Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected a carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. This week, the Pentagon has been moving sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

在与伊朗的战争爆发之前，美军指挥官已将一支航母打击群从南海调往中东。本周，五角大楼一直在转移原部署在亚洲的先进防空系统，以加强针对伊朗无人机和火箭的防护。

The redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from the THAAD system in South Korea — the only Asian ally hosting the advanced missile defense system, deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea’s growing missile threat. Now, for the first time, its interceptors are being moved away, followed by launchers if the diplomatic and logistical details can be worked out, according to American officials.

被调动的武器包括“爱国者”导弹以及在韩国的“萨德”系统的拦截弹——韩国是亚洲唯一部署这一先进导弹防御系统的盟国，该系统由五角大楼部署，用于应对朝鲜日益增长的导弹威胁。这是其拦截弹首次被调离，美国官员表示，一旦敲定外交和后勤方面的细节，发射器也将转移。

The war in Iran — barely two weeks old — is already straining America’s promise of security in a region that U.S. military leaders have called “our priority theater.” Longer term, officials and analysts suggest the war will weaken American influence, aid Chinese arguments about American decline and accelerate a middle-power arms race.

进行才短短两周的伊朗战争已经开始考验美国在该地区的安全承诺，美军将领曾将该地区称为“我们的首要战区”。从长远来看，官员和分析人士认为，这场战争将削弱美国的影响力，支持中国关于美国衰落的论点，并加速中等强国的军备竞赛。

部署在韩国星州美军基地的萨德系统，摄于周三。

The war’s demands are widening. Australia this week sent aircraft, personnel and a supply of air-to-air missiles to the Middle East. Japan and Taiwan are facing potentially delayed arms deliveries as the United States and its Middle Eastern allies burn at a blistering rate through attacking missiles and defensive interceptors. Pentagon officials told Congress on Tuesday that they estimated the cost of the war had exceeded $11.3 billion in the first six days alone.

战争需求正在扩大。本周，澳大利亚向中东派遣了飞机、人员以及一批空对空导弹。日本和台湾可能面临武器交付延误，因为美国及其在中东的盟友正以极高的速度消耗进攻导弹和防御拦截弹。五角大楼官员周二向国会表示，他们估计仅前六天的战争成本就已超过113亿美元。

American military commanders have told The New York Times that they are worried about the shrinking stockpiles and diversions, which are affecting many regions. In Asia, U.S. allies feel the deficit acutely as they struggle to counter China’s surging military and increasingly aggressive regional maneuvers.

美军将领告诉《纽约时报》，他们担心库存缩减和武器转移，这影响到多个地区。在亚洲，美国盟友对这一短缺感受尤为强烈，因为他们正努力应对中国军力激增以及日益咄咄逼人的地区行动。

President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea told his cabinet on Tuesday that while his government opposed the Pentagon’s relocation of air-defenses, “it is also an undeniable reality that we cannot fully have our way on this matter.”

韩国总统李在明周二在内阁会议上表示，虽然他的政府反对五角大楼转移防空系统，“但我们无法完全按照自己的意愿行事，这也是一个不可否认的现实。”

Asia is drawing three early conclusions about America’s latest conflict.

亚洲正在从美国的最新冲突中得出三个初步结论。

1. Asia is far from the United States’ top priority.

1. 亚洲远非美国的最优先事项。

At a regional security conference in Singapore last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stressed that America would stay focused on the region.

去年在新加坡举行的地区安全会议上，国防部长皮特·海格塞斯强调，美国将继续专注于该地区。

“No one should doubt America’s commitment to our Indo-Pacific allies and partners,” he said. “We will continue to wrap our arms around our friends.”

“任何人都不应怀疑美国对印太盟友和伙伴的承诺，”他说。“我们将继续拥抱我们的朋友。”

Now that’s harder for many countries to believe — especially when the Middle East’s needs draw specialty equipment from an ally bordering North Korea, a rogue nuclear power.

现在，许多国家更难相信这一点——尤其是当中东的需求导致与朝鲜——一个持核流氓国家——接壤的盟国的针对性武器被抽调。

上周，德黑兰的储油库遭美以空袭后发生爆炸。

“Moving air defenses out of Korea sends a terrible signal at a time when there are already huge concerns in Seoul about the Trump administration’s shaky commitment to Asia,” said Ely Ratner, a former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs under President Biden.

