The U.S. Military Should Abandon Permanent Bases in the Middle East

Iranian missile and drone strikes have forced the U.S. military to evacuate major Persian Gulf air facilities, fundamentally disrupting a decades-old power projection model and prompting the Pentagon to weigh a drastic westward shift in its regional force posture.

For a generation, Washington relied on large, permanent regional bases under the assumption that they were secure from direct assault by the Islamic State and that Iran would avoid a sustained conventional attack. The Iran war has shattered that calculus. As Iranian munitions repeatedly hit core military installations, the U.S. armed forces have been compelled to abandon facilities operated for decades, leading military planners to evaluate whether to harden existing sites or move infrastructure further west toward Jordan and Israel.

Operations and Evacuations Under Fire

During the first 38 days of Operation Epic Fury, U.S. forces flew more than 10,200 sorties and conducted more than 13,500 strikes in one of the largest air campaigns in decades.

We are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces. It has, in fact,…

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The air campaign maintained its tempo because U.S. commanders rapidly relocated operations when forward hubs came under direct threat. Ahead of anticipated strikes against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar—the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East—personnel were pulled back, allowing the air war to be managed directly from Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. Consequently, when Iranian missiles struck Al Udeid’s Combined Air Operations Center, which had directed regional air campaigns since 2003, the facility was empty.

Logistical shifts mirrored the command relocations. Days before hostilities escalated, the Air Force began dispatching aerial refueling tankers to Israel’s Ben Gurion civilian airport. Operating from existing airfield infrastructure, these aircraft relied on specialized maintenance units and equipment brought in dynamically.

The conflict has demonstrated that sustaining combat operations depends less on massive permanent bases and more on maintaining flexible access across a diverse network of military and civilian airfields, alongside the logistical capacity to move aircraft, personnel, and munitions rapidly between them.

The Vulnerability of Fixed Positions

Permanent installations face inherent vulnerabilities that hardening and defense systems cannot entirely mitigate. Because fixed bases remain stationary for years, adversaries have ample time to map their layouts, infrastructure, and operational patterns.

On March 27, an Iranian strike destroyed an E-3 Sentry—one of the few command-and-control planes in the U.S. Air Force’s inventory—at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Additional strikes have targeted operational headquarters, aircraft hangars, barracks, and fuel depots across multiple installations, demonstrating precise targeting capability.

Defending these fixed positions has also generated severe asymmetric costs. In the first six weeks of the war, U.S. forces expended more than 1,000 interceptors, exhausting more than 40 percent of prewar Patriot stocks and about half of available THAAD stockpiles.

Hardening these bases through reinforced shelters and buried fuel tanks would require billions of dollars while failing to protect oversized assets like early-warning aircraft and tankers. Whether Washington chooses to absorb the massive expense of hardening facilities or continues burning through costly interceptors, the financial cost of defending stationary targets far outweighs the expense of Iran’s attacks.

Political Friction and Host-Country Access

Relocating permanent facilities westward to Jordan or Israel would merely move the geographic problem closer to Iranian missile ranges while compounding diplomatic risks. Israel’s military actions frequently complicate U.S. regional strategy. In August, an Israeli strike on a northern Syrian air base near the Turkish border occurred without prior notice to Washington—an operation the U.S. ambassador to Turkey termed an “unnecessary escalation” and suggested could be meant to bait Turkey, a NATO ally, into a wider war.

A permanent, expanded basing footprint in Israel would deepen American entanglement, exposing U.S. troops to retaliatory risks and straining diplomatic ties with Arab partner nations.

Furthermore, host-country access remains conditional rather than guaranteed. In May, as the U.S. military initiated operations to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz using aircraft stationed in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait temporarily restricted American access over concerns that Washington was downplaying Iranian threats against their territory.

Similarly, in July, Israel placed restrictions on the number of U.S. tankers permitted at Ben Gurion airport to avoid crowding out summer tourist traffic, forcing the Air Force to disperse its aircraft elsewhere. Both episodes underscore how quickly host governments can revoke or curtail access when national priorities diverge from Washington’s objectives.

Diversifying Options Without Permanent Footprints

Rather than investing billions in repairing Gulf bases or establishing new permanent facilities further west, defense planners face an opportunity to adopt a lighter, more modular posture. This approach relies on securing access to a distributed network of civilian and military airfields across Europe, the Gulf, and the periphery of the Middle East.

While some locations would function as major logistical hubs equipped with heavy cargo-handling and fuel infrastructure, others might require little more than a lit runway, parking ramp space, and pre-positioned munitions, with U.S. personnel deployed strictly during acute crises. By purchasing temporary operational access rather than maintaining standing garrisons, Washington can preserve strategic flexibility while eliminating the political and economic overhead of permanent peacetime deployment.

Keeping the bulk of forces stationed in the United States improves overall readiness and training depth, while pre-positioning critical equipment and fuel regionally provides a viable hedge against sudden contingencies. As regional missile arsenals expand and sensor technology advances, the traditional deterrent value of large permanent bases has diminished, leaving Washington to evaluate whether its historical basing architecture serves contemporary security requirements.