Years of warnings that key U.S. air bases in the Persian Gulf were vulnerable to Iranian missiles and drones are facing new scrutiny after an Iranian strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia damaged U.S. aircraft and wounded U.S. troops.
The latest attack on March 27 wounded at least 10 U.S. service members, including two seriously, and damaged several U.S. refueling aircraft, according to U.S. officials.
The strike has intensified questions about why a long-discussed plan to shift critical aircraft and support functions farther west in Saudi Arabia, away from Iran and closer to the Red Sea, was never carried out despite repeated advocacy from senior U.S. commanders.
Military officials had pushed for what became known as a western basing network, arguing it would provide more standoff from Iran, reduce dependence on Gulf bases that sit close to Iranian missile, and drone launch points and lessen the need to move forces and equipment through the Strait of Hormuz in a crisis.
"There is a consequence of not being able to operate from a western defense network location, which would have provided us with some additional standoff from Iranian capabilities," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas Bergeson told The Wall Street Journal.
"Your options are more limited, and therefore you have to take a little more risk than perhaps you would have wanted to."
The idea gained traction during President Donald Trump's first term, when Gen. Frank McKenzie, then head of U.S. Central Command, raised the issue with Pentagon officials, and his successor, Gen. Eric Kurilla, continued pressing for it after McKenzie retired.
But the proposal stalled as both the Trump and Biden administrations emphasized military competition with China in the Indo-Pacific, while diplomatic strains with Saudi Arabia, uncertainty over who would pay for new infrastructure, and the region's shifting wars complicated the effort.
Retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie has argued that more fundamental changes are still needed, including broader access to bases farther from Iran in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Egypt.
"The number of Iranian weapons that could reach them would be significantly reduced, warning times would be increased and the Iranians would have a targeting problem in ascertaining from which bases U.S. aircraft operated," he wrote in a 2024 article for Military Times.
"More air bases in western Saudi Arabia would add depth, dispersal, survivability, and avoid the Hormuz chokepoint," David Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general and dean of the Mitchell Institute, told the Journal. "They wouldn't be invulnerable, but air bases are also very hard to shut down."
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has since moved to make U.S. forces less predictable and less exposed as Iran's missile and drone campaign continues to test U.S. defenses and interceptor inventories across the region.
"One of the biggest principles you learn in the military is to not set patterns, predictable patterns," Hegseth said. "Commanders are working hard to adjust in real time with those systems and make sure they're in the right places and not easily targetable."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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