GEOINT – let’s look to the Middle East

There are few regions of the world where all aspects of national security are as prominent as in the Middle East. Resource surpluses and scarcity coexist, war, espionage and terrorism are ongoing. Geopolitical tensions are rife in the region and impact from without. National Security has been at the forefront of thinking for many years.

The value of GNSS, geospatial technologies and geospatial data, including remote sensing, to the region’s civil market is increasingly being understood. For example, the World bank estimated the economic value of geospatial information and technologies to 7 sectors of Saudi Arabia (2022) at between 0.6% to 0.8% of Saudi GDP. Under the leadership of GEOSA, the Kingdom is taking steps to realise this value across all sectors. Other countries are taking similar steps.

Consider the region’s human and physical geography and one is quickly drawn towards GEOINT for national security. Long borders require security. Trade and oil can be impacted at one of several maritime chokepoints. Energy infrastructure is vital to energy producing nations and water to all. Regional rivalries and nuclear weapons development lead to strengthened intelligence requirements and cities are getting bigger and denser. GEOINT therefore matters in the region more than at anytime since GIS and remote sensing capabilities exploded 25 years ago.

Nation states increasingly seek independent, sovereign control over GEOINT and imagery tasking rather than relying on foreign partners. Most of this is for wider national benefit but national security is a major driver. There is therefore significant investment in sovereign GEOINT capabilities. Perhaps most notable in 2025 was Maxar Intelligence announcement that it had recently signed three multiyear contracts worth $204.7 million with undisclosed clients in the Middle East and Africa to enhance sovereign GEOINT capacity. These contracts provide direct access to high‑resolution satellite imagery, 3D terrain data, persistent monitoring and advanced analytics.

Three countries in Middle East have sovereign control. SaudiSat EO series gives Saudi Arabia 1m to 2.5m resolution imagery. In 2023, Bayanat, Yahsat, and ICEYE announced expansion of the UAE Earth‑Observation SAR constellation, explicitly to increase revisit rates and regional coverage. Turkey’s Göktürk‑1a is a true military reconnaissance satellite (0.8m resolution), believed to be nearing end-of-life 12 or so years after launch, and SAR is under development.

For Iran, the Russian-built, Iranian-operated Khayyam satellite was described as the first of several planned high-resolution satellites, although Russia is believed to retain final control of tasking so it is not truly sovereign.

Whilst GEOINT focus is often on high ticket items such as earth observation, equally important are the increasing use of AI for analysis and the integration of multiple sources of information using GIS technologies to deliver impact through quality GEOINT. In the Middle East these capabilities can lag the earth observation capabilities, especially the deployment of such capabilities down to battalion level as we see with USA and UK.

In recent years Middle Eastern countries have grown their GEOINT capabilities for national security but with one major difference over the earlier, similar, revolution in western countries – they are doing so ‘under fire’. This makes nations question how GEOINT is being used against them and whether they, in the pursuit of growth, risk opening up some geospatial data that should be protected.

I introduced this in my closing remarks at DGI 2025 and some western GEOINT leaders are now asking similar questions. In the Middle East this is discussed more openly - in 2025, UN GGIM Arab States ran a geospatial security workshop to increase awareness on this very subject.