Support for Ukraine stretching US capabilities in East Asia
Washington's clout in Asia may suffer as a result of the US push to continue financial and military support for Ukraine, according to US media.
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Ukrainian troops in an armored vehicle advance outside Kiev, Ukraine, March 31, 2022.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the US has sent more than $40 billion in arms to Kiev. According to Moscow, this makes Washington a direct participant in the Ukrainian conflict.
Washington may face problems with its clout in Asia as a result of a US push to continue its financial and military support for Ukraine, according to a US newspaper.
“On the populist side, the best argument for limiting America’s involvement in Ukraine is likewise not ideological but strategic: that the United States is burning through munitions so quickly that it might be weakening Washington’s deterrence capacity in East Asia in the short term,” the report said.
In East Asia, a region that is “more important to Americans’ prosperity than Ukraine”, the US is “threatened by a far more powerful rival in China.”
In an apparent nod to the Ukrainian conflict and the ongoing war in Ukraine, the US media outlet claimed that “[…] It might be more productive for Washington to try to wall off the war from the United States’ raging cultural conflicts that distort everything in their path. That would mean justifying Washington’s support for Ukraine not as an open-ended ideological mission but as a limited defense of national sovereignty and a demonstration of US military strength.”
This came after the Biden administration unveiled the new US defense strategy in late October, in which China was described as the greatest threat to American security.
In the strategy's introduction, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated, "the PRC [People's Republic of China] remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades."
Read next: Beijing: Washington Threatens Peace by Creating "Imaginary Enemies"
In an interview with a separate US media outlet last summer, US National Guard Bureau Army Chief Gen. Dan Hokanson stated that the US military is looking to expand its training presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The US National Guard training initiative began in 2002. Since then, 15 of the 36 Asia-Pacific nations have joined the guard. Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, and Vietnam are among the countries involved.
Washington and Beijing continue to disagree on a number of issues, including those concerning Taiwan, which China regards as an integral part of the mainland. Beijing is irritated by Washington's increasing arms sales to Taiwan, as well as US President Joe Biden's pledges to "defend" the island in the event of an "invasion" by China.
