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 told New York Times.
That is because of the large amount of munitions that the United States is using in a bombing campaign targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
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 under secretary 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.
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 month long 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.
The Pentagon has deployed two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 stealth bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East. The B-2 bombers make long runs from the tiny island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where the American and British militaries have a base.
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 Navy’s overall stockpiles were already well below target goals before President Joseph R. Biden Jr. first ordered the U.S. military to attack the Houthis to try to halt their assaults on commercial ships in the Red Sea.