US ponders reducing military footprint in Persian Gulf, relocate troops after Epic Fury

The Pentagon is considering reducing its military footprint in the Persian Gulf following the scale of destruction caused during Operation Epic Fury reported Washington Post. The consideration remains in the initial phase between the Pentagon's policy wing, alongside the joint staff and the US Central Command. They are considering a potential configuration of the US military, once the hostilities cease, whether to repair and reconstruct these severely compromised bases in their current form. The deliberations are yet to reach US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.

US military positions in the Persian Gulf

The US maintains over 40,000 personnel in the region across nearly 20 installations, from Jordan to Oman. Roughly 20 major sites are spread across the region.

Bahrain is the Naval centrepiece, as the official headquarters for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). It coordinates all the maritime corridors from the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea to the Red Sea. Other US Army and Air Force assets are stationed across Kuwait, Qatar, and neighbouring Gulf nations. Situated in Doha, Qatar, is the Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military base in the Middle East, and it acts as the forward headquarters for US Central Command (CENTCOM).

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The recent "special military operation" in the Gulf has exposed the vulnerabilities of these US facilities, with incoming Iranian missiles targeting a total of 200 US military installations, and six American service members killed in March. The Pentagon has expended over 1,000 advanced air-defence interceptors, severely straining global stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD systems. The Pentagon projects that the Iran war will tally approximately $37.5 billion by late September, excluding the cost required to reconstruct heavily compromised complexes

The scale of damage has made the Pentagon official reconsider the deployment and positioning of the assets. A section of the Pentagon is considering repositioning military personnel and hardware further westward towards Jordan, Israel or Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. Some discussions centre on the closure of bases in Kuwait, while transferring forces from the UAE, Jordan, and Bahrain to safer zones outside the range of Iranian missiles and drones. A separate recommendation envisions relocating additional US military capabilities to Israel's Ovda Airbase, though there are concerns about Israeli espionage and exposure to counterintelligence.

What does it mean for Tehran?

The Gulf nations have been substantially dependent on the US capability to provide security. Some of them are unorthodox cities with no domestic capabilities and possess no traditional source of food and water. They depend heavily on the trade routes to maintain the illusion of being safe financial hubs in the desert. Now, a US reduction of troops will not explicitly strain the relationship, but pragmatically they would turn towards the next bigger power in the region, Iran, for security. So the war might allow Iran to emerge as one pole of power in the Gulf, while Israel might absorb the US military capability, entangle itself within the US military-industrial network and emerge as another pole.