September 15, 2026: The Gulf and the US Military.
The Gulf kingdoms rely solely on US military power for their existence; their governments—comprised of leaders who refuse to countenance the proximity of death (as seen in Bahrain, where key figures would simply evacuate abroad)—share this same characteristic. They rely on mercenaries—a system ruled by money—which precludes absolute victory. Look at Yemen: despite decades of US involvement, the destructive Saudi military has proven incompetent, training is abysmal, and new weapons end up on the black market within days. It is a culture of money-worship—nations fused with the American ethos.
In terms of weaponry, the US military has already effectively lost; the US forces in the Gulf have lost the luxury of a leisurely, "retirement-like" deployment. Gulf oil facilities and desalination plants lie exposed; the 1,200km Saudi trans-peninsular pipeline is already confirmed to be shattered in places. Forces like Iran and the Houthis can precisely destroy even small tents, while the vaunted US-Western interception capabilities have a success rate of, at best, 1–5%. Both Japan and South Korea face a crisis regarding raw material infrastructure—a situation that surely leaves everyone wondering, "What is going on?"
Within Saudi Arabia, other tribes remain active; they—along with older, rival factions—are eyeing the chance to displace the House of Saud. This is the general state of the Gulf. For some reason, Arab tribes seem to have a habit of becoming obsessed with money.
However, unless they engage in a fire sale of their massive US Treasury holdings—which exceed even Japan's—these nations face a collapse in revenue and an inability to maintain state functions. US dollars and Treasury bonds are being dumped en masse. While Japan is often the focus of such discussions, Gulf states hold even larger hidden reserves of US Treasuries—assets that constitute their entire wealth. Consequently, they are inextricably bound to the fate of the US military; without US troops, they would effectively become nations without a military. The Gulf states themselves are territories with populations numbering in the thousands, yet their governments operated—fueled by money—on a scale a hundred times larger than that; rather than merely facing bankruptcy, they were never truly nations to begin with. Now, with the dollar’s decline eroding the value of their assets daily and no revenue coming in, their chances of survival are as fleeting as a desert mirage—raising the very real possibility of a sudden, total collapse.
Opportunistic players like Turkey and India are waiting in the wings, poised to strike. Meanwhile, Israel—like the U.S.—is moving to expand the conflict for the sake of elections; the situation bears an uncanny resemblance to the final days of Imperial Japan, when a fanatical military clique recklessly escalated the war.