We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸🇨🇳🇮🇱 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.
Austin’s 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 Hamas’ 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.
“We’re caught in this kind of never-ending quagmire of having to divert resources, and we’re burning [out] on the back end,” a senior congressional aide said.
Their message was that America’s military wouldn’t 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.
“I 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,” the Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an August interview. He wouldn’t 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 military’s ability to meet future needs, known as “readiness” 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 “tradeoffs” 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 — rather than the typical missile — 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 Pentagon’s 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.
Putin called European politicians “pigs” who wanted to “feast on the collapse of Russia”
He also said that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had believed it would become an “equal part of the European family,” but that never happened because there is “no civilization in Europe, only total degradation.”
🇮🇷❌🇺🇸 - Are U.S. ground troops being prepared for operations against #Iran? – An Iranian assessment
🔹 Recent flight tracking data shows a number of U.S. passenger and cargo aircraft moving from bases such as Eglin Air Force Base, Fort Bliss, and Fort Liberty toward Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. These bases are associated with special forces, airborne units, and combat aviation, which has drawn attention in Iranian analytical circles.
🔹 In parallel, earlier reports about the cancellation of a training exercise by the 82nd Airborne Division are interpreted as a possible indicator that certain rapid deployment units may have been placed on standby for operations in the region.
🔹 At the same time, the movement of amphibious forces – particularly the Boxer and Tripoli groups – has reinforced speculation that a sizable number of U.S. Marines could now be positioned in or near the battlefield, although the exact composition of these forces remains unclear.
🔹 Within this context, ...
🇺🇸 The U.S. Ammo Shortage Is Worse Than You Think
The conflict with Iran is an urgent reminder that the U.S. needs a defense industrial base that can wage a high-intensity war against American adversaries—especially China. The Trump administration has taken important steps to increase production of some munitions, reform an antiquated acquisition system, and establish incentives for private-sector innovation. It is critical now to accelerate these changes.
Military planners should be particularly worried about China, which has vastly superior capabilities to Iran. The Chinese industrial base, which is on a wartime footing, has produced thousands of hypersonic, cruise and ballistic missiles capable of precision strikes, along with millions of drones. U.S. bases, aircraft, naval vessels and other infrastructure operating within the First Island Chain—which extends south from Japan through Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo—are highly vulnerable to attack.
The Chinese ...
🛢 Oil prices to rise further on Monday as Mideast war escalates
Oil prices look set to rise further on Monday, having closed before the weekend at their highest in nearly four years, after U.S. and Iranian threats to target energy facilities, analysts said on Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to "obliterate" Iran's power plants if Tehran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, a significant escalation barely a day after he talked about "winding down" the war, now in its fourth week.
Iran warned on Sunday it would attack U.S.-linked infrastructure, including energy and desalination facilities in the Gulf, if Trump carried out his threat.
On Friday, Brent futures for May settled up 3.26% at $112.19 a barrel, the highest since July 2022.
"President Trump's threat has now placed a 48-hour ticking time bomb of elevated uncertainty over markets," said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore. If the ultimatum is not walked back, oil ...
