Former CIA Director David Petraeus: U.S. Bases in Eastern Gulf Countries No Longer Viable
Former CIA Director David Petraeus stated that U.S. bases in Eastern Gulf countries are no longer viable, with many assets previously stationed there having been relocated.
In the Global Gambit program, he directly linked this assessment to Iran's attacks on U.S. military bases: locations and critical infrastructure are leveraged to threaten bases and strike energy facilities. Specific damaged or attacked sites include multiple bases in Jordan, Ahmed Al Jaber and Ali Al Salem in Kuwait, Sheikh Isa in Bahrain and assets related to the Fifth Fleet, Al Minhad and Al Dhafra in the UAE, the largest U.S. facility in Qatar, Al Udeid, and warehouse facilities in Erbil, Iraq.
Energy leverage has shifted to Ras Laffan in Qatar. Petraeus noted that the related strikes have caused about 15% to 17% of Qatar's liquefied natural gas capacity to be offline for three to five years. Qatar Energy previously reported that two LNG production lines and a gas-to-liquids facility were damaged, resulting in approximately 12.8 million tons of annual capacity offline and an estimated annual revenue loss of about $20 billion. They have also declared force majeure on long-term contracts to Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China; the destruction of cold boxes is key to prolonging repairs. The Strait of Hormuz has also been obstructed, locking down export routes and capacity.
He also pointed out that interception costs are unsustainable: the U.S. may have used about half of its missile interceptors in this conflict, and using expensive interceptors against an Iranian drone costing about $50,000 is "clearly unsustainable," calling for a shift to a Ukraine-style low-cost drone attrition strategy. Ukraine can deploy tens of thousands of low-cost drones daily, striking oil storage and refineries within a 3,000 km range.
The structure of Gulf forces is being rewritten. The Pentagon has discussed decentralized deployments, moving command nodes westward, and increasing rotations instead of continuing to pile aircraft, ships, and command centers in large permanent bases within the range of Iranian missiles. Some supplies for the Fifth Fleet have already been routed through Diego Garcia; analysts believe that large concentrated bases are "monuments of old thinking," and the costs of rebuilding may accelerate existing contractions. Host countries have found that hosting U.S. forces turns their energy hubs into equivalent targets.
In market mechanisms, this is a repricing of war-driven security premiums. Buyers are Eurasian importers urgently needing alternative gas sources and U.S. defense budgets wanting to diversify troop risks, while sellers include U.S. shale gas exports, Qatar's stake in Golden Pass in Texas, and pipelines and ports that can bypass Hormuz. Funding is shifting from building fixed bases in the Gulf to replenishing interceptors, drone inventories, and more western rotation nodes. Beneficiaries are the U.S. LNG export chain and transshipment ports that can bypass the strait, while those under pressure are long-term customers during the repair cycle at Ras Laffan and host countries still tying security to exposed bases.
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This is not the first time Petraeus has assessed Gulf deployments. He previously served as the commander of Central Command, and Al Udeid was the forward base of that system. His current judgment essentially declares the centralized large bases he once commanded as outdated: permanent encampments within range have turned from deterrent assets into hostages. The relocation of assets does not mean a withdrawal from the Middle East, but rather moving things that can be priced by a wave of missiles, leaving access rights, pre-positioned equipment, and rotations.
Capital pathways follow the damaged cold boxes. The two production lines in Ras Laffan, co-owned with ExxonMobil, will be offline for three to five years, while Qatar reduces production domestically and allows shipments from Golden Pass in Texas, effectively shifting some pricing power to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, U.S. interceptor stocks are being consumed by drones, and the next defense dollars will flow into cheap drone manufacturing rather than building another exposed runway. Petraeus, with KKR background, also discusses alternative ports and pipelines to the strait, indicating that capital is already pricing "bypassing the Gulf."
The analogy is the contraction of fixed carrier ports after World War II and large troop deployments in Europe after the Cold War: as threats shifted from long-range air forces to short-range precision fire, concentrated bases depreciated first. In similar assessments, analysts like Hal Brands also advocate shifting focus out of short-range missile ranges. The industry phase is moving from controlling the strait to controlling mobile delivery rights, with expansion ending and restructuring beginning.
Structural judgments belong to the reconstruction of the industrial chain combined with regulatory changes. The mechanism is that old contracts where host countries exchanged bases for U.S. protection are being torn apart by precise strikes: the larger the base, the more likely the country's energy facilities become equivalent targets. Troops, LNG, and strait passage are tied to the same risk sheet; whoever moves capacity and command centers out of this sheet first regains pricing power.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Bases that cannot be driven away will ultimately become hostages.
- When energy hubs and military hubs overlap, they will be priced together.
- Before interceptors are exhausted, cheap drones have already rewritten the military budget.