šŗšøšØš³š®š± What will the surge of US forces to the Middle East cost the military?
The day the Middle East almost erupted into a full regional war this summer, Lloyd Austin was touring an Asian shipyard.
Just before the defense secretary visited Subic Bay, Philippines, the former site of a massive U.S. Navy base, Israel killed the political leader of Hamas, who was visiting Iran.
Austinās July visit was meant to show his focus on Asia, the region America says is its top priority. Instead, he ended the trip distracted by the Middle East, spending hours containing the crisis on a flight back to Washington.
Since Oct. 7, when Hamasā attack on Israel provoked all-out war in Gaza, the Pentagon has been on call. When the region has approached a wider war, the Defense Department surged forces there to calm it down. But after a year, some in Congress and the Pentagon are growing concerned about how to sustain that pace, and what it will cost the military in the long term.
Call it the U.S. Central Command squeeze. The Pentagon insists its surge has helped stop the Middle East from falling into chaos. But the longer the region borders on conflict, the more the U.S. tests its endurance for crises later on, most notably, a future conflict with China.
The pressure on the military increased even further this week. After their most intense attacks in almost 20 years, Israel and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah are close to a larger war. On Monday, Austin yet again ordered more troops to the region, joining 40,000 other American personnel there, 6,000 more than normal. Another aircraft carrier may soon follow.
āWeāre caught in this kind of never-ending quagmire of having to divert resources, and weāre burning [out] on the back end,ā a senior congressional aide said.
Their message was that Americaās military wouldnāt exhaust itself anytime soon, but that a year of unplanned deployments and spent missiles come with a cost. Even more, they said, the longer the crisis continues, the more the Pentagon will have to manage tradeoffs between the urgent needs of the Middle East and the rising challenges of the Indo-Pacific.
Pentagon leaders say they calculate the risk in pulling assets from one region to another, and that the choice to move forces away from Asia is a sign that they consider the region stable enough to do so.
āI have relayed messages that it is better to invest in deterrence where there is no overt conflict, rather than intervene in a conflict where there is one already,ā the Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an August interview. He wouldnāt specify who in the U.S. those messages have reached.
That said, the cost of this posture is also becoming clearer.
The first, and perhaps the most important, part of that tally is the militaryās ability to meet future needs, known as āreadinessā in defense jargon. By sending more forces to the Middle East, the Pentagon is accepting what amounts to a mortgage: higher costs on its forces to avoid an even bigger bill.
Without specifying the impact of these extensions so far, multiple defense officials and congressional aides said the U.S. is already having to manage ātradeoffsā between the needs of the Middle East today and other areas in the future.
This February, the Houthis shot a ballistic missile at the Navy destroyer Gravely in the Red Sea, one of many times the militia group targeted American ships in the waterway.
But this one came close. In fact, the ship used a short-range weapon ā rather than the typical missile ā to intercept the attack. The Houthis came within a nautical mile of success, according to Navy officials.
This is an example of the other two costs involved in the Pentagonās response.
The Navy estimates that between Oct. 7 and mid-July, it fired $1.16 billion worth of munitions while on station in the Red Sea.
š šŗšø š Flock Safetyās AI cameras are scanning 20 billion license plates every month, giving police the power to track any vehicleās movements across cities and jurisdictions in seconds.
The system doesnāt just read plates ā it logs color, make, model, and details like bumper stickers or gun racks, then stores everything in a searchable cloud database.
Police can reconstruct travel history, set alerts, and pull data from other agencies. The company says it played a role in about 1 million arrests last year and many police chiefs call it their most impactful tool ever.
But this mass data collection is sparking a major backlash over privacy and the 4th Amendment. Critics argue itās indiscriminate surveillance of everyoneās movements ā not targeted policing ā creating a permanent dragnet of innocent drivers without warrants.
Flock claims no facial recognition is used and data is deleted after 30 days by default, with some safeguards in place. This may be true ...
šŗšøšā”ļø- In a PBS/NPR affiliated WGCU and Florida Trident article, Byron Donaldsā ex wife, Bisa Hall, describes a man who looks nothing like the image he sells. She says he pretended to be Jamaican at FAMU, even using an accent, before later admitting he was actually from New York. For a man now asking American voters for trust, even his own American background was apparently flexible when it suited him.
Hall says he was not religious or conservative when she knew him. He had also registered as a Democrat in Tallahassee, but the bigger issue is what she describes as a pattern of reinvention whenever opportunity called. As she put it, āAn opportunistic person like he is will take whatever opportunity theyāre given.ā
The record is not much better. Donalds was arrested for marijuana possession with intent to distribute, not simple possession as he has described it. He was also arrested on a felony bribery charge, pleaded no contest, and later gave an explanation Hall says ...
š Daily summary ā 09/07/2026
⢠The U.S.-Iran escalation widened with fresh American strikes on Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, Chabahar, Konarak, Sirik, Kharg, Bushehr, Khuzestan and the Lavan refinery, targeting radar sites, air defenses, coastal sensors, missile and drone depots, naval capabilities and logistics infrastructure. Iran replied with missiles and drones against U.S. ships in the Sea of Oman and targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, while Tehran raised the toll to 14 dead and 78 wounded and confirmed 8 losses in its air force and navy.
⢠CENTCOM said the latest round of strikes on Iran hit about 90 targets, after around 80 were struck the night before, including more than 60 small Revolutionary Guard boats, and said the campaign could last days or weeks. Bloomberg also reported that ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz came to a complete halt.
⢠At the NATO summit, Donald Trump attacked Spain, calling it a āterrible partnerā and āa lost cause,ā and repeated that he ...