“首尔本已经对特朗普政府在亚洲承诺上摇摆不定深感担忧，将防空系统调离韩国发出了可怕的信号，”前拜登政府印太安全事务助理国防部长伊利·拉特纳表示。

THAAD batteries (THAAD stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) are the apex defenders of the American arsenal. Each battery typically includes several truck-mounted launchers and precise radar systems that can crash interceptors into incoming fire at many altitudes. At least five such systems are in the Middle East. In Asia, THAAD launchers have been deployed to Guam and South Korea.

“萨德”（THAAD，全称为末段高空区域防御系统）是美国武器库中的顶尖防御者。一个萨德防空连通常包括多辆卡车搭载的发射器和精密雷达系统，能够在多种高度将拦截弹撞向来袭目标。中东至少有五套此类系统。在亚洲，“萨德”发射器已部署在关岛和韩国。

Mr. Ratner noted that after the THAAD was installed near Seoul in 2017, China retaliated with boycotts on South Korean products and bans on tourism to the country, arguing the system threatened Chinese security.

拉特纳指出，2017年“萨德”部署在首尔附近后，中国以抵制韩国产品和禁止赴韩旅游作为报复，称该系统威胁中国安全。

“And now,” Mr. Ratner added, “the U.S. is taking it away for a war in the Middle East.”

“而现在，”拉特纳说，“美国却为了中东的一场战争将其撤走。”

2. China will get a boost in influence and confidence.

2. 中国的影响力和信心将得到提升。

Economics and security stressors are intertwined. With oil prices spiking, Asia, a manufacturing powerhouse that gets most of its oil from the Middle East, is especially exposed.

经济和安全压力相互交织。随着油价飙升，作为制造业强国且大部分石油来自中东的亚洲尤为脆弱。

Its stock markets are showing steep declines. Gasoline rationing is hitting U.S. allies like the Philippines especially hard — and that gives Beijing an opening. China can use America’s seeming disregard for the region’s economic pain to argue (even more than usual) that China is the only reliable superpower.

其股市出现大幅下跌。汽油配给制对菲律宾等美国盟友打击尤为严重——这给了北京可乘之机。中国可以利用美国似乎对该地区经济痛苦的漠视，进一步（比以往更有力地）论证中国是唯一可靠的超级大国。

The war has given Chinese state media plenty of fodder for criticizing U.S. foreign policy. The state-run China Daily ran a cartoon on Tuesday that depicts Uncle Sam caught in a thick spider web. “U.S. mired in Middle East,” read the headline.

这场战争为中国官方媒体提供了大量抨击美国外交政策的素材。官方《中国日报》周二刊登了一幅漫画，描绘山姆大叔陷入厚厚的蜘蛛网中。标题为：“美国深陷中东。”

Diplomats in the region worry that the war’s demands give Beijing a freer hand for territorial assertiveness. While it has quieted its military flights around the democratic island of Taiwan, China’s maritime forces have stayed busy there and elsewhere.

该地区的外交官担心，战争需求让北京在领土问题上更加肆无忌惮。虽然中国已减少围绕民主岛屿台湾的军机飞行，但其海上力量在台湾及其他地区仍保持活跃。

中国人民解放军士兵，9月摄于北京。

Late last year, China resumed island-building in the Paracels off Vietnam’s coast in the South China Sea. Satellite imagery from the Open Source Centre showed dredging intensified in recent weeks, with nearly two dozen Chinese ships at Antelope Reef with cranes and construction equipment fashioning a new outpost.

去年底，中国在南海靠近越南海岸线的西沙群岛恢复岛礁建设。开源中心(Open Source Centre)的卫星图像显示，近几周吹填活动加剧，20艘左右的中国船只携带起重机和建筑设备在羚羊礁建造一座新的前哨。

Japan is also in a precarious position, sitting close to Taiwan and occupying islands that China also claims as its own. More than 90 percent of Japan’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz. An economic crisis coupled with a military crisis is particularly worrisome to Tokyo.

