Ever since President Trump’s return to office, America’s allies have been fretting about Washington’s intentions. Now, after the inconclusive war against Iran has eroded U.S. weapons stockpiles and laid bare the limits of American hard power, they also worry about American capabilities.
“The question used to be credibility—will the United States really do it? But capability is an important part of this equation. And, with all the reporting about how the U.S. is expending munitions, it’s just logical that adversaries would assume that the U.S. is less capable now than it was several months, or several years, before.”
“If you think about deterrence, it’s about capability and credibility,” said strategist Matthew Kroenig, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who served in the Pentagon during the first Trump administration.
A Council on Foreign Relations expert study released this month said that “the U.S. weapons arsenal has been depleted and no longer has the capacity to deter a Chinese attack against Taiwan. European officials are increasingly doubtful in private that Trump’s America will help them in case Russia attacks While paying lip service to the NATO alliance in public. “The American nuclear umbrella is gone. The growing sense of American—and Western—vulnerability can tempt autocratic adversaries, particularly Russian leader Vladimir Putin, warned Nico Lange, a former senior German defense official who now runs the Iris think tank. “All this creates an opportunity structure for Putin that is extremely dangerous. The White House has pushed back on reports of weapons shortages caused by the war in Iran. “Even still, the President has urged our defense contractors to constantly produce more made-in-America weapons, which are the best in the world. This has direct implications beyond Iran. Asked about these calculations, the Pentagon replied with a statement by chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. “America’s military remains the most powerful fighting force on earth. We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing.
Because “waiting until conflict begins will be too late, it added that Washington needs to immediately put mass production of precision missiles on a wartime footing.
“Unofficially, we all know that they won’t risk their security for the sake of the Baltic states, or for the sake of Germany,” said retired colonel Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker from Germany’s ruling party. “Iran is increasingly humiliating the United States in front of everybody, while the U.S. is creating uncertainty about their commitment to European security, and the Europeans aren’t showing any will to deter Russia,” he said. “The United States Military has more than enough munitions, ammo and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond, and Operation Epic Fury has exposed what happens when you mess with the United States,” deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said. “Claims of U.S. munitions shortages are false,” it said. “There is now a risk of an acute crisis across different theaters brought about by the shortage of interceptors and missile defense,” said John Bew, who served as foreign-policy adviser to British prime ministers in 2019-2024 and is now a professor at the War Studies Department of King’s College London. “This has immediate implications for the Gulf, of course, but is increasingly understood as a major shortfall in European defense and has potentially major consequences in Asia, too.”
