Looks like elements of the 82nd Airborne Division are heading to the Gulf

Christopher A. Lawrence
March 25, 2026

Well, it looks like elements of the headquarters and the entire 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division is heading to the Gulf. See: Pentagon confirms elements from the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East

This adds three more maneuver battalions to the six slated to be in the area in a couple of weeks. Supposedly, the brigade can be moved there in 18 hours. They probably won’t get there that fast but might get there before the 11th MEU (see my Kharg post on that).

Hard to envision that you would move parts of the 82nd Airborne Division if you were not going to do something. It appears the three options are 1) Kharg, 2) Isfaran and 3) Qeshm, with Kharg the most likely option for deployment. Might be just an attempt to provide more pressure on Iran in negotiations.

I also note articles like this one: Trump on brink of ground invasion in Iran as Saudi strongman makes astonishing pitch in secret call. Have no idea if there is any validity to the article.

I will avoid for now pontificating, or more aptly, speculating as to what will be done and how it will work. There is a point when you should not say more than what you actually know.

A few relevant links:

Kharg Island – The Dupuy Institute

Isfaran – The Dupuy Institute

Qeshm Island and the Straits of Hormuz – The Dupuy Institute

Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
...
Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
...
His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
...
Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1676