European and Asian allies of the United States increasingly doubt Washington’s ability to simultaneously help Israel and Ukraine – Bloomberg writes, citing sources.

The United States was confident in the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab countries, so it moved resources from the Middle East to direct them to fight Russia or China, and is now forced to ask Tel Aviv to postpone the operation in the Gaza Strip in order to increase its forces in the region, the agency writes .

At the same time, Ukraine has exhausted its reserves of artillery shells from the United States and its allies, and attempts to increase ammunition production are facing various obstacles.

At the same time, Taiwan ordered air defense systems from the States similar to those used by Ukraine and Israel.

The US defense industry — Biden’s “arsenal of democracy” — is struggling to produce enough artillery shells to ensure Ukraine can keep firing them at Russian forces.

The Pentagon is bombing targets in Syria as it rushes air defenses to the region to protect troops in case Israel’s war against Hamas prompts new attacks by enemies.

Taiwan, another American ally, has stepped up orders for American weapons as China confronts it over strategic sea lanes.

In capitals across Europe and Asia, officials are growing worried that some partners might ultimately be shortchanged as the surge in simultaneous challenges strains the US ability to respond and its defense industry struggles to produce enough weapons for all these conflicts.

Rivals in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, they fear, won’t miss the openings that creates.

Biden has raced to reassure leaders around the world that the US would be able to confront all the threats at once and deliver on its promises of support.

Privately, however, administration officials concede that the crisis in the Middle East has upended what had been a key tenet of their global approach – that the long-tumultuous region was finally heading into a period where it wouldn’t require such a big US commitment, allowing Washington to focus more on the threat from China.

That eastward pivot is likely to be slowed, officials said.

Since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, the US has been rushing forces back to the Middle East. Biden dispatched two aircraft carrier groups and air-defense systems to the region, and put thousands of troops on heightened alert, in what officials call a signal to Iran and other rivals in the region not to join the fight when Israel launches a widely expected ground invasion of Gaza.

But that message of deterrence doesn’t seem to have gotten through. This week, the US sent warplanes to strike targets in Syria – its first military action in the region since Oct. 7 – after a string of attacks by Iran-backed militias had injured more than a dozen troops at US bases there and in Iraq.

Administration officials underline there are no plans at the moment to have US troops fight on the ground in the Middle East. But Biden, who even as vice president was known for telling aides in the Situation Room that superpowers don’t bluff, is fully aware of the risks that the American forces may be drawn in if efforts to contain the conflict fail.

The conflict in Ukraine has “exposed the fragility” of the US’s defense supply chain, the Army Science Board warned last month, saying that the US is “struggling to ramp up the production of munitions.”

Recent war games, some of them classified, have shown that that US stocks of key precision and standoff weapons could be exhausted in as little as a few days in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the report said.

Now, Israel is also seeking some of the same kinds of shells Ukraine needs for its war against Hamas.

Taiwan, at the same time, has ordered some of the same air-defense weapons that both Israel and Ukraine use.

“Our industrial base was not prepared to have to restock so many different types of weapons for multiple different partners at the same time,” said Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of Defense for policy. “In all three cases, our ability to equip train and support these partners is really the primary means by which we can safeguard our own interests,” she said.

“The US risks overreaching at a dangerously complicated and uncertain time in the world during a time when we see historic American dysfunction, incompetence and division in our ability to govern,” said former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

https://bnnbloomberg.ca/allies-fear-us-is-overextended-as-global-conflicts-spread-1.1990561…