Pakistani Dragon
Elite Member
Ask or is that already planned?
Joint Defense Agreement: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, news & updates
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Watandar
Trusted Member
A reason why Saudis are looking for additional protectors.
Pentagon weighing smaller U.S. military presence in Gulf once Iran war ends
The analysis, which the Defense Dept. said was not yet a formal review, will address whether to rebuild strike-battered bases, said people familiar with the matter.August 18, 2026 at 11:11 a.m. EDT35 minutes ago
President Donald Trump during a trip to al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on May 15. (Alex Brandon/AP)
By Noah Robertson
,
John Hudson
and
Susannah George
The Pentagon is evaluating its military footprint in the Middle East in an early sign of the Iran war’s potential to transform the U.S. presence in the region, according to eight people, including officials and others familiar with the matter.
One of the key areas the Defense Department is assessing is whether to pull back troops from the Persian Gulf, where America’s large overseas military bases have been battered by months of Iranian strikes, two people familiar with the ongoing analysis said.
The damage to these facilities has prompted a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region. The Defense Department has already signaled that it might not rebuild its bases as they were before the conflict.
U.S. military bases in and near the Middle East
The evaluation is being led by the Pentagon’s policy office, though a senior Pentagon official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive analysis, said that the Joint Staff and U.S. Central Command were also studying the issue.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had not yet ordered a formal review of U.S. posture in the region, the official said. Instead, the official cast the analysis as “prudent planning” that could eventually inform how the administration addresses whether to rebuild the bases damaged during the war.
“Decisions are going to have to be made on some of this stuff,” the official said.
U.S. Central Command, which runs U.S. military operations in the Middle East, normally stations about 40,000 troops across almost 20 sites in a 1,500-mile arc from Jordan to Oman.
Since early this year, the military has surged warships, fighters, air defense assets and other scarce military equipment to the region to defend U.S. forces and carry out more than 13,000 strikes against Iran.
America’s largest and most permanent bases in the Middle East are in the Persian Gulf, where Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and where other states, such as Kuwait, house Army and Air Force assets.
Allies in the Gulf have for decades depended on U.S. forces for their defense. Any regional drawdown could leave states unable to defend themselves against Iranian attacks. Investing in domestic capabilities or partnering with other powers to offset the shortfall could take months to years.
People familiar with the Pentagon’s analysis said the issue is likely to intensify a debate between camps within the administration that support military interventions and others that have argued the Pentagon should curtail some of its security commitments to refocus on defending the U.S. homeland or deterring more powerful adversaries, like China.
The discussions have also involved Adm. Bradley Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, who supports deliberations about potentially moving U.S. troops west from the Persian Gulf, said a U.S. official.
A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.
Before the start of the war in February, U.S. Central Command evacuated many of its bases, judging them too vulnerable to Iranian missile and drone attacks to maintain normal staffing levels. Some of the shifts away from the major Gulf facilities might last after the war, a person familiar with the posture adjustments said.
“Iran thinks we are in the traditional places,” the person said, declining to specify the changes so as not to put U.S. service members at risk. “And we are not.”
Trump and first lady Melania Trump in Dover, Delaware, on March 7, as a U.S. Army team moves a flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of a service member killed in a March 1 attack on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Six U.S. service members were killed in a March strike on Port Shuaiba, a military facility in Kuwait, and more than 200 U.S. facilities have been damaged or destroyed during the conflict, The Washington Post reported in May.
While defending its personnel in the region, the U.S. military has also expended more than 1,000 sophisticated air-defense interceptors, draining the Pentagon’s stockpile of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles, The Post reported in March.
“The war really did highlight the vulnerability ... of U.S. forces in the region,” said Michael Ratney, a former diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the deputy chief of mission in Qatar.
Moving troops and equipment further west to Jordan, Israel or the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia could help alleviate some of the pressure, he argued, while noting the added distance wasn’t a “perfect solution to this problem.”
Iran has already demonstrated it can strike faraway targets in Jordan and Israel. Last month an Iranian attack on Jordan killed four U.S. service members.
Tehran’s retaliatory attacks against bases in the Persian Gulf plunged the region into crisis and are stoking frustration among core U.S. allies there, who feel they were not properly consulted by the Trump administration before starting the war.
Allison Minor, who served during the first Trump administration as the director for Arabian Peninsula affairs on the National Security Council, said the Gulf countries could maintain elements of their security partnership with the U.S. — such as arms sales and intelligence sharing — while hosting a smaller troop presence.
“But you need to be discussing all of those comprehensively and not just the question of the sheer number of troops,” she said.
The Pentagon has publicly estimated that the war’s cost will reach about $37.5 billion by the end of September, but that price tag does not account for the money it will take to rebuild bases in the region.
Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s comptroller, told the Senate in May that the reconstruction costs were being left out because the administration has not yet decided how it wants to rebuild from the damage.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Pentagon on Feb. 5, weeks before the start of the Iran war. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
In April, the center-right American Enterprise Institute estimated it would cost $5 billion to repair the U.S. bases that have been targeted.
Multiple people familiar with the Pentagon’s analysis cautioned that any permanent changes to U.S. posture were still distant and would require the approval of senior administration officials.
In June, President Donald Trump signed a preliminary peace deal with Tehran and signaled that the war was coming to a close. The agreement later collapsed, and the two sides have sporadically exchanged strikes in the months since.
A recent policy proposal from Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for military restraint, calls for closing U.S. bases in close striking range of Iran’s missiles and drones, such as Kuwait. The proposal also calls for moving forces dispersed in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain to more secure facilities such as the Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh.
