US allies unsure of Washington’s ability to defend them if necessary — newspaper

NEW YORK, August 21. /TASS/. Washington’s allies are concerned about whether the US will be able to defend them if necessary, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to the newspaper, US allies have been "fretting about Washington’s intentions" ever since Donald Trump returned to the presidency. Now that a military operation against Iran has depleted US arsenals and "laid bare the limits of American hard power," Washington’s allies are also concerned about its ability to defend them. Officials from other countries are observing "industrial decline, strategic incoherence and political dysfunction" in the US and are wondering whether this has weakened the country to such an extent that it will be unable to play a decisive role should the conflict spread across multiple fronts in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. These doubts are shared by many in Washington itself, The Wall Street Journal emphasized. The Pentagon and the White House deny that the US Army is facing an ammunition shortage. However, according to estimates by think tanks and experts, the US has used up about half of its pre-war stockpile of Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles in the Middle East, as well as a third of its Tomahawk and JASSM missile arsenal. Trump has rejected Kiev’s repeated requests for additional Patriot missiles, the newspaper noted, while Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia oppose the resumption of full-scale US military operations against Iran because their stocks of interceptor missiles are too low.