President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is placing growing pressure on the US Navy’s aircraft carrier fleet, with one of the service’s key warships leaving the western Pacific at a time when China is showing increasing assertiveness in the region.
The USS George Washington is set to leave the Pacific and replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, where the Lincoln’s deployment has been extended well beyond its original May return date to support US operations against Iran, AP news agency reported.
The move could temporarily leave the Pacific without a US aircraft carrier. While the gap may be brief if another carrier deploys in the coming months, analysts say the development highlights the strain caused by prolonged operations in the Middle East.
The carrier deployment comes as the Trump administration increasingly focuses on the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere, despite previously identifying the Pacific as a key strategic priority.
“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Instead, he said, Washington was “doing the exact opposite” of its earlier goal of reducing its military involvement in the Middle East.
The shift is unsettling US allies in the Pacific, Poling said, while Beijing is benefiting from what he described as American distraction and frustration among Washington’s regional partners.
China regards the US military presence in the Indo-Pacific as a challenge to its rise and its ambitions regarding Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its territory.
Analysts do not expect China to invade Taiwan simply because a US aircraft carrier has left the region. However, the absence could provide Beijing with an opportunity to demonstrate its military strength.
Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner and defence analyst at the Hudson Institute, said China could use the situation to reinforce a narrative among countries such as the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia that Washington can no longer guarantee regional security.
China has recently conducted naval exercises with Indonesia and increased military activity involving Japan and the Philippines.
Beijing also held military drills near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea this month. Last month, a Chinese guided-missile destroyer conducted a live-fire exercise near Japan’s southernmost island of Okinotori.
Washington is seeking to reassure its regional partners despite the carrier gap.
Adm Frank Bradley, head of the US Special Operations Command, visited Manila on Thursday and told Philippine officials that US special operations forces were prepared to expand joint exercises to strengthen the alliance. He is also expected to visit Japan.
Evan Sankey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute who focuses on US policy towards China, said aircraft carriers offered psychological reassurance to American allies.