Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are eating into US stockpiles of air defences and to say otherwise would be “dishonest”, the top US admiral in the Indo-Pacific region has said. The Biden administration has given Kyiv a full array of defences, including Patriot missiles and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile systems. The US last month also deployed one of the six Terminal High Altitude Area Defence systems (THAAD) in its arsenal to Israel. “It imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo-Pacific region, which is the most stressing theatre for the quantity and quality of munitions, because [China] is the most capable potential adversary in the world”, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said.
