America needs to reassert its security commitments in the Pacific
If a full-scale armed conflict breaks out in Asia, US military capabilities in the Western Pacific are expected to suffer from the absence of a carrier strike group
STIRRED away from the Pacific region, two carrier strike groupsiers, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Abraham Lincoln, are in the Middle East as part of America’s commitment to support Israel’s defence against threats from Iran and its regional partners and proxies, according to the Pentagon.
When asked about the risk of not having an aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific, Pentagon officials insist that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Yet just as the US shifted its resources from the Pacific in response to Israel’s security needs, Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships collided at sea at end-August, damaging at least two vessels, the latest in increasingly alarming confrontations in the disputed South China Sea.
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