From Britain to the Gulf, America's overseas bases are becoming liabilities

For decades, United States military bases scattered around the world allowed Washington to wage faraway wars and protect its allies. But after the war with Iran, that calculation is changing — for the friendly countries hosting the bases, and for Washington itself.

Late one morning in March 1999, a US B-52 bomber took off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, headed southeast. Seven more jets followed at two-minute intervals. It was the start of the US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, in which Fairford served as a pivotal launchpad for American jets and as a fuel station for fighter planes.

The same base had served a similar role during the Gulf War in 1991 and again during the 2003 Iraq war. It was also used in the early stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28, 2026.

But in October, the US pulled all 12 of its B-1 Lancer bombers from Fairford, amid fears that they were no longer safe there from a growing Iranian threat. Days earlier, British security forces had made several arrests, and the British government accused Iran of being behind a plot to target the base — a charge Tehran has denied.

Fairford is not alone. Earlier this month, the US withdrew a dozen planes from another British base, RAF Mildenhall. And in July, reports said the US had relocated many of its military assets from its Gulf bases that were badly hit by Iran, moving them instead to bases in Jordan, while also considering a proposal to shift them to Israel.

According to analysts, Iran's ability to severely damage US facilities in the Middle East during the war, and to pose a threat as far as the UK, has for the first time turned these critical strategic assets into potential liabilities, both for American allies and for the US itself.

“The US security umbrella is becoming a double-edged sword,” Simon Mabon, a professor of international politics at Lancaster University, said. “When the security of US bases is called into question, it changes Washington's calculation of their strategic benefits. It also gives European and Gulf states reason to think seriously about the bases, given that they are becoming targets.”

Hosting American bases has long been perceived as integral to how US allies in Europe, the Gulf or East Asia deter threats they themselves face. Former President Barack Obama once spoke of an “ironclad commitment” to Gulf security, while Britain regularly invokes its so-called “special relationship” with the United States.

But a spate of recent security incidents, many linked to the war on Iran, is testing that narrative and raising questions about whose interests these commitments serve, and whether hosting American forces could be bringing danger closer to home.

US prosecutors have charged three men they describe as Iranian-backed operatives over their alleged roles in plotting nearly 20 attacks across the United States and Europe, including on RAF Fairford.

In the Gulf, Iran explicitly cited the presence of US bases as justification for targeting its neighbours, bombing Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Iran also bombed Oman, which does not have a permanent US base, and Jordan and Iraq, beyond the Gulf, which do host major US military facilities.

A report by the Pentagon's watchdog released in September revealed that Iranian attacks damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US military installations in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Oman.