Bahrain: Issues for U.S. Policy

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island nation connected by a causeway to Saudi Arabia (15.5 miles away) and once claimed by Iran (124 miles away). Wedged between these two larger regional powers, Bahrain has outsized importance for U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. U.S.-Bahraini ties have deepened over the past four decades as the Gulf region has faced increasing threats from Iran. Bahrain has hosted a U.S. naval command headquarters since 1948; the United States and Bahrain have had a formal Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) since 1991; and Bahrain is the only Arab member of the 22-nation Operation Prosperity Guardian to defend against Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. Bahrain is ruled by a hereditary monarchy and is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman); its politics have been restive, though the monarchy’s control has not been durably threatened. With a population of 1.5 million people, a little over half of whom are Bahraini citizens, Bahrain has a history of sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims: Bahrain is the only GCC state to have a Shia majority population. Bahrain’s politics were unsettled during a 2011 uprising by a mostly Shia opposition to the Sunni-minority-led government of Bahrain’s Al Khalifa ruling family; a Saudi military intervention helped Bahrain’s government repress protests. Since 2014, the unrest has been relatively low-level. Several senior opposition leaders remain imprisoned. Bahrain closely aligns with de facto GCC leader Saudi Arabia, which provides Bahrain with substantial financial support. Bahrain, like some other GCC states, has been building ties to Israel and, in September 2020, Bahrain signed agreements at the White House to fully normalize its relations with Israel as part of the “Abraham Accords.” During the war between Israel and Hamas, Bahrain and Israel did not severe relations, though some Bahrainis have protested bilateral ties. Bahrain has fewer financial resources than most of the other GCC states. Bahrain’s oil revenues emanate primarily from a Saudi oil field whose proceeds go partly to Bahrain. In 2004, the United States and Bahrain signed a free trade agreement (FTA). In 2005, bilateral trade was about $780 million, and U.S.-Bahrain trade has since increased fourfold. In 2024, the total volume of bilateral trade stood at $2.8 billion. Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain, the U.S. Navy base in Manama, Bahrain, is the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which oversees all Navy operations in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR). As of 2023, there were over 8,000 U.S. military personnel and civilian employees assigned to NSA Bahrain. In FY2025, the U.S. Department of Defense, (DOD)—which is using a secondary Department of War designation, under Executive Order 14347—estimated that it would spend over $770 million on personnel, operations, maintenance, and family housing costs for U.S. personnel stationed in Bahrain. Members of Congress travel with some frequency to Bahrain to visit U.S. armed services personnel and provide oversight over the U.S. bilateral relationship and defense presence in the kingdom. In the 119th Congress, H.R. 1385, the Strengthening Cooperation and Security in the Middle East Act, would mandate that the Secretary of State report on a strategy to increase membership in the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA), a multilateral agreement initially between the United States and Bahrain. The recently-released compromise text of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization bill (amendment to S. 1071) includes most of the text of H.R. 1385.