enrichment. As such, the gap between the agreement that is achievable and the outcome that is durable remains wide.
| SCENARIO | TRIGGER | LIKELIHOOD | COMMERCIAL IMPACT |
| Crisis management | Partial proposal; extended talks | Med-High | Strait restricted 60-90 days; elevated insurance; energy price volatility, and no operational normalcy. The managed freeze is the default path, but it rests on a fragile premise. |
| Escalation | Iran expands maritime operations; US retaliates; Lebanon reactivates | Medium | Full strait closure; energy price spike; immediate contingency activation required |
| Diplomatic breakthrough | Pakistan brokers face-saving MOU on nuclear rights & blockade sequencing | Low-Med | Slow yet steady normalisation; considerable opportunities on both sides of the Persian Gulf for infrastructural projects |
The year 2025 laid the groundwork for the converge of risks that challenged traditional enterprise security risk management frameworks, and this trend will continue in 2026 and beyond. Multinational corporations will face unprecedented confluences of risks, driven by state-sponsored competition, multilateral institutional degradation, economic fragmentation, supply-chain disruption, intensifying technological weaponisation, and climate-change related resource scarcity, leading to further volatility, uncertainty, and complexities in the operating environment. If not today, then tomorrow’s risk leaders should fundamentally evolve in how their respective organisations conceptualise, measure, and manage threats to their assets, services, products and people.
Our Global Risk Outlook 2026 and Beyond examines emerging trends across economic, geopolitical, operational, technological and social domains, mapping these threats to established enterprise risk management frameworks. It is aimed at providing actionable information for those risk leaders representing various business functions across the enterprise.
The core findings are evident: a fundamental change in mindset is necessary to evolve from risk management as a compliance exercise to a critical driver of competitive advantage, organisational resilience, and stakeholder value preservation. Failure to integrate emerging risks into the core organisational strategy will likely expose them to cascading and systemic degradation of financial, operational, reputational, and workforce capital.
This outlook highlights the most consequential emerging risks trends that will shape the environment over the next year and into 2027. It looks at macro-level threats and their respective implications on certain industries such as energy, pharmaceuticals, supply-chain, technology, and critical infrastructure, among others, while aligning analysis to risk management frameworks.
The message is clear: risk management must evolve from a compliance function into a strategic capability.
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Many countries have used citizenship or residency-by-investment programs to attract foreign capital. These programs typically offer passports, residence rights, or other legal and financial advantages in exchange for investments in the local economy. Below is a structured overview of the most common incentives and notable country examples:
How it works: Investors make a non-refundable contribution to a government development fund in exchange for citizenship or permanent residency.
| Country | Incentive | Minimum Contribution | Notable Aspects |
| St. Kitts & Nevis | Donation to the Sustainable Growth Fund | ≈ USD 250,000 | Fast-track citizenship (as little as 4 months), visa-free travel to 150+ countries |
| Antigua & Barbuda | Donation to National Development Fund | ≈ USD 100,000 | Relatively low threshold, family packages |
| Dominica | Donation to Economic Diversification Fund | ≈ USD 100,000 | One of the oldest and cheapest CBI programs |
📝 Rationale: These small island nations rely heavily on foreign investment to fund infrastructure, tourism, and development.
How it works: Foreigners can obtain residency or citizenship by investing in approved real estate projects.
| Country | Incentive | Minimum Investment | Notable Aspects |
| Portugal | Golden Visa program | €280,000–€500,000 | 5-year residency path to citizenship; halted for real estate in 2023 due to housing pressure |
| Greece | Residency permit | €250,000 | Permanent residency with Schengen access |
| Spain | Residency visa | €500,000 | Path to permanent residence and citizenship |
📝 Rationale: Boosts the property market, construction, and related services.
How it works: Applicants receive legal status if they establish or invest in companies, typically with a minimum requirement for job creation.
| Country | Incentive | Requirements | Notable Aspects |
| United States (EB-5 Visa) | Green card | Min. USD 800,000 investment in job-creating projects | Permanent residence after 2 years |
| Canada (Start-Up Visa, Quebec IIP – paused) | Permanent residence | Investment or innovative business + job creation | Focus on entrepreneurship |
| Australia (Significant Investor Visa) | Visa and permanent residence | AUD 5 million investment | Popular with high-net-worth individuals |
📝 Rationale: Stimulates domestic business activity, technology transfer, and employment.
How it works: Investment in state bonds or securities — often refundable after several years.
| Country | Incentive | Investment | Notable Aspects |
| Malta (prior to 2023 changes) | Citizenship by Naturalization for Exceptional Services | €600,000–€750,000 + residence | Included bond or property options |
| Cyprus (until 2020) | Citizenship by investment | €2 million real estate or bonds | Ended after corruption scandals |
| Turkey | Citizenship | $500,000 government bonds | Quick processing, widely used by MENA investors |
📝 Rationale: Provides governments with stable, long-term financing.
How it works: Countries offer attractive tax regimes in combination with residency or citizenship.
| Country | Incentive | Notable Features |
| Monaco | Residency | No personal income tax |
| UAE | Golden Visa (10-year) | Tax-free income, no inheritance tax |
| Malta | Residence or citizenship | Favourable tax regime, EU market access |
| Switzerland (lump-sum taxation) | Residence permit | Attractive for ultra-high-net-worth individuals |
📝 Rationale: Attracts wealthy individuals and their capital, often used in asset protection strategies.
How it works: Residency rights are granted to investors, entrepreneurs, or remote workers with financial means.
| Country | Incentive | Key Features |
| Estonia | e-Residency | Digital business environment (no citizenship) |
| Dubai (UAE) | Remote work visa | Low taxation, access to banking |
| Italy & Spain | Investor / nomad visas | Tax incentives for wealthy individuals |
| Caribbean states | Nomad visas | Encourage relocation of digital professionals |
📝 Rationale: Attracts mobile capital and talent, often linked to tech and service sectors.
Citizenship and residency-by-investment programs are tools to attract capital, stimulate local economies, and increase state revenue. However, they also carry geopolitical, legal, and reputational risks. Modern programs increasingly emphasize transparency, due diligence, and investment in productive sectors rather than just real estate or donations.
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