Source: The United States and the Gulf: Shifting Pressures, Strategies and Alignments, Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015

Abstract: From a historical perspective, US military deployment in the GCC regions features three trends: from hard military bases towards a less visible military presence; from static deployments to stronger mobility (the US military deployment in the GCC countries is being interlinked with other US bases in Central Asia, Turkey and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa); and from global priority to regional priority (the US strategic focus is shifting towards the Asia-Pacific regions). The effects of the US military bases in the GCC are three-fold: first, from the US perspective, they will bring the battlefield closer to the enemies’ front-door; second, the US military deployments will deepen Sunni-Shi’a rivalry and enhance competitive power struggles between Saudi Arabia and Iran, worsening the security dilemma in the Gulf region; and third, the US military presence will probably invite further involvement and interaction from outside powers, with increasing rivalry.