TOKYO — When the United States pulled its only aircraft carrier based in Asia to support the military surge in Afghanistan back in 2010, allies in the region had little concern that China or North Korea might look to take advantage. Today things are different.

As the U.S. continues to pour weapons into the Middle East for military operations against Iran, current and former defense officials in Asia are growing concerned that more American firepower will be shifted over time if the war drags on. And even if fighting wraps up soon, they warned that depleted stockpiles of munitions could also take years to replace, leaving Taiwan and other places vulnerable.

In a Cabinet meeting this week, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung confirmed the U.S. may need to relocate air defense assets to the Middle East and subsequent reports said that multiple launchers of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system were spotted moving out of a southern base.

While downplaying the risk, calling Seoul’s capabilities “undeniably overwhelming,” Lee also said he opposed the Trump administration’s decision but couldn’t “impose our position” on the U.S.

“Anytime that we’re pulling air and missile defenses out of theater, that’s going to create obvious concerns,” said Lindsey Ford, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia during the Biden administration. “They are not only critically important, but I think they give countries a sense of reassurance.”

The rapid pace of China’s military build-up over the last two decades, as well as North Korea’s development of advanced missiles, mean the stakes have become much higher in East Asia.

The U.S. has already deployed around one-third of its naval surface fleet to the Middle East, and other essential parts of the military logistics chain such as aerial refueling aircraft and supply ships are heavily concentrated near Iran.

Asked for comment, a Pentagon official said the department doesn’t discuss movement or disposition of specific weapons systems. But the Pentagon is managing its global responsibilities while making sure U.S. forces remain capable of deterring any aggression in the Indo-Pacific, the official said.

At the moment, China has given little indication it’s looking to ramp up tensions with Taiwan, calling for an urgent ceasefire in the Middle East while dialing back pressure on the island’s air defenses. Still, the war in Iran has some in Taipei nervous.

U.S. military assets and resources “cannot be deployed in two places at the same time,” Chen Kuan-ting, a Taiwanese lawmaker and member of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee of the legislature, said in an interview. “Deploying the main military assets in Asia and confronting the U.S.’s primary competitor here is more in line with U.S. interests.”

U.S. officials have sought to downplay any worries about munitions or a spread of the war to other parts of the globe, even as the rhetoric ramps up on both sides. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters earlier this month that he had no message for China or Russia, saying “our issue is not with them.” Despite the war, U.S. President Donald Trump is still planning to head to Beijing in a few weeks for a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“The U.S. military in Trump 2.0 has again been distracted by the Middle East, but as long as the status quo in the Taiwan Strait remains unchanged, Beijing is unlikely to act,” said James Char, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University. “Some probing on the margins is possible” in the form of grey zone operations, he added.

At a Senate hearing last week, Elbridge Colby, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said top American officials were focused on “very close alignment with our allies and partners” in the Indo-Pacific region. He noted his first call after the attack on Iran was to the defense minister of the Philippines.

“We are laser-focused on the First Island Chain,” Colby said, a term that refers primarily to Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

A military official from the Philippines, who requested anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak publicly, said the nation had no concern about its alliance with the U.S. due to the war in Iran. Annual exercises are still planned with the U.S. military next month, which typically include training to defend Filipino islands near Taiwan, the official added.

Still, some strategic thinkers in the region see little scope to dial back the U.S. military presence in East Asia without affecting the balance of power. China continues to build and deploy military equipment at a rapid rate, including a much faster pace of ship production than the U.S. At least two U.S. destroyers based in Japan have been deployed to take part in Iran strikes, according to U.S. military photos.

Rommel Ong, a retired rear admiral in the Philippine Navy, said the current level of U.S. naval presence was needed to “prevent China from 100% sea control of the South China Sea.”

“Right now, even without the situation in Iran, the Chinese maritime forces in East Asia enjoy numerical advantage,” he said.

It’s not unusual for the U.S. to move weaponry around the world. Last year, Patriot air defense systems were moved from South Korea to Qatar ahead of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. They were returned after a few months.

So far, the war in Iran has been almost exclusively an air campaign, making it different to prior conflicts. But if it expands it could draw in other parts of the U.S. military, such as Marine Corps battalions from Japan that were sent to Afghanistan.

During previous conflicts in the Middle East, the U.S. military deployed a range of capabilities from East Asia, including the aircraft carrier USS George Washington from Japan for a few months during the surge period of the Afghanistan campaign.

“If major U.S. military assets like the USS George Washington aircraft carrier in Japan were moved to the Middle East, it would be problematic for readiness in the Indo-Pacific,” said Hirohito Ogi, a former Japanese Defense Ministry official, adding that he thought it was an unlikely scenario.

A more immediate concern, he said, is the depletion of missiles such as Patriot interceptors. It takes a long time to make them, meaning it could take years to return to fully replenish inventories. “That could have a serious impact on readiness in the Indo-Pacific region, including the defense of Taiwan,” Ogi said.

The Payne Institute, a public research institute in Colorado, estimates that more than 300 Patriot and other interceptors were used by U.S. defense systems in the first 36 hours of the Iran war, and a further 280 used by Gulf countries. Details about missile stockpiles aren’t publicly available, but Lockheed Martin Corp. makes around 620 Patriot missiles a year.

“We’re seeing the results now of a ‘just in time’ approach to equipping and manning the military, based on the assumption that we’d never fight a major war again — much less two of them at once,” said Grant Newsham, a former U.S. Marine Corps colonel and liaison officer to the Japanese military.

That’s a problem for Asia, which still relies on the U.S. as the main deterrent against China. Countries in the region need to do more to ensure they have their own resources and “won’t necessarily be dependent on the U.S.” if there’s a crisis in the region, according to Ford, the former U.S. defense official.

“We’ve all seen this dance before,” she said. “But I do think that it creates a lot of questions for Asian allies about what they need to do regarding their own sovereign capabilities.”

Of particular note was the reported redeployment of parts of the THAAD air defense system from South Korea, said John Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society. Both China and North Korea strongly objected to its installation in South Korea in 2017.

“It’s hard to overstate the irony of THAAD, a symbol of the pivot to Asia, being removed in the dead of night for a new war in the Middle East,” Delury said.

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(With assistance from Cliff Venzon, Soo-Hyang Choi, Josh Xiao and Swati Pandey.)

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