What is the US telling Pacific allies by moving missiles to use in the Iran war?
Deploying US missiles to the Middle East ‘reinforces Beijing’s assessment that time and industrial scale favour China’, analyst says
Washington is pulling most long-range cruise missiles from the Pacific for redeployment to the Middle East amid its war on Iran – a move analysts say signals possible supply constraints and tells Indo-Pacific “friends and foes alike” that US priorities lie elsewhere.
According to US media reports, the Pentagon ordered nearly the entire inventory of its JASSM-ER air-launched cruise missiles to be moved from the Pacific, and even from the continental United States, to US Central Command bases in the Middle East or Fairford base in Britain in late March.
This leaves just 425 units of the Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-Off Missile – Extended Range available for deployment worldwide, out of a pre-war inventory of nearly 2,300.
The US military reportedly consumed more than 1,000 JASSM-ER armaments within a month of beginning air strikes against Iran on February 28. A further 75 or so are unserviceable because of damage or technical fault, and 47 were used during the raid against Venezuela in January, according to US media reports.
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The US$1.5 million JASSM-ER, developed by Lockheed Martin, is a long-range cruise missile launched from various military aircraft. Since the start of its war on Iran, the US has reportedly fired the missile against Iranian targets from B-52 and B-1B bombers, as well as strike fighters.