US forces enter daily air-defence combat in Middle East

Iran’s retaliatory missile launches have pushed US forces into what a US official described to Business Insider as active air-defence operations across the Middle East, involving American air, land and naval units. More than a dozen US warships, including two aircraft carriers, are operating in the region as US bases and embassies brace for further strikes. The escalation follows President Donald Trump’s announcement early Saturday that the US had begun “major combat operations” in Iran after Israeli “preemptive” strikes.

The practical shift is not the headline-grabbing strike package; it is the new baseline. Once missiles start flying at fixed installations, defending them becomes a daily, budgeted activity rather than a one-off crisis response. The US presence in Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan—anchored by Al Udeid Air Base, the Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, and the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base—turns from deterrent posture into a set of predictable targets. Embassy warnings telling Americans to “shelter in place” are the civilian-facing layer of the same reality: bases, ports and airfields now require continuous protection, constant alerting, and a larger footprint of sensors, interceptors, maintenance and crews.

Air defence also has an arithmetic that favours the attacker. Intercepting missiles and drones consumes expensive munitions, scarce radar time, and trained operators; launching them can be cheaper, repeatable, and politically deniable. The official’s description—multiple services engaged simultaneously—implies a distributed, persistent fight: ships providing layered coverage, aircraft patrolling, and ground batteries defending facilities that cannot move. Even when intercepts succeed, the cost is real and recurring, and the operational tempo wears down equipment and personnel.

Washington’s institutions are built to absorb that kind of mission creep. Regional commanders can justify additional assets and authorities; defence contractors sell replenishment and upgrades; allied governments can point to the threat environment to lock in long-term basing arrangements. The bill is paid through appropriations that spread costs across taxpayers, while the immediate risk concentrates on deployed troops and the host countries that become the geography of retaliation.

The US has now carried out direct military action against Iran twice in less than a year, after a June 2025 strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities and this weekend’s operation. In Doha, Manama and Amman, the same fixed installations remain on the map, and the interceptors have to be ready again tomorrow.