Gulf states must rethink trillion-dollar defences in light of US-Iran war, says IISS report

Gulf states are going to have to reconfigure their trillion-dollar defences, according to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The report points to the damage inflicted on their economies and the questionable continued value of US bases in the face of Iranian attack.

The report says that in the weeks before the 8 April ceasefire, 12 regional states, overwhelmingly in the Gulf, faced 4,670 Iranian one-way attack drones and more than 1,400 ballistic missiles. Nearly half of them were aimed at the United Arab Emirates.

Although the vast majority of the attacks were repelled, one estimate of the damage to energy infrastructure cited by the report is put as high as $58bn (£43bn).

The report highlights what it calls another uncomfortable truth for the Gulf states: their trillion-dollar acquisition of US weapons has not translated into US protection at the crucial time, and their militaries are also not adequately prepared for the new kind of attritional air war to which they are being exposed.

The study identifies significant shortcomings, including overwhelming reliance on US-supplied air- and missile-defence systems and munitions, a failure to achieve regional defence integration, a shortage of minesweeping capability, and limited retaliatory options.

It also points to the prohibitive costs stemming from an overdependence on expensive, high-end systems to take down relatively inexpensive drones and missiles.

The report is neutral on whether the divided Gulf states should seek a new non-aggression pact with Iran, but it notes that the US-Iran war has shown that longstanding defence and security partnerships with the US have failed to ensure adequate protection against Iranian aggression. It adds that US military bases and defence partnerships with the US have provided Iran with another pretext for attacks against the Gulf states.

Public opinion on the US in the Gulf has also been shifting, the report says, from security provider to strategic liability.

According to the study, any reduction or withdrawal of US forces from the region would be portrayed by Iran as a strategic success and vindication of its steadfastness, and would also be used to embarrass the Gulf states about their decades-long courtship of US protection.

The study comes after Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a debate was under way in the US military about the value of seeking to rebuild the damaged US bases in the Gulf. Murphy said the Gulf state leadership wants the US to rebuild and to keep a presence in the region.

Murphy asked: 'What good is it to have a base in the region to protect American interests if within 24 hours of a hot war starting, it is wiped off the map?' He added: 'We would be criminally incompetent as stewards of taxpayer dollars if we were to rebuild bases that are blown up within hours of the next war starting.'

Murphy suggested the US is going to have to have a smaller footprint in the region, and the limiting principle on the footprint it rebuilds will be 'what can we protect?', because it clearly cannot protect the scope of its footprint today, and if it cannot protect it, it is useless. He also suggested that, at the very least, the US may need to relocate its bases in the eastern Mediterranean further away from Iranian missiles.