日本靠近台湾，且占据着中国也声称拥有的岛屿，其处境也十分不妙。日本超过90%的石油通过霍尔木兹海峡运输。经济危机叠加军事危机，对东京而言尤为令人担忧。

“That would be a nightmare,” said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo.

“那将是一场噩梦，”东京笹川和平基金会高级研究员渡部恒雄表示。

“Japan recognizes that anything could happen under Mr. Trump,” he added. “We need to think about a worst-case scenario.”

“日本认识到，在特朗普先生任内，任何事都有可能发生，”他补充道。“我们需要考虑最坏的情况。”

3. Nations can’t rely on America for weapons.

3. 各国不能依赖美国提供武器。

The shifting of weapons and air defenses from the Indo-Pacific has revealed that the American war machine lacks depth, even more than many had expected.

从印太地区转移武器和防空系统暴露了美国战争机器的深度不足，甚至超出许多人的预期。

The military math makes many American partners shudder. Patriot interceptor missiles can cost nearly $4 million each. The United States produced about 600 of them in all of 2025. Some estimates suggest that more than 1,000 have already been used in less than two weeks of war.

这笔军事账让许多美国伙伴感到震惊。“爱国者”拦截导弹每枚成本近400万美元。美国在整个2025年仅生产约600枚。有些估计显示，在不到两周的战争中，已消耗超过1000枚。

The U.S. military has many other assets — American airstrikes are shifting toward cheaper, more plentiful bombs. And a deal made with Lockheed Martin in January aims to triple production of Patriot systems by 2030.

美国军方还有许多其他资产——美军空袭正转向更廉价、更充足的炸弹。今年1月与洛克希德·马丁公司达成的协议旨在到2030年将“爱国者”系统产量提高到原来的三倍。

But in many countries that agreed to increase military spending on American hardware at the urging of the Trump administration, the war in Iran feels like a flashing red light, warning that what they buy may not be delivered anytime soon.

许多国家应特朗普政府敦促增加了购买美国武器的开支，但它们看到，伊朗战争像是一盏闪烁的红灯，警告他们购买的武器可能短期内无法交付。

A Japanese government inquiry found in January that 118 orders for American weapons worth about $7.2 billion had not been delivered at least five years after contracts were signed.

日本政府1月的一项调查发现，价值约72亿美元的118笔美国武器订单在合同签订至少五年后仍未交付。

台湾军方去年在屏东进行了“海马斯”高机动性多管火箭系统的首次试射。

In Taiwan, there are worries that the war will make a bad situation worse, weakening deterrence from the United States because of munitions shortages, and making it harder for Taiwan’s government to justify a bigger defense budget to buy more American weapons.

在台湾，人们担心战争会让本已糟糕的局面雪上加霜，因弹药短缺削弱美国的威慑力，并使台湾政府更难向民众证明增加国防预算购买更多美国武器的合理性。

“It will inevitably affect shipments,” said Shu Hsiao-huang, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank backed by the defense ministry of Taiwan. “We have already experienced delays.”

“这将不可避免地影响交付，”台湾国防部支持的智库国防安全研究院研究员舒孝煌表示。“我们已经面临延误。”

Many countries will likely race to develop more military industrial capacity. Japan is developing its own long-range missile systems. South Korea secured U.S. approval in October to develop its first nuclear-powered attack submarines, which some experts have described as a step toward building nuclear weapons in the future.

许多国家很可能加速发展自身的军工产能。日本正在开发自己的远程导弹系统。韩国10月获得美国批准开发首艘核动力攻击潜艇，一些专家称这是向未来建造核武器迈出了一步。

Mr. Lee, South Korea’s president, said that the war shows a clear need for more self-reliance.

韩国总统李在明表示，这场战争凸显了加强自力更生的明确需求。

“If we rely on others, there are times when that dependence can collapse,” he said. “You always have to think about what you’re going to do if there’s no external support.”

“如果依赖他人，有时这种依赖会崩塌，”他说。“你必须始终思考，如果没有外部支持，你该怎么办。”

Asked for comment on the region’s concerns, the Pentagon responded with a brief email: “We have nothing to provide.”

当被问及对该地区担忧的评论时，五角大楼以一封简短邮件回复：“我们无可奉告。”