statguy

I think the parent comment was not referring to climbing related safety :)

The question is what purpose do those bases serve. I am not sure what war planning you are referring to, but I am sure that it is being adapted in the light of the current situation and those bases will be rendered useless on day one in case a war breaks out (like with Iran to a lesser extent).

How so? US could not protect its allies in the gulf, it has lost up to 15 of its bases in those countries. If Iran could do this, imagine what can China do to US bases around it. All parties (China, US, Japan/Korea/Taiwan) now know this. So the question is what purpose do US bases in those countries serve?

they have lost their credibility that they can protect their allies and their bases are actually a liability for the host country

It is reasonable for Iran to do things that hurt the US (and the world) when the US hurts them.

The down votes to this suggest that many in the west are in denial. China doesn’t need to fight a hot war with Taiwan, they can incrementally pressure Taiwan while their western allies issue impotent statements.

The casualties are low largely because US troops simply abandoned their bases and moved to hotels, treating the citizens of their gulf allies as human shields.

Exactly, Trump was high on the Venezuala “win” and Netanyahu managed to suck him into this war with disastrous consequences for US and the world.

The Taiwanese know they can't take on China directly, they now know that Western support is meaningless - in fact it pushes them more into conflict with China. Given a choice, I think the Taiwanese would prefer a Hong Kong like outcome to a Ukraine/UAE like outcome.

AFAIK Iran never directly attacked several countries (e.g. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain) before this war.

This has massive strategic implications for the US. The US couldn't protect its bases in the middle east from a middle power like Iran and in fact its bases were the reason that its "allies" in the gulf were attacked. Iran would have no reason to attack those allies otherwise. The US has also shown that Israel is the only ally that it really cares about.

Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Australia are taking notes. Prediction: there is not going to be a war over Taiwan - Taiwan will gradually come to a Hong Kong like agreement with China.

I don't doubt that the Iranian regime has committed some atrocities during the recent protests. However, I would discount any person/source who - supported the Iraq war, cheered America/Israeli bombing of Iran in 2025 and has nothing to say about Israel's genocide in Gaza, as being a reliable source of information on Iran.

does it matter if you are the one on the receiving end?

It doesn't work that way. The dedicated machine for running agents will have very limited utility because it will not have access to anything it needs like your credit card to automatically purchase stuff on your behalf etc.