US Pulls Last Aircraft Carrier in Asia 08/17 06:16

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's war against Iran is stretching 
the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without 
one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.

   The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific and expected to replace 
the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental 
health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had 
its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support 
operations against Iran.

   The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy 
deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended 
operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, 
while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region 
and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

   "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, the U.S. is "doing the exact opposite" of its previously expressed 
goal of pulling out of the Middle East.

   American allies in the Pacific are unsettled over the unpredictability of 
the Republican administration, Poling said, while Beijing "is quite happy with 
U.S. distraction, with the frustration of U.S. allies and partners."

   China may take advantage of US carrier's absence

   Beijing sees the U.S. military presence in the region as a threat to China's 
rise and an obstacle to its ambition to seize Taiwan, the self-governing island 
it claims as its own. But the United States has argued that the Pacific region 
is too important economically to lose.

   No one expects China to invade Taiwan because an American aircraft carrier 
has left the region. But the carrier's absence gives the Chinese another 
opportunity to show its strength, said Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner 
who is a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.

   "They're using this as part of the narrative to demonstrate to the 
Philippines, to Japan, to Indonesia and others that the U.S. is not the big dog 
in the western Pacific anymore," Clark said. "They would just prefer that 
countries in the region decide that China is the bigger power and the U.S. is 
not able to guarantee their security anymore."

   China conducted naval exercises this week with Indonesia and recently has 
shown signs of aggression toward Japan and the Philippines, two key U.S. allies 
that also have territorial disputes with Beijing.

   China carried out military drills this month near the Scarborough Shoal in 
the South China Sea. Both China and the Philippines have claims over the shoal. 
Last month, a Chinese guided-missile destroyer conducted a live-fire exercise 
off Japan's southernmost island of Okinotori.

   Adm. Frank Bradley, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, has been 
trying to reassure regional allies of Washington's commitment. He was in Manila 
on Thursday, telling his Filipino counterparts that U.S. special operations 
forces are ready to step up joint exercises to strengthen the countries' 
alliance. He also is expected to travel to Japan.

   "We have the ability to project force, the United States, anywhere on the 
globe," Bradley told The Associated Press. "And when the threat in the region 
of the Middle East has been attended to, we will redeploy and reorient and be 
able to project that force wherever else it might be required."

   "I also feel very confident in the Armed Forces of the Philippines' ability 
to protect their sovereignty here and for us to remain close with them," he 
said.

   Evan Sankey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute who focuses on U.S. 
policy toward China, said aircraft carriers provide psychological assurance to 
U.S. allies. The absence of carriers in the region, he said, "adds to the 
general sense that the U.S. is distracted by events in the Middle East."

   Trump has relied on aircraft carriers for military actions

   Trump has relied heavily on aircraft carriers to support military operations 
during his second term. For example, the USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in 
mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during 
which it supported the U.S. fight against Iran and the capture of Venezuela's 
then-leader, Nicols Maduro.

   The Ford had experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier 
to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left 
hundreds of sailors without places to sleep. Meanwhile, the Lincoln has spent a 
record uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days. Democratic lawmakers 
have been calling for investigations and greater visibility into conditions 
aboard the ship.

   Warships and their crews can only handle so much, said Robert Farley, who 
teaches national security and diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and often 
writes about aircraft carriers.

   "People don't get enough rest. It's psychologically exhausting. And R&R is 
part of keeping the crew healthy," Farley said. "Sometimes it's framed as, 
'These people haven't had a vacation.' But we are dealing with well-known 
limits on the capacity of a crew to operate at top efficiency over time. And 
that just declines."

   Clark, of the Hudson Institute, said the squeeze on the nation's aircraft 
carriers stems from the lack of preparation and planning for the Iran war.

   "If we were going to mobilize to do this kind of conflict, and we 
anticipated it might go this long, we might have done some changes to the 
carrier schedule to make sure more would be available," Clark said.

   Clark said the Navy has 11 aircraft carriers and typically deploys two or 
three at a time. But it could soon deploy four if the USS Theodore Roosevelt 
leaves San Diego for the Middle East, allowing the Washington to return to 
Pacific.

   But the massive warships will need maintenance, likely causing a bottleneck 
at the nation's only two carrier shipyards.

   "We'll end up with a maintenance debt that needs to be paid for the next few 
years," Clark said. "We'll probably have less carrier presence than we've had 
in the previous years because carriers will be lined up to get into the 
shipyard."

   There are questions about the use of aircraft carriers in modern warfare

   Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute's East Asia 
Program, questions the future need for aircraft carriers as warfare rapidly 
changes.

   Carriers can be more easily targeted with drones and missiles, particularly 
by an adversary such as China, Swaine said, while smaller ships and submarines 
can be as effective in striking targets as the fighter jets that launch off a 
carrier.

   Top Navy officials have indicated a desire to move away from a heavy 
reliance on carriers. Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told The 
Associated Press in February that he wants to convince commanders to use 
smaller, newer ships and other assets instead of consistently turning to huge 
aircraft carriers.