Abstract: The Red Sea enjoys an undeniable strategic location, as it embodies in its own right a self-sustainable and critical sub-regional order within the larger Middle East order. Besides, the Red Sea constitutes a bridge that links a great number of strategic sea routes.
This paper seeks to approach the Red Sea region by systematically tracing developments unfolding around it since the end of the Col War era, along with identifying the multitude sources of threats, current and potential, that plague its security and cooperative relations that have been unraveling across the region in light of fast-moving regional and international developments.
The paper offers a new security and cooperation paradigm for the Red Sea basin that takes into account the interests of all concerned parties. The linkage and mutual interaction between the security of the Red Sea and the security and stability of the Gulf region and their relation to pan-Arab security, too, are minutely analyzed. Similarly, the paper examines the role of the GCC States in enhancing and consolidating the geo-strategic bond between the two sub-regions.