Midweek Update #22: The American Age in the Persian Gulf Is Over
The US is Running Out Of Weapons, Pulling Out Forces, And Losing The Faith Of The Region's States. That Will Not Be Easily Undone
Hi All,
Well as Trump’s War with Iran has now gone on for almost six months, certain realities are obvious. These realities mean the USA has lost the war, that Iran will emerge, in the short term at least, in a stronger position and that, most likely, the wider Persian Gulf region will be altered strategically, perhaps forever. I say these “realities” because even though the negotiations (of some sort) are still going on, the war has already caused some dramatic changes that cannot be undone quickly—if at all. And those changes are heralds of what is to come, not roadblocks on the way back to what was.
This is momentous. Since the end of World War II, or at least since the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the USA has become the dominant outside security player in the region. It overthrew governments, it made massive military sales (more on that below), it established military bases and it also fought shorter wars (First Gulf War) and decades-long wars (War on Terror/Afghanistan) to impose its influence.
The USA even had one of its most important, if less well-known, foreign policy doctrines aimed precisely at the region: the Carter Doctrine. Announced in the State of the Union address in 1980, the Carter Doctrine made it American policy to resist any other power interfering with trade into and out of the Persian Gulf and stated that the USA would use military force to keep the Gulf open.
It is ironic, then, that the USA, in using military force, caused another power to close the Gulf and led to the demise of its own doctrine.
For the states of the region, this is also a transformational development that will (or at least should) lead to massive changes in their security architecture. For many decades, as I laid out in this Atlantic article from a few days ago (gift link here), they based their security on making vast and expensive purchases of military equipment from the USA, housing US military forces, and acting as US allies. That entire paradigm is gone.
What we are seeing is that relying on the USA (or really any other power) for your security is a mug’s game. You cannot buy security in the modern world, you have to have some ability to make it for yourself. Here is a short excerpt from the piece.
I will write more about how states might go forward from here, but this update will be on already what has happened: how the American Age is already drawing to an end in the Persian Gulf. It will do that through a few points, which added together show a reality that I do not see changing, regardless of how the US and Iran eventually end Trump’s War.
The US Is Running Out Of Advanced Munitions: It Will Take Years To Recover
The most terrifying logistics percentage of Trump’s War came out this week. It was claimed that the USA had already used up nearly “80%” of its advanced missile interceptor stockpiles. This is shocking. It not only makes a mockery of all of Trump’s threats to escalate—it means that the US cannot defend its friends and allies in the region (if it has any left).
This was part of a cascading series of stories about the sorry state of US military supplies—which are not hitting systems no one was talking about previously. One of these was that the US was almost out of the well known ATACMS long-range rocket artillery system (which was of vital importance to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023). Reuters broke that story on August 4, and here was how one outlet summarized it.
The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.
The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.
The fact that the US is blowing through its ATACMs stocks is doubly indicative of the crisis America is facing. ATACMs was going to be phased out in favor of newer weapons. However, the US was so desperate for long-range precision strike against Iran that they had to turn to them. Now they are gone (which further hurts Ukraine too it should be noted.
Btw, if it helps, here is a list of all the systems that the US is running very short on. Its extraordinary how the country has destroyed its strategic position in fewer than six months.
Air and missile defence
Patriot (PAC-3 / PAC-3 MSE Interceptors) — Ground-launched interceptor against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft.
THAAD — Ground-launched interceptor for ballistic missiles at higher altitudes and longer ranges than Patriot, and the system with no substitute below it.
SM-3 — Ship-launched (Aegis) interceptor for ballistic missiles, hitting them outside the atmosphere.
SM-6 — Ship-launched interceptor used mainly against aircraft and cruise missiles, with secondary anti-ship and terminal ballistic-missile roles.
Long-range strike
Tomahawk (TLAM) — Ship- and submarine-launched cruise missile for hitting fixed ground targets.
JASSM-ER — Stealthy air-launched cruise missile with a 1,000-lb payload, fired from bombers and fighters at standoff range.
PrSM — The Army’s new ground-launched ballistic missile fired from HIMARS/MLRS, range beyond 500 km. The one replacing ATACMS.
ATACMS — The older, shorter-range (300 km) predecessor to PrSM, fired from the same launchers, and the system supplied to Ukraine for strikes into Russia.
These, btw, are the systems for which the reports are strong. There are rumors that there are worrying shortages across the board.
It will take years, maybe more than a decade, to make up for this extraordinary shortfall. The US has neutered itself as a strategic force already in this war. That will have global ramifications.
The US Is Already Withdrawing Forces From The Region: It Just Does Not Want To Talk About It
The USA cannot protect its forces against Iranian strike, as cheap and less advanced as that strike is compared to American capabilities. The upshot of this weakness (and indicative of why the US is running out of anti-air systems) is that the USA is already pulling its forces out of the Persian Gulf—in some cases precipitously.
The Wall Street Journal five days ago wrote a detailed story about how this is effecting Kuwait. The US has made Kuwait a major base for its influence in the region since the First Gulf War in 1991, but the results of Trump’s War (if you remember the first mass casualty hit by the Iranians was on a US facility in Kuwait) has caused the US to pull many of its forces out of the country already.
Trying to sugarcoat the pill, the WSJ says the USA is “rethinking” its defensive posture in the region, but the truth is that is has been forced to pull out precipitously because it cannot protect its forces and it is struggling to protect the Kuwaitis.
This recent report comes after months of reports of withdrawals from other facilities—leaving many US bases in the Gulf supposedly empty. There was this story from March in the New York Times for instance.
So what are the states in the region seeing? They see that the US is unable to protect its own troops, let alone them. And what does that do? It makes those states understand that being too close to the US could actually be a strategic liability.
Jordan is an interesting case in that regard. Supposedly some of the US forces that were withdrawn from the Gulf have been redeployed to Jordan—and lo and behold Iran starts attacking Jordan regularly as it did last week. Now Jordanians are starting to question the role of the USA in their lives.
The USA Is Already Losing The Faith Of The State’s In The Region
As I mentioned above, the entire security architecture that was constructed by the states in the Persian Gulf and wider Middle East, will have to be entirely remade. There are signs that they already know that. The US, is showing its weakness so dramatically and in adding to that its unreliability and fickleness, is compelling the states to think more regionally.
For the last few months there have been reports of states, such as Saudi Arabia, “hedging” on their previous strategic calculations. This is a polite way of saying “losing confidence” in the USA and rethinking their position. For decades the Saudis spent eye watering sums building up their military with US equipment and relying on the US as the ultimate guarantor of its security. Now it can see the US not only cant protect it from Iran, it can barely help fight the Houthis in Yemen.
Other states are starting to think more regionally as well when it comes to the future (which is btw, no bad thing at all). Look, we need to be honest about what we have seen here. The US is already running out of weapons, it is already pulling forces back, it is already discrediting itself. The states in the region are only acting rationally in looking at a very different future, one that relies as little as possible on the whims of a declining and fickle USA.
Expect a lot more on this going forward.
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