US military’s Iran war pivot forces Asia-Pacific security rethink

2026.03.17 09:20 Smoke and flames rise from the site of airstrikes on an oil depot in Iran’s capital, Tehran, on March 7. Photo: Sasan/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images/TNS The redeployment of US military assets from the Asia-Pacific to the Middle East has split security analysts, with some arguing that any strategic damage is largely “psychological” while others warn of a real and measurable gap opening in the region’s defences. More than 2,000 marines and at least one amphibious assault ship have begun moving from Japan towards the Gulf as the US-Israeli war on Iran grinds on. The assault ship USS Tripoli, docked at Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture, is expected to reach the Middle East within one to two weeks. The redeployment comes as maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow chokepoint through which roughly 20 per cent of the world’s crude oil typically flows – has come to a standstill amid Iranian attacks on shipping. The United States’ military is also reportedly relocating parts of its THAAD anti-missile defence system from South Korea to the Middle East, while separate reports point to a possible transfer of American resources from the Philippines to the Gulf. US troops dismantle a launch vehicle of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system at an American military base in Seongju, South Korea, on March 5. Photo: Yonhap/EPA “The effect is perhaps more psychological,” said Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “The US still has plenty of combat power in the region and its basic military presence, including air and naval assets, is largely intact.” Newsham did acknowledge, however, that removing military assets from one area was likely to “leave a ‘thin spot’ in another”. The “burn rate” of American munitions in the Iran war is another concrete measure of strain, according to security researcher Paul Midford, a professor of international politics at Meij

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