Gulf States Will Need to Rethink Defences After Iran War, Study Says
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a research body, has published a study saying Gulf states will have to reconfigure what it calls their trillion-dollar defences. The report points to economic damage from the conflict and to doubts about whether US military bases in the region remain worth their cost against Iranian attack. The Guardian reported on the study on 30 October 2026.
The report describes the scale of the attacks. In the weeks before an 8 April ceasefire, a pause in fighting, 12 regional states, mostly in the Gulf, faced 4,670 Iranian one-way attack drones, which are uncrewed aircraft that are destroyed when they strike. Those states also faced more than 1,400 Iranian ballistic missiles. Nearly half of the drones and missiles were aimed at the United Arab Emirates. The vast majority were repelled.
The damage was not only military. Flights were suspended at Dubai's international airport in March after the attack. The report cites one estimate putting damage to energy infrastructure as high as $58bn (£43bn).
The IISS identifies several shortcomings in Gulf defences. Among them, it says the states depend heavily on US-supplied air and missile defence systems and munitions, and that they have not achieved integrated defence across the region. It also cites a shortage of minesweeping capability, limited options for retaliation, and high costs from relying on expensive, high-end systems to bring down comparatively cheap drones and missiles. In the report's assessment, Gulf militaries are not adequately prepared for a new kind of attritional air war, one fought through sustained attacks that wear down defences over time.
On the US relationship, the report states that the Gulf states' trillion-dollar purchases of US weapons did not translate into US protection at the crucial time. It says long-standing defence partnerships with Washington did not ensure adequate protection against Iranian aggression. It also argues that US bases and defence ties gave Iran another pretext for attacks on the Gulf states, and that public opinion in the Gulf is shifting from seeing the US as a security provider to seeing it as a strategic liability. According to the report, Iran would portray any reduction or full withdrawal of US forces as a strategic success and vindication of its steadfastness.
US voices are divided too. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a debate is under way in the US military about whether rebuilding damaged US bases in the Gulf is worthwhile. He said Gulf leaders want the US to rebuild and keep a presence in the region. He questioned what good a base can do to protect American interests if it is wiped off the map within 24 hours of a hot war starting, and said the US will need a smaller footprint in the region, limited by what it can protect.
The report does not take a position on whether the divided Gulf states should seek a new non-aggression pact with Iran.
