IISS study questions overreliance on American support and ‘overdependence on expensive, high-end systems’

Gulf states are going to have to reconfigure their trillion-dollar defences given the damage inflicted on their economies and the questionable continued value of US bases in the face of Iranian attack, according to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The report says that in the weeks before the 8 April ceasefire, 12 regional states, overwhelmingly in the Gulf, faced 4,670 Iranian one-way attack drones and more than 1,400 ballistic missiles. Nearly half were aimed at the United Arab Emirates. Although the vast majority were repelled, one estimate of the damage to energy infrastructure cited by the report is put as high as $58bn (£43bn).

Voters who backed the US president in the last election are saying they can’t vote for him today: ‘This is an abomination’

Outside the Ukrainian educational and cultural center in a quiet Pennsylvania suburb of Jenkintown, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a banner expressed unqualified gratitude: “Thank you USA for supporting Ukraine.”

Inside, however, the sentiment was altogether different. Irene Skulsky, a retired teacher in her late 70s, voiced indignation at Donald Trump’s sudden turn against her ancestral homeland, which she believed had come close to killing her son, Darko, and a desire to punish his fellow Republicans at next week’s midterm elections.