A US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is seen in this file photo.
US military officials have warned that the Trump administration’s involvement in the Yemen war could deplete the Pentagon’s weapon reserves, potentially undermining its ability to deter China in the event of an armed conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.
Commanders planning for a possible conflict with China are increasingly concerned that the US military will have to move long-range precision weapons from stockpiles in the Asia-Pacific region to West Asia as the US intensifies its bombing campaign in Yemen, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Congressional officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the problem, said that the Pentagon used up about $200 million of munitions in the first three weeks of its bombing campaign in Yemen.
The costs are much higher — well over $1 billion at this point — when operational and personnel expenses are taken into account, they added.
The Times reported last week that the month-long bombing campaign was much larger than the Pentagon had publicly disclosed.
It said US commanders believe that the Pentagon has had only limited success in destroying Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement’s vast arsenal of missiles, drones, and launchers.
Navy and the Indo-Pacific Command were also “very concerned” about how fast the military was burning through munitions in Yemen.
The US launched its large-scale campaign of air and naval strikes against Yemen in March despite warnings by Trump’s aides, including his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that the US must prioritize strengthening its forces in the Asia-Pacific to deter China.
The long-range weapons used in the Yemen campaign, including Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from warships, are exactly the kinds of weapons that US commanders say would be needed to counter an air and naval assault by the Chinese army in the South and East China Seas and the Pacific.
The officials say the weapons are in stockpiles in US military bases on Guam, in Okinawa, Japan, and elsewhere along the western Pacific.
The Pentagon has not yet had to dip into those stockpiles to bomb Yemen, but it might need to do so soon, they warned.
Over the past years, China has intensified military activities around Taiwan, including large-scale war games, as it continues to assert its sovereignty over the island while the Taipei government rejects Beijing's claims.
According to a report published by US intelligence agencies in March, China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US as Beijing was making "steady but uneven" progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.
China has the ability to hit the United States with conventional weapons, compromise US infrastructure through cyber attacks, and target its assets in space, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said.
Beijing, it said, seeks to displace the United States as the top AI power by 2030.
