To focus on China, US needs to wean off Europe and Middle East missions

Earlier this month, Gen. Charles Flynn, the head of US Army Pacific, appeared at the Center for a New American Security with a clear warning: China’s build-up in land, air, and naval power has put it on an “accelerated path” toward military superiority in the region.

Concerns about China’s military capabilities are par for the course in national security circles these days, but Flynn’s direct comments serve as a good reminder that the PLA’s growth is not something just happening in hypothetical papers, but something the US military is seeing in real time.

The problem is that for all the talk about how China is the “pacing challenge” and needs to be the main focus for Washington, the US is overstretched at this most critical juncture. The uncomfortable reality: To be able to focus on China, American commitments need to change abroad.

A quick survey of America’s missions abroad sums the situation up.

In the Middle East, the US Navy has steadily chipped away at its already limited inventory of missiles intended to protect its ships in a war with China. In May 2024, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro reported that the US launched more than $1 billion in missiles during operations against the Houthis, consisting of nearly 100 SM-2 and SM-6 surface-to-air missiles. In October 2024, US Navy destroyers fired roughly one dozen of the Navy’s advanced SM-3 surface-to-air missiles in one night, intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Israel — and expending an entire year’s worth of production for the Navy’s top-flight missile defense interceptor. For years, experts have warned that the US Navy was not acquiring the missiles it needed to defend itself in the Indo-Pacific fast enough and now it is using them up at an alarming rate in a secondary theater.

In Europe, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has captured America’s attention for nearly three years, drawing the focus away from China at a crucial time. American military deployments to Europe continue to grow as Russian actions in Ukraine distract from China’s efforts to displace the United States as the guarantor of the prevailing international order. With the United States focused on the conflict in Ukraine, China has been emboldened to challenge American interests in the Indo-Pacific, raising questions about whether US support for Ukraine detracts from support for Taiwan and, more broadly, American efforts to secure a free and open Indo-Pacific.

If the United States remains overstretched, it will only further the ambitions of the so-called “Axis of Upheaval”— the term my colleagues at CNAS have assigned to the loose coalition of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea intent on disrupting the American-led international order that has ensured economic, political, and security stability since the Second World War.

The situation, however, is not hopeless. There are several options available to prevent that outcome, if political leadership in Washington is willing to make hard choices.

In Europe, American military power and its extended nuclear deterrent must remain the bedrock of European security, but the US should continue pressing its NATO allies to invest in collective defense. All NATO members should meet — and ideally exceed — the 2 percent spending target set by the alliance. Russia’s invasion prompted long-time NATO partners Sweden and Finland to formally join the alliance and spurred significant investment in military modernization and planning in Poland, and critically, among the Baltic states along NATO’s vulnerable northeastern flank.

The US should push NATO to capitalize on these developments by expanding its Enhanced Forward Presence mission, ensuring that it can support frontline NATO battlegroups with the necessary reinforcements during a crisis, and continuing to support defense innovation in key areas among its member states. That would allow the US to draw down its presence in Europe, freeing up assets for use in the Pacific — the kind of movement that was underway before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the Middle East, the US should reduce its commitment of high-end capabilities within the region and redeploy them to the Indo-Pacific region. The rapid expenditure of advanced munitions in the region is unsustainable. The US should take the lead in organizing a multinational coalition of allies and partners to protect commercial shipping, allowing American military forces to take on a reduced role in the interception of Houthi missiles. This effort could model the success of the EU-led counterpiracy taskforces that operated off the Horn of Africa for many years.

That must go hand in hand with the US pressing Israel to reach a solution to the crisis in the Middle East that allows the Pentagon to reduce its force posture in the region. The diversion of thousands of US servicemembers and critical missile and air defense capabilities to the region detracts from the ability to place those forces in the Indo-Pacific where they may be needed on short notice in a crisis with China.

In addition to doubling-down on its own posture in the region, the US must prioritize the capacity of partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific to support US operations during peacetime competition and wartime engagement. To do so, the US must increase the production rate of the critical munitions it expects to rely on in great number during a conflict with China; while US production lines are hitting maximum output, encouraging investment from allies and partners in their own domestic production, as Australia is currently doing, can help make up shortfalls.

To ease the logistical burden of surging American forces into the region during a crisis, the US should expand its efforts to preposition and stockpile American military hardware in the region. And the US must continue to encourage its allies and partners in the region to invest in their own defense capabilities in ways that complement American advantages in the region. Interoperability and familiarity are foundational to this approach and a key objective of the US military’s approach to peacetime campaigning in the region.

Finally, the United States must ensure that the trilateral AUKUS agreement proceeds on schedule. This landmark agreement serves as a bedrock for future security in the region and a framework for expanded cooperation with other key Indo-Pacific allies and partners.

President Xi has chosen to support his partners in the “Axis of Upheaval” in large part to sow the decline of the American-led international order — with the goal of making sure the US is stretched thinly if China decides to make moves in the Indo-Pacific. If the United States cannot rebalance its military focus toward the Indo-Pacific it risks expediting Chinese aggression in the region and furthering the decline of the US-led economic and political order worldwide.

Yes, a relative withdrawal from Europe and the Middle East is difficult to swallow and carries its own risks. But if China is the biggest threat to American interests, then it has to remain the biggest focus of America’s capabilities — even if it comes with accepting risk elsewhere.

Dr. Carlton Haelig is a Fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security where he focuses on defense strategy, force planning, and innovation.