From the UK to the Gulf, are US overseas bases becoming liabilities?

For decades, these bases allowed the US to wage faraway wars and protect allies. Now, Iran has changed that calculation — for friends hosting these facilities, and for Washington. Doha, Qatar — Late one morning in March 1999, a United States B-52 bomber took off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, headed southeast.

Seven more jets followed, at two-minute intervals. It was the start of the US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a campaign in which the Fairford base served as both a pivotal launchpad for American jets and as a fuel station for fighter planes. The British base had served a similar role during the Gulf War in 1991, and would do so again during the 2003 Iraq war and in the early stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28, 2026.

But in October, the US pulled all 12 of its B-1 Lancer bombers from the Gloucestershire base, amid fears that they were no longer safe there from a growing Iranian threat.