A rare gap is opening across the waters of the Pacific, which will soon hold no United States aircraft carrier at all as the Trump administration funnels its naval firepower into the war against Iran.
That gap is being created by the USS George Washington, which departed Da Nang, Vietnam, last week and is now steaming west to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. According to tracking data compiled by BBC Verify, the carrier had reached the Strait of Malacca, on a heading that would take it into the Indian Ocean and bring it to Duqm port in Oman, roughly 500 miles off the Iranian coast, around August 22.
Its arrival will make three the number of carriers in the region, joining the USS George H.W. Bush. For an unknown stretch, no American flattop will cover the Pacific. The administration frames that trade-off as tolerable, describing China as “a settled force” that needs deterring rather than confronting as the top global adversary it was considered under the Biden administration.
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Scrutiny of the Lincoln has intensified as the swap unfolds. Deployed from San Diego on November 21, the carrier has logged a record uninterrupted stretch at sea of more than 240 days, blowing past its original May return date. Combat actions during the Iran war, the Navy conceded, disrupted traditional supply hubs in the Middle East and led to shortages of food and mail.
Poor sanitation, broken plumbing, exhaustion and, in some cases, attempts to jump overboard have been reported by relatives of the roughly 5,000 sailors aboard. The Navy has denied any mental health crisis while acknowledging the supply problems.
President Donald Trump waved off worries about the deployment’s length, calling it “not nearly long enough.”
Answers have been demanded by Democratic lawmakers. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal cautioned that the situation raises a broader question of whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now demanded of its carrier force.
Some of the media reports had been “completely misrepresented,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, adding that the blockade the Navy has reimposed on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz can be maintained “indefinitely.”
