After weeks of Iranian missile and drone attacks exposed the vulnerability of major U.S. military bases across the Gulf, the Pentagon is weighing whether decades of relying on large, permanent installations within range of Iranian weapons still makes strategic sense.
Defense officials are considering dispersing some capabilities and reassessing parts of the U.S. regional base posture, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The Gulf base network is how the U.S. responds quickly to Iran, protects shipping lanes, reassures Arab partners and keeps pressure on ISIS and al Qaeda. If the Pentagon reduces or disperses that footprint, it could make U.S. forces harder to hit â but also slower to surge in a crisis.
For decades, the tradeoff was straightforward: the closer U.S. forces were to the fight, the faster they could respond. But Operation Epic Fury reignited a long-running debate over whether concentrating aircraft, ships, command centers and thousands of troops at a handful of large Gulf bases had become an increasingly dangerous liability in an era of precision missiles and drones.
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Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said the military already has started relying more heavily on alternate command-and-control locations â the headquarters and communications hubs commanders use to direct military operations â and rotating forces rather than concentrating capabilities at a handful of installations close to Iran.Â
“We’re not relying on them in the same way that we did before the war,” Montgomery told Fox News Digital. “I think we are going to reposition these forces.”
The Pentagon has spent decades building a network of Gulf bases designed to put aircraft, ships and troops within minutes of potential crises across the Middle East. That strategy relied on concentrating combat power at a handful of large installations that offered unmatched access to the region.
But during Operation Epic Fury, Iran launched repeated missile and drone attacks against some of the Pentagon’s most important regional installations, including Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
While U.S. and partner air defenses intercepted many incoming weapons and casualties remained limited, the attacks demonstrated that virtually every major American operating hub in the Gulf now sits within range of Iranian missiles and drones.
U.S. forces in the Middle East have endured rocket and drone attacks for years, many carried out by Iranian-backed proxy groups against individual outposts in Iraq and Syria. Operation Epic Fury marked a broader test of the Pentagon’s regional basing model, with Iran directly targeting multiple major air and naval hubs that underpin U.S. military operations across the Gulf.
Naval Support Activity Bahrain alone sustained extensive damage to command facilities and communications infrastructure, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since the conflict began Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 400 wounded, with most wounded returning to duty. Â
Many of the fatalities resulted from a small number of attacks, including a missile strike in Kuwait and an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
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