WASHINGTON — U.S. military bases in South Korea, Japan and other countries in the Pacific are "highly vulnerable" to North Korean and Chinese missile and drone attacks, a U.S. expert has said, calling for efforts to strengthen air and missile defenses. Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made the remarks in an op-ed released by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, following reports that the United States is running low on key missile defense interceptors amid the Middle East war. Noting that advancements in drone and missile warfare have pushed Ukraine and Russia to take extensive steps to protect their bases since their full-scale war began in 2022, Jones argued that the U.S. has been "too slow" to learn from the war and protect its bases and other infrastructure in the Middle East. "The challenge in the Pacific is much greater. China presents a more serious threat than Iran with a larger and more capable stockpile of drones and cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles," he said. "U.S. military bases