America has nothing to fight with China – U.S. Yemen campaign will drain arms needed

Biden left a very bad legacy to America. This photo was taken after Trump and Biden met at the White House before Trump's inauguration. Trump is upset by what he heard from his predecessor.
Photo: AP

American military officials say the Pentagon might need to dip into stockpiles in Asia to replenish supplies in the Middle East, congressional aides say, ‘The New York Times’ writes.

U.S. commanders planning for a possible conflict with China are increasingly concerned that the Pentagon will soon need to move long-range precision weapons from stockpiles in the Asia-Pacific region to the Middle East, congressional officials say.

That is because of the large amount of munitions that the United States is using in a bombing campaign in Yemen ordered by President Trump.

U.S. readiness in the Pacific is also being hurt by the Pentagon’s deployment of warships and aircraft to the Middle East after the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023 and after Houthi militia forces in Yemen started attacking ships in the Red Sea to support the Palestinians, the officials say.

Several Trump aides, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, have said that the United States must prioritize strengthening its forces in the Asia-Pacific region to deter China, which is rapidly building up its military and its nuclear arsenal.

Those officials argue that U.S. arms support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia and decades of military campaigns in the Middle East and Afghanistan have siphoned off important resources from Asia. If Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in the coming months and ignites a wider Middle East war, the Trump administration would almost certainly commit more U.S. military resources to the region.

But the U.S. military has struggled to balance resources as it bombs the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

The New York Times reported last week that the monthlong bombing campaign was much larger than the Pentagon had publicly disclosed. The Pentagon used up about $200 million of munitions in the first three weeks alone, U.S. officials said. The costs are much higher — well over $1 billion at this point — when operational and personnel expenses are taken into account, they added.

But Pentagon officials have told allied counterparts, lawmakers and their aides in closed briefings that the U.S. military has had only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers.

A senior Defense Department official recently told congressional aides that the Navy and the Indo-Pacific Command were “very concerned” about how fast the military was burning through munitions in Yemen, a congressional official said.

The senior defense official told congressional aides that the Pentagon was now “risking real operational problems” in the event of the breakout of any conflict in Asia, a congressional official said.

…It looks like it's for the best. Why does the World need a war between the US and China?

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