Security issues in the Middle East are highly variable. Using Buzan and Waever’s definition as its starting point, this paper seeks to demonstrate that, in the face of cybersecurity threats to national security, Middle Eastern governments respond according to their traditional strategic identities. The case of Saudi Arabia is particularly helpful in understanding the logic behind the integration of cybersecurity into national security approaches in the Persian/Arabian Gulf regional sub-system due to the country’s dominant strategic position. Two questions arise from this analysis : the first is strictly theoretical and queries the culturalist interpretation of the strategies developed in response to growing cybersecurity threats in the Middle East. The second looks at regional subsystem dynamics and the systemic tensions that result when the interdependence of state actors comes into conflict with their search for national security.