The massive expenditure of U.S. munitions in the Middle East is increasingly worrying Asian allies and frustrating Pentagon officials overseeing the Indo-Pacific, who fear that the prolonged war with Iran could undermine U.S. readiness for a conflict with China as it continues to step up military pressure across the region, report Cate Cadell, Noah Robertson, and John Hudson in the Washington Post.
Concerns about the depleted stockpile come as the US cancelled an amphibious landing exercise with South Korea scheduled for September, citing demands on U.S. forces from the war in Iran, a week after President Trump announced that he was scaling back joint military exercises with the key ally.
South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, rely on Washington as the dominant supplier of major conventional weapons and are reckoning with years-long backlogs. The Middle East conflict has intensified those strains, consuming and reallocating munitions that could be critical in a war with China.