The US has depleted its Middle East defense systems to the point where they are stripping Asian defense systems, particularly in South Korea.
South Korean media has reported several flights of U.S. military transport aircraft at Osan Air Base since the Iran conflict started, noting that the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster planes that were seen are used to typically carry Patriot systems and THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems.
The U.S. move to deploy Patriot defense systems in South Korea to the Middle East comes against the backdrop of reports that air defense systems used by Gulf nations were running “dangerously low” on interceptors to defend against Iranian drone and missile strikes.
IISS’ Kim said that U.S. missile supplies are already under significant strain, given that Iran continues to retaliate and the conflict is likely to be a prolonged one.
Interesting and worrisome. Then I realized, though, that I have an inside source that could give me fresh, juicy information. My son is a major in the signal corps, which handles all this tech and logistics stuff, and he’s stationed in Korea. They’re also in the middle of a huge joint exercise in the Pacific called Freedom Shield 26, in which he’s putting in long days coordinating various aspects of the exercise. He’d know about any strains and shifts in the conduct of the drill, and I know him well, and he even called me on my birthday. The perfect opportunity to get breaking news!
So I asked him about it. He stonewalled me about it. Me! His own father! He wouldn’t reveal a single tiny secret, not even as a birthday present.
Maybe it’s because he sounded really tired and overworked, and because he was calling at 4am Korean time just before he started another long day, but I couldn’t get him to crack. I also didn’t try very hard, since if true, I imagine having big chunks of the military infrastructure yanked out from under one of the guys in charge of deploying said infrastructure in the middle of a multi-national exercise is a bit of a headache.
He’s a good boy. Don’t bother trying to extract info from him.
Some friends of ours have a son who works at NATO headquarters in Brussels. They too got stonewalled when they asked him what’s going on.
So they wanted a manly, war-like military; then they make their operations sound like a feminine hygiene product?
It gets worse.
We are taking anti-missile air defenses from South Korea and sending them to the Persian Gulf because we are running out of interceptors.
We are also now sending 2,200 Marines and 3 amphibious landing ships to the Middle East.
This is obviously part of a land invasion of Iran.
Another escalation.
What the Trump regime is doing here is obvious.
Doubling down on a failed bet.
Bomb Iran. Replace the Ayatollah Khamenie with…the Ayatolla Khamenie, his son. Wreck the US and world economies. Invade Iran. When our soldiers are on the ground in Iran, they become vulnerable. While they are shooting at Iranians, those Iranians are going to be shooting back. US casualties will climb sharply.
Hello Congress. Do your job.
Oh wait. Congress is missing. I saw them featured on a milk carton.
There has been a lot of talk recently about magazine depth and how a conflict with a “near peer” (aka China) would burn through missile stocks within a week or two. Followed by recent noise about increasing production. (Something that will take a year or three.)
So it makes since that the idiots in charge would burn through those assets in a stupid war of choice.
If China doesn’t make their long expected move to take Taiwan soon, they never will.