US built network of military bases around Iran, now they themselves turn out to be targets
The US Navy is investigating whether its main naval base in the Middle East should still be repaired. The damage Iran caused to the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain during the first months of the war is so extensive that naval ships can no longer dock there.
"They blew the hell out of Bahrain," said the US acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao last week strikingly candidly about the Iranian attacks on the Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the NSA.
The base in the capital Manama was for decades the nerve center of the US Navy in the Middle East. Cao said a special task force is now investigating what should be done with the heavily damaged base and whether repair still makes sense.
'Strategic gain'
But the problems for the Americans go far beyond the physical damage. According to Andreas Krieg, lecturer in security studies at King's College London, Iran has mainly shown that the large US bases in the Gulf are no longer the safe places they were for years.
"The real strategic gain for Tehran is that bases that used to be considered relatively safe rear areas must now be regarded as part of the battlefield," Krieg told NOS.
According to him, Iran does not even need to destroy an entire base. "It only needs to cause enough recurring disruption to make the use of those bases more expensive and politically more difficult." And Iran has succeeded well in that.
Pentagon acknowledges destruction
For the first time, the Pentagon itself has also given an impression of the extent of the damage. The Inspector General of the US Department of Defense wrote in a report published yesterday that Iran destroyed "hundreds of buildings and structures" on US bases in the first months of the war.
Besides Bahrain, US bases in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iraq, and Jordan were also damaged. According to the report, dozens of military aircraft were lost, possibly even thirty MQ-9 drones.
The human toll among the Americans was also significant. Since the start of the war on February 28, eighteen soldiers have died, most from enemy fire. Hundreds of soldiers were wounded.
'Fewer bases, more dispersion'
The report also exposes the vulnerability of US air defense. Patriot and THAAD missiles with which the bases are protected are expensive, limited in availability, and much harder to produce than the drones and missiles Iran fires at them. The Pentagon acknowledges in the report that the intensive use of the defense missiles has "led to strategic shortages."
This presents the Americans with a dilemma. They can concentrate aircraft and soldiers at a smaller number of secured bases, but then those become extra attractive targets. Or they can spread equipment, but then air defense and additional logistics must also be distributed over more locations.
"The US will probably do both," says Krieg. "Maintain a smaller number of heavily protected bases while spreading important resources and crucial functions over a larger and more flexible network."
How such a future might look is already visible at Al Udeid in Qatar, the largest US Air Force base in the Middle East, according to Krieg. Several Iranian missiles hit the Combined Air Operations Center there, from which the US directed air operations in the region for over twenty years.
The command center was so heavily damaged that it could no longer be used. As a precaution, the Americans had already moved crucial command functions to the US.
"Al Udeid remains enormously important but can no longer be seen as the untouchable brain of the US Air Force in the region," says Krieg. "It is increasingly becoming one part of a dispersed network, rather than its indispensable center."
Relocation, possibly to Europe
According to Krieg, the US presence in the region will permanently change as a result of the war. Large bases will not disappear, but more command functions and equipment will be spread over smaller locations further away from Iran, possibly even in Europe.
"Washington can repair buildings, replace radars, and rebuild hangars," says Krieg. "Much harder to restore is the assumption that US troops can easily and safely concentrate close to Iran."
According to Krieg, this will make the US military presence "smaller, more dispersed, and more dependent on regional partners." And that change, he says, is likely to be permanent.