DOI: 10.46340/eppd.2026.13.3.1
Levan Cholikidze, Doctor of Computer Science
Georgian Technical University, Georgia
Qetevan Kveselava, Academic Doctor of Informatics Engineering
Georgian Technical University, Georgia
Maia Gamsakhurdia, PhD in International Relations
Georgian Technical University, Georgia
How to cite: Cholikidze, L., Kveselava, Q., & Gamsakhurdia, M. (2026). Artificial Intelligence, Escalation Dynamics, and Regional Security in the Persian Gulf: A Risk-Resilience Analysis. Evropský politický a právní diskurz, 13, 3, 5-15. https://doi.org/10.46340/eppd.2026.13.3.1
Abstract
This conference article examines how artificial intelligence (AI) may increase or reduce military escalation and strategic risk in the Persian Gulf. The paper develops a risk-resilience framework that treats AI not as a single technology, but as a cluster of decision-support, surveillance, cyber, autonomous, predictive, and infrastructure-management capabilities. The analysis is based on four recent open-source studies: Al Neyadi’s analysis of AI and Gulf energy security, Atalan’s assessment of AI infrastructure resilience, Miller and Wright’s article on U.S.-China AI competition in the Arab Gulf, and Nasser bin Nasser’s UNIDIR study on AI, regional threat perceptions, and weapons of mass destruction risk. These sources are interpreted together with open data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency. The article argues that AI can reduce risk when it improves early warning, infrastructure monitoring, predictive maintenance, maritime domain awareness, and crisis communication. However, AI can also amplify escalation by compressing decision time, widening the target set to include data centres and cloud infrastructure, increasing cyber and information-operation risks, and intensifying great-power technological competition. The Persian Gulf is a particularly important case because energy chokepoints, military rivalry, critical digital infrastructure, and sovereign AI ambitions overlap in a compact and strategically sensitive space. The paper concludes that AI will contribute to regional stability only if it is embedded in governance mechanisms that prioritize human control, model auditability, infrastructure redundancy, cross-border confidence-building, and restraint in the military use of autonomous and predictive systems.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, Persian Gulf, regional security, military escalation, energy security, strategic stability, WMD risk, AI governance, critical infrastructure.
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