Recent Iranian missile and drone attacks on American bases across the Middle East have exposed a dangerous reality: yesterday’s operating methods are becoming liabilities.

Large headquarters, concentrated supplies and predictable infrastructure now offer hostile forces inviting targets.

For years, American forces operated from sprawling bases under overwhelming air superiority, particularly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Against enemies armed with precision missiles, surveillance systems and cheap attack drones, the military must again master the basic battlefield skill of disappearing.

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The Army’s Combined Arms Command, which oversees leadership and doctrine development, is changing how troops train for concealment and survival.

“Hiding in plain sight has become an imperative on the modern battlefield,” Lt. Gen. James P. Isenhower told reporters during a War Department briefing Thursday.

“We think very differently about how we employ ourselves [and] how we remain dispersed” compared with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Isenhower said.

Regarding oversized command posts and their obvious signatures, he added, “We have to work really hard to look like that which we are not.”

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His warning comes as more details emerge about the damage Iran inflicted on Naval Support Activity Bahrain on Feb. 28.

Although the War Department initially reported no major operational effects, later reporting placed the destruction at approximately $400 million.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao delivered a considerably less polished assessment, saying Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain.”

That blunt description cut through the usual bureaucratic fog surrounding the attack and highlighted just how exposed America’s regional footprint has become.

The Bahrain strike was not isolated. Three American soldiers were killed in July when Iranian ballistic missiles and drones penetrated defenses around Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, while six soldiers died in March after an Iranian drone struck a tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait.

“For 20 years we didn’t have to worry about anything coming out of the sky, and we lost proficiency that I think we had trained in the Cold War era — through the 80s and 90s — where we were worried about adversaries who had fixed-wing aircraft and the capability to send long-range precision fires at us,” Isenhower said. “That wasn’t the case in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said American installations became protected hubs where personnel, supplies and headquarters could gather without constant aerial surveillance. “These bases were sanctuaries,” she said, calling that arrangement “an aberration, historically.”

America is now returning to a “period of warfare where the base itself is a vulnerability and something an adversary can attack,” Grieco said.

hat reality demands smaller footprints, wider dispersion and more deception, rather than assuming another expensive interceptor will always save the day.

The cost of interception is already becoming severe. A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report estimated that the United States expended about 65 percent of its Patriot interceptor inventory between February and July, while its stock of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors fell 38 percent.

Dispersion brings its own logistical headaches because fuel, ammunition, food and equipment must move across more locations, often separated by considerable distances. “We’re now trading efficiency for survivability,” Grieco said, neatly describing the bargain commanders have little choice but to accept.

After NSA Bahrain was damaged, American ships relied on Diego Garcia, more than 2,000 miles from carrier strike groups operating in the Middle East.

Personnel had to submit food orders 30 days ahead, an awkward requirement when combat operations refuse to follow neat spreadsheets and peacetime schedules.

Isenhower said command posts repeatedly shrank during exercises because opposing forces kept detecting and striking them through electronic signatures.

Units answered with dispersion and deception because commanders must “create the benefits of mass without presenting the vulnerabilities of concentration.”

“It affects the squad differently than it affects a battalion, but we’ve seen in current combat operations: the vulnerabilities of a large, distinct signature, whether it’s physical, visual or something on the electromagnetic spectrum,” Isenhower said.

In modern war, anything that emits, moves or gathers in obvious numbers can rapidly become a target.

That threat extends to aircraft, as demonstrated when Iran reportedly used a drone swarm in April to identify an American fighter’s GPS position, speed and direction before the jet was brought down.

Army troops are now learning to use electromagnetic information “to try to get a bearing or pinpoint a fix on the enemy,” while also studying “how to operate in that environment so they don’t do the same to us.”

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