Gulf states must rethink trillion-dollar defence after US-Iran war
IISS report finds, 4,670 Iranian drones and 1,400 ballistic missiles exposed five shortfalls, energy damage estimate reaches 58 billion dollars
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A fire near Dubai international airport in March after a ‘drone-related incident’ set a fuel tank alight. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
theguardian.com
Flights were suspended at Dubai’s international airport in March after the attack. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
theguardian.com
Gulf states must reconfigure their trillion-dollar defence architecture in light of the US-Iran war, according to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Twelve regional states, predominantly in the Gulf, faced 4,670 Iranian one-way attack drones and over 1,400 ballistic missiles in the weeks before the April 8 ceasefire — nearly half aimed at the United Arab Emirates. One estimate cited in the report puts damage to energy infrastructure as high as $58bn.
The report identifies five shortfalls: overwhelming reliance on US-supplied air- and missile-defense systems and munitions; failure to achieve regional defence integration; a shortage of minesweeping capability — a gap now on weekly display in the Strait of Hormuz; limited retaliatory options of their own; and prohibitive costs from overdependence on expensive high-end systems. The core finding is that decades of massive weapons purchases have not translated into protection when it mattered: long-standing security partnerships with Washington, the report states, "have failed to ensure adequate protection against Iranian aggression," while US bases gave Tehran "another pretext for attacks against the Gulf states." Public opinion in the Gulf, the IISS notes, is shifting from viewing the US as security provider to strategic liability.
Iran, for its part, would cast any US force reduction or withdrawal as a strategic success and a vindication of its steadfastness — and use it to embarrass the Gulf states about their decades-long courtship of American protection. That gives Washington's own domestic calendar strategic weight: every reassurance about staying carries an expiry date set in Washington, not Riyadh or Abu Dhabi.
US senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, described a debate inside the US military over whether to rebuild damaged Gulf bases at all, given that Gulf leaders want a continued American presence. His framing was blunt: if a base can be wiped off the map within 24 hours of a hot war starting, rebuilding it would be criminally incompetent stewardship of taxpayer dollars. The bases, like the weapons that failed to protect them, were bought on the understanding that the seller would stay.