US Aircraft Carrier Deploys to Middle East, Leaving Pacific Without Carrier Presence

The USS George Washington's deployment from Japan to the Middle East will leave the US without an aircraft carrier in the western Pacific. The USS Abraham Lincoln, which the USS George Washington is relieving, has been deployed for about nine months and its sailors have been dealing with mental health problems and supply disruptions.

The absence of a US carrier in the Pacific has happened before, and China has previously exploited those gaps by sailing its strike groups closer to US allies like Taiwan and Japan. Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Colonel and a current senior adviser at CSIS, says that while a full-scale invasion is unlikely, China could use the void to ratchet up its presence in the Pacific.

The region is crucial for the US both militarily and economically, hosting at least 66 significant defense sites, while Taiwan produces the majority of the chips America needs to run its AI industry. The Navy has an 11-carrier fleet, which allows two carriers to be deployed continuously without burning out crews, but if two carriers stay stationed in the Middle East, there will likely be months each year when the Pacific presence drops to zero.

The carrier departure coincides with the US substantially trimming routine joint US-South Korea military drills and preparing for an upcoming summit with Xi Jinping in China. The combination of a carrier gap and reduced military exercises could reinforce Beijing's argument that US security commitments are unreliable.