Is South China Sea warship breakdown a sign US is ‘taxing reserve capacity’?

A US guided-missile destroyer that was adrift in the South China Sea without power last month is a sign that America is taxing its reserve capacity as its operation against Iran drags on, according to an analyst.“This is an extremely unusual occurrence and a variety of equipment and process failures would have to have taken place,” said Brad Martin, a former US Navy captain who is now a senior policy researcher at Washington-based think tank the Rand Corporation.“Failures such as this are a predictable outcome of issues such as deferred maintenance and training gaps,” he said, adding that more details were needed to get a full picture of the incident.The USS Benfold lost power due to an engineering failure involving its generators on July 24, the US Navy said in a statement cited by USNI News on Friday.It left the nearly 10,000-tonne Arleigh Burke-class vessel stalled for four days without power in the South China Sea.The destroyer lost power while carrying out routine operations with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group. Photo: HandoutUS Seventh Fleet spokesman Commander Matthew Comer said in the statement that the destroyer lost power while conducting routine operations in the Indo-Pacific with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group.