More hawkish voices in Washington have sought to influence the Pentagon’s planning by proposing the movement of U.S. troops in the region to Israel. A report by the pro-Israel group Jewish Institute for National Security of America in March called for more U.S. military assets to be moved to Israel’s Ovda Airbase.
This winter, in the run-up to Operation Epic Fury, Washington sent F-22 Raptor fighter jets to the base in a sign of deepening U.S.-Israel military relations.
There is disagreement within the Trump administration over that recommendation given concerns that an expanded U.S. presence there could pose a counterintelligence vulnerability amid the Pentagon’s growing concern about Israeli espionage.
Also, the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby has launched a public review of America’s military presence in NATO, after the Trump administration announced it was pulling thousands of troops out of Germany and Poland. The study is set to conclude in December.
Pakistani Dragon
Elite Member
In my humble opinion, that is something that has been pointed out a lot. But so far, only one country has actually used nuclear weapons in war, and that has never diminished the value of nuclear deterrence for China or Russia.
If anything, if anyone uses a nuclear weapon in a war, then the Americans might feel that their deterrence has been eroded or that they have been challenged, as they now have to factor in another country willing to use nuclear weapons.
Hakikat ve Hikmet
VIP Member
Yasser76
Elite Member
Man, the amount of utter and complete BS you spout stinks up every thread
El Sidd
Elite Member
He may well have been a figurehead head of state but his authority over religion was absolute. It will take decades to unravel the consequences of the wicked act of injustice.
SaadH
Elite Member
Because first and foremost Egyptian regime is zionist and then UAE cucks.
Secondly, Egypt knows this alliance will amount to nothing in practice. It is nothing but cannon fodder that Saudis need for their various misadventures in the region. Will Saudis send their F-15's to Pakistan if the latter comes under attack by Indians, highly doubt it. Will Saudis intercept Israeli assets overflying it's airspace to mount a stand off attack on Pakistan, even more unlikely.
mythbuster
Trusted Member
What consequences you are talking about ? Tell us about your deepest thoughts on this matter.
SaadH
Elite Member
Err no, Pakistan's current most powerful dictator in chief perhaps the most powerful in it's history is shia and so is the second most powerful man in the country his own salla, Naqvi. Pakistan's ruling elite civilian bureaucracy, media and industry has an over representation from people of the shia community. Pakistan's biggest city and it's financial hub/engine Karachi and the second biggest province is under Shia/PPP control for the last three decades.
Pakistan is far from Sunni country, more likely a hybrid country where Shias have disproportionate control/representation in the matters of state.
Oldenwisdom...قول بزرگ
Trusted Member
The MAD was devised after the initial use... established enough of a deterrent that during and now even after the cold war the two avoided any direct engagement.
The Evolution of Russian Nuclear Doctrine
In this paper, the evolution of Russian nuclear doctrine is examined, focusing on the implications of recent geopolitical developments, Russia's nuclear strategy and its flexibility in employing nuclear weapons.
www.rusi.org
Considering that both now have developed tactical nukes and doctrines surrounding them... Russia will only see fit using tactical nukes in Ukraine and Europe as a doctrinal validation. Something which US will pave the way, if they drop the threshold to such a low level. As Russia has shown and earlier fears were that given the kind of losses and persistent Ukrainian escalations will result in exactly that... yet didn't transpire... instead Ukraine kept pushing the envelope. Where Russia later moved some of it's nukes to Belarus and used Orshniks while giving prior warnings that they were not nuclear tipped. That is just one competing scenario where US is actively supporting a non nuclear weapons state against an established one.
The second scenario as I noted earlier was in North Korea... where it has developed and deployed nuclear weapons. As no peace treaty is in effect between the two and fear dictates the hermit kingdom. It prompts North Korea to use nukes at the onset instead of waiting for it...
North Korea lashes out at US ahead of wargames
The fiery statement comes two days after Pyongyang carried out its 11th missile launch of 2026.
www.newsweek.com
US tones down its drills
The escalation and miscalculation reaches it's ultimate end. Where choices become stark, a decision of life and death, and dithering becomes a liability. Iran not going nuclear was it's own fault... allowing it's deterrent to collapse even worse... which allowed zion to chip away at seems... US furthered it by series of calculations that have reached their crescendo in a nuclear flash point owing to a strategic defeat.
China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos
Satellite images show China is constructing a web of launch pads and other infrastructure near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the country’s longest-range missiles.
www.reuters.com
What all that does is play into Chinese insecurities... a nuclear possibility between Ukraine-Russia. A possible use by US/zion against Iran or a North Korean calculation that prompts it to fire first. The Chinese will be forced into a nightmare scenario they have been working towards for past decades. China will not wait for retaliation against North Korea that risks it's own survival.
This brinkmanship has an ending... and an orange painted clown is sitting at the helm!
El Sidd
Elite Member
The assassination of Khamanei has given new lease of life to revolutionary ideologies in the region. Revolutions fade away as political dogma by the 3rd generation, but this coup de gràce never took place. Instead we have 3rd generation revolutionaries who are now living the romanticised lives their grandparents told them as bedtime stories. The isolationist ideas shared by fringe elements of an already fringed society are a telling observation.
The term wicked and devilish were purposely used as this act is not from those who exercise patience as a virtue.
mythbuster
Trusted Member
Give your brain some rest bro ..too much brainstorming can turn people into looneys .
El Sidd
Elite Member
You classify the above as too much brainstorming? That is some integration to the American way.
