The United States Department of Defense is examining whether to scale back its military footprint across the Persian Gulf in the wake of the war with Iran, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has yet to order a formal review.
The Pentagon's policy office is steering the evaluation, with the Joint Staff and United States Central Command also involved. Central Command typically maintains roughly 40,000 personnel across nearly two dozen sites spanning from Jordan to Oman, including the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and major Army and Air Force installations in Kuwait. American forces have conducted more than 13,000 strikes against Iran, while over 200 US facilities have been damaged or destroyed during the conflict.
The financial toll is steep: the Pentagon projects war costs will reach roughly $37.5 billion by the end of September, and the American Enterprise Institute estimated in April that repairs alone could run to $5 billion.