The Trump administration's announcement that it was negotiating a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia immediately generated concern.
Under the proposed arrangement, the US would provide nuclear technology and materials to support the kingdom's civilian nuclear energy ambitions, prompting speculation that the program could eventually provide Riyadh with the technical foundation for a nuclear weapons capability.
The following day, however, President Donald Trump added a critical condition.
Saudi Arabia would receive access to American nuclear technology only if it formally joined the Abraham Accords and established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The agreement therefore extends beyond energy cooperation.
It uses access to advanced American technology as leverage to advance a broader strategic objective: integrating Saudi Arabia into a US-led regional security architecture.
That objective reflects the transformation already taking place across the Middle East.
Recent conflicts demonstrated the advantages enjoyed by countries embedded within US and Israeli security networks.
Intelligence sharing, integrated air and missile defence, and coordinated early-warning systems proved their value under sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks.
Governments that remained outside those arrangements found themselves considerably more exposed.
Saudi Arabia faces precisely that challenge.
Iranian missiles and Houthi drones continue to threaten oil facilities, ports, airports, desalination plants and population centres across the kingdom.
As Vision 2030 expands Saudi Arabia's industrial base through nuclear facilities, logistics hubs, data centres, and advanced manufacturing, the number of high-value targets will only increase.
Protecting those assets requires capabilities that Israel has developed over decades.
Systems such as Arrow have repeatedly intercepted long-range ballistic missiles, while David's Sling has demonstrated its effectiveness against medium-range threats during sustained combat.
The strategic logic extends well beyond missile defence.
Saudi Arabia and Israel confront the same adversary.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinates the network responsible for the principal security threats facing both countries, supplying the Houthis, financing Hezbollah, directing Iraqi militias and supporting missile forces that threaten Gulf infrastructure.
Israeli intelligence has spent decades penetrating that network, producing operational knowledge unmatched by any regional partner.
Israel has likewise expanded intelligence and security activities around the Gulf of Aden, recognising that countering Houthi operations requires persistent monitoring of the maritime approaches connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Normalisation would allow those capabilities to support Saudi defence directly.
Israeli radar, intelligence, early-warning systems, and missile-defence technologies could be integrated into Saudi security planning, strengthening deterrence while reducing the burden on US forces.
For Washington, closer Saudi-Israeli coordination would gradually shift the US from serving as the indispensable intermediary to leading a network of partners capable of reinforcing one another.
Timing is equally important because the US is not the only country competing to shape Saudi Arabia's technological future.
China brokered the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement and has sought to portray itself as an alternative security partner for the Gulf.
At the same time, Russia's Rosatom is constructing nuclear reactors in Egypt and Turkey, while Chinese state-owned nuclear companies continue pursuing reactor projects across the region, including in Saudi Arabia.
Nuclear cooperation creates strategic relationships that endure for generations through fuel supply, engineering services, maintenance, regulatory assistance and workforce training.
The country that builds Saudi Arabia's civilian nuclear infrastructure will retain long-term influence over one of the region's most consequential strategic sectors.
Recent events, however, have underscored the limits of Beijing's approach.
Chinese diplomacy did not prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Houthis, attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea continued and Chinese purchases of Iranian oil remained a critical source of revenue for Tehran's regional proxy network.
Military operations over the past year instead demonstrated the effectiveness of the US-led security framework, where integrated intelligence, air defence, and operational coordination produced tangible results against common threats.
Washington therefore possesses an opportunity that may not remain available indefinitely.
Conditioning civil nuclear cooperation on Saudi accession to the Abraham Accords aligns US technological leadership with its broader strategic interests, strengthens a regional coalition confronting Iran and limits opportunities for China and Russia to establish long-term influence through critical infrastructure.
Using that leverage now could shape the Middle East's strategic balance for decades.