National Interest

by Gedaliah Afterman and Caroline Dibble

    Six months of fighting in the Middle East have demonstrated American military power but exposed the strain on Washington’s commitments in Asia.

    For US allies in Asia, the Iran War should have confirmed the dream scenario that underpins their defense planning. When Israel faced an existential threat, Washington intervened directly and at scale alongside its most capable Middle Eastern partner against Iran, doing exactly what an indispensable security guarantor is supposed to do. Yet, the results are less reassuring.

    Operation Epic Fury degraded Iranian military capabilities and reduced the danger to Israel. But the war has delivered neither regional order nor safer US partners. Iran continues to strike the Gulf states, increasingly through proxies and threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Houthi advances in Yemen and strikes on Saudi Arabia have placed Red Sea shipping and energy under increased pressure.

    Iran’s nuclear program, the status of Hormuz and the regime’s future remain unresolved. None of this means America is weak. No other country can project force at this scale and Washington’s willingness to intervene may still reassure allies. But the war has exposed a harsher reality: American power is finite.

    The Fifth Fleet, headquartered at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the United States’ only naval base in the Gulf, exists to keep the three major regional chokepoints open: Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. Six months into the war, Iran still blockades Hormuz, the Houthis contest Bab el-Mandeb and Suez is open only in the sense that no one is directly blocking it, since reaching it from the south means running Bab el-Mandeb.

    Iranian ballistic missiles and cheap Shahed drones, launched in waves that saturate air defenses, caused an estimated $400 million in damage to NSA Bahrain, degrading the Navy’s central logistics hub in the region. The forward-based model underpins American power in the Gulf. It also underpins the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific.

    For US allies in Asia, wary of China and North Korea, the question is whether the United States can provide enough support as it is stretched across two increasingly interconnected theaters and whether that support will remain politically reliable once a conflict begins.

• Deterrence from the Hormuz Strait to the Taiwan Strait

    The strain of the Iran War has already reached Asia. The war has drawn down critical US munitions, while missile-defense systems have moved to the Middle East. Redeploying the USS George Washington to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, after more than 250 days at sea, temporarily left the western Pacific without a US carrier for the first time in decades. The United States is estimated to have fired about 1,500 Patriot interceptors between February and July, leaving fewer than 850 in US inventory. Every interceptor fired in one theater narrows the options in another. Munitions take time to replace and assets moved out of Asia cannot deter in Asia.

    The Taiwan Strait is not Hormuz. The circumstances, including geography, legal context and military balance, are fundamentally different. Beijing is unlikely to replicate Tehran’s strategy simply, but it is studying Washington’s staying power as a prolonged conflict in the Middle East strains resources and domestic support.

    As the Middle East and Indo-Pacific become increasingly intertwined, the consequences extend beyond military inventories to the reliability of American commitments themselves. In May, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the administration had paused a proposed arms package worth up to $14 billion for Taiwan to ensure sufficient munitions for the Iran War. President Donald Trump separately suggested that the package could become a bargaining chip in negotiations with China. Delays in arms deliveries to Taiwan are common, but openly linking Taiwan’s defense to a Middle Eastern war and talks with Beijing is not. As of September 2026, the deal has yet to receive a green light.

    The pause blurred two questions: did Washington lack enough weapons for multiple theaters  Or could support for Taiwan itself become negotiable  Temporary shortages can be planned around. A politically conditional commitment cannot.

• US Allies Will Be Watching Xi Jinping’s Washington Visit Closely

    The US-China relationship is no longer purely bilateral and Washington should not signal that it is ignoring its allies’ concerns.

• Liselotte Odgaard

September 18, 2026

• How the Iran War Pressures US Allies in Asia

    For Japan, the connection is immediate. Its territorial and energy security are experiencing the effects of a finite pool of American power diluted across two regions. It hosted the USS George Washington, now deployed to the Middle East and normally receives about 93 percent of its crude-oil imports through Hormuz.

    South Korea received a similar signal. When President Trump cut Ulchi Freedom Shield, the annual US-South Korean joint exercise, from 11 days to five, he cited his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Seoul’s unwillingness to support the United States in Iran as reasons for doing so. For Seoul, the message was clear: a political dispute over Iran could reach into the core of the alliance’s military planning.

    The Philippines, a US treaty ally under growing Chinese pressure in the South China Sea, must consider what Washington’s commitments mean during simultaneous crises. Calls for greater burden-sharing are sensible, but the need for reassurance shows that doubts are building. America’s allies are asking whether its commitments will hold. Meanwhile, Beijing is asking how far they can be tested.

• China’s Lessons from the Iran War

    The ongoing war in Iran reinforces an impression left by the May Trump-Xi summit: the United States remains formidable but stretched, allowing Beijing to bargain from a stronger position than before.

    Hormuz also offers Beijing a second lesson: Iran did not need to defeat the United States militarily. By disrupting a vital waterway, it imposed costs on the global economy and Washington’s Gulf partners. It then absorbed months of strikes and is now converting that disruption into leverage over passage through the strait. Should a settlement concede even part of that demand, Beijing may conclude that sustained economic coercion can shift American red lines without military victory.

    China also proved more resilient to the Hormuz blockade than many expected. It weathered what the International Energy Agency called the largest oil-supply disruption in history by cutting imports and drawing on reserves. Chinese demand became leverage rather than vulnerability. Energy pressure has long been viewed as one of the West’s strongest nonmilitary tools in a Taiwan crisis. The Iran War suggests it is blunter than assumed and China has more influence over the tap than Washington realized.

    China benefits from this imbalance. Washington carries the military burden. Beijing can present itself as the steadier economic and diplomatic partner. The more immediate danger is not an invasion but sustained Chinese pressure around Taiwan at a tempo Taipei cannot match indefinitely. Rebuilding interceptor stocks and returning key assets to Asia will help. Still, the more urgent signal is political: that commitments to allies will not be traded away in negotiations with Beijing.

    Xi’s planned September visit to the United States will provide the first test. Beijing hopes to secure relative calm through the remainder of President Trump’s term. Washington should want stability too. But China’s desire for predictability is leverage Washington can use. Approving the Taiwan arms package before Xi arrives would show that stability will not be purchased at the expense of deterrence.

    The Iran War will eventually end. But Beijing’s conclusions may shape the balance in Asia long after the fighting stops. America does not need to prove that its power is unlimited. It needs to show that its commitments can survive competing crises and that military success can produce lasting security. If it cannot, Asia may inherit the war’s most important legacy.