What does war in the Middle East mean for the credibility and effectiveness of US-led deterrence of China in Asia? The rule of thumb is that the more the US is caught up in problems in other parts of the world, the less focused it is on Asia and deterring China.
There is a seductive logic to this argument. American reserves of hard power are finite. The more it is deployed in one part of the world, the less it can be used somewhere else. And the less US hard power available in Asia, the poorer its ability to deter China.
