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The United Arab Emirates was long considered an untouchable island of stability, peace, and prosperity. But since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, the latter has been pummeling the UAE with missiles and drones because of its close and long-standing security partnership with the United States. Now, the UAE, including its crown jewel, Dubai, is badly battered. Although businesses are trying to stick it out, thousands of residents have fled, and tourism is at a standstill. Seaborne trade—including oil and liquefied natural gas exports, along with vital food and other imports—has largely stopped due to Iran’s quasi-closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is all the more worrisome because energy exports, together with the financial, technology, logistics, and service industries centered in Dubai, are the nation’s lifeblood. Beyond the economic costs, the UAE’s aura of splendid isolation from the region’s turmoil has been smashed for many years to come—perhaps irreparably so.

Another place shares some uncomfortable parallels with Dubai and the UAE: Singapore. The city-state at the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific similarly serves as a global financial and tourism hub. Because of its small size—roughly the size of Bahrain, with a population of just over 6 million—it mostly lacks natural resources of its own and is thus highly dependent on unimpeded trade to provide critical goods. Just like the UAE, Singapore maintains a strong, albeit quiet, security partnership with Washington. Although Singapore does not allow U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, it buys much of its military equipment from the United States, conducts extensive joint exercises with the U.S. military, and provides maintenance and logistics support to the U.S. Navy at Changi Naval Base.

The United Arab Emirates was long considered an untouchable island of stability, peace, and prosperity. But since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, the latter has been pummeling the UAE with missiles and drones because of its close and long-standing security partnership with the United States. Now, the UAE, including its crown jewel, Dubai, is badly battered. Although businesses are trying to stick it out, thousands of residents have fled, and tourism is at a standstill. Seaborne trade—including oil and liquefied natural gas exports, along with vital food and other imports—has largely stopped due to Iran’s quasi-closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is all the more worrisome because energy exports, together with the financial, technology, logistics, and service industries centered in Dubai, are the nation’s lifeblood. Beyond the economic costs, the UAE’s aura of splendid isolation from the region’s turmoil has been smashed for many years to come—perhaps irreparably so.

Another place shares some uncomfortable parallels with Dubai and the UAE: Singapore. The city-state at the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific similarly serves as a global financial and tourism hub. Because of its small size—roughly the size of Bahrain, with a population of just over 6 million—it mostly lacks natural resources of its own and is thus highly dependent on unimpeded trade to provide critical goods. Just like the UAE, Singapore maintains a strong, albeit quiet, security partnership with Washington. Although Singapore does not allow U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, it buys much of its military equipment from the United States, conducts extensive joint exercises with the U.S. military, and provides maintenance and logistics support to the U.S. Navy at Changi Naval Base.

Perhaps most worryingly, Singapore sits alongside a strategic waterway that could be leveraged for military purposes, just like Iran’s partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The latter has now become the key flashpoint of the war. Singapore’s strategic channel, the Strait of Malacca, offers an even more extreme set of precarious circumstances: Winding along Singapore’s southern coastline, the strait is the main maritime artery connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans. It is the most heavily trafficked maritime route in the world, accounting for between a quarter and a third of global trade. This normally includes an estimated 23 million to 29 million barrels of oil per day, or about 30 to 45 percent of global seaborne oil trade.

Malacca isn’t just busier and more geostrategically vital than Hormuz; it is also narrower and hence more vulnerable to disruption. At its narrowest point, between Iran and Oman, the Strait of Hormuz is approximately 21 miles wide. That contrasts with 1.7 to 1.8 miles for the Strait of Malacca’s narrowest section between Singapore and Indonesia. The problem for Singapore is that having a close security partnership with the United States while bordering a geostrategic chokepoint could be a lethal combination.

As great-power competition intensifies between the United States and China, both nations have considered how the other side might attempt to control or close Malacca on its own terms, as Iran is doing now in Hormuz. Chinese experts actually have a term to describe the Chinese economy’s potential Achilles’s heel: the Malacca dilemma. An esimated 60 percent of all Chinese trade transits this channel. Even more alarming for Beijing: Approximately 80 percent of China’s crude oil imports flow through the strait as well.

Beijing would have to figure out how to continue importing oil and other natural resources, to both supply its economy and stay in a war with the United States. In the case of a successful U.S. blockade of Malacca, Beijing would have to use other sea routes—mainly the Sunda and Lombok straits through the Indonesian archipelago farther south—that would add time and cost to transits. As a possible alternative, Beijing has sought to construct a canal over Thailand’s Kra Isthmus. It has also invested in overland oil and gas pipelines, as well as a strategic petroleum reserve.

Washington has to pay close attention to the Strait of Malacca as well. The idea of maintaining freedom of navigation along strategic waterways—including the Red Sea and now Hormuz—has remained a key feature of U.S. policy across multiple administrations. Without full access to Malacca, the U.S. Navy would have less flexibility in redeploying maritime assets

In a recent example of how the Strait of Malacca facilitates U.S. military deployment, Trump ordered a U.S. Marine expeditionary unit based in Okinawa, Japan, to head to the Middle East—possibly for ground operations to seize Iran’s Kharg Island or its shoreline along the Strait of Hormuz. The shortest sea route through Malacca already takes one to two weeks; were that path blocked, the Marines would take even longer to arrive at their destination.

Singapore’s strategic location and close security partnership with the United States open the possibility of China making an attack on Singapore part of any war plan, in order to prevent the city-state from blockading China’s trade and supporting U.S. military operations. During the current Middle East war, the UAE is facing the same predicament—becoming part of Iran’s war plan—with catastrophic consequences.

To be sure, there are also good reasons for China not to attack Singapore. The city-state has a shared Chinese culture and strong people-to-people ties, is formally nonaligned, and maintains a working relationship with the Chinese military. That said, China sees a war against Taiwan—not to mention against the United States—as existential, which would likely remove any reluctance to attack regional neighbors perceived to be colluding with the enemy.

This was precisely Iran’s explanation for attacking the UAE. After all, it is Oman that actually borders the narrowest point of the Strait of Hormuz, yet Iran has barely struck the country. What likely accounts for the difference is that Tehran clearly views the UAE as firmly aligned with the United States.

In the end, Singapore is less like Oman and more like the UAE. That should be a cause for concern if great-power conflict comes to the Indo-Pacific. Singapore’s best option is probably to stay the course and elevate its role as a convener of negotiations between the great powers, with the goal of avoiding war entirely. The city-state should also quietly engage with allies and partners in scenario-planning exercises, including through the Five Power Defence Arrangements (a security forum that joins Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore), alongside other partners such as India, Japan, and the United States. Above all, Singapore must remain eyes wide open about its geopolitical future. The stakes are simply too high.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.