(Central News Agency reporter Chen Yunyu, London, 6th) British sea power experts pointed out that the global deployment and tight maintenance of U.S. aircraft carriers and naval vessels had already occurred before the outbreak of the Iran war this year. The impact of this on the U.S.’s deterrent capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region deserves continued attention.
Experts also mentioned that the way the United States uses high-value military assets such as aircraft carriers deserves further examination. Taking the Asian and Pacific battlefields as an example, China may consider using paramilitary forces such as coast guard and militia to isolate or blockade Taiwan, and force the United States to dispatch high-value assets such as aircraft carriers. After consuming and wearing down the U.S. military's combat readiness, China may escalate the situation at the appropriate time and dispatch the Chinese navy to launch key strikes.
Sidharth Kaushal, senior sea power researcher at the British think tank "Royal United Military Institute" (RUSI), and Kevin Rowlands, editor-in-chief of RUSI journal and former director of the British Naval Strategic Studies Center (RNSSC), recently jointly published a commentary article analyzing the vicious cycle caused by long deployment time of US warships and deferred routine maintenance, as well as the impact of related phenomena on the US military posture.
The USS Abraham Lincoln has recently become the focus of international news. The main reasons include its total sea deployment time of more than 270 days, and it is concentrated in the Middle East.
Kaschal and Rowland pointed out that according to the standard specifications of the U.S. Navy, a single deployment period of an aircraft ship is 210 days (about 7 months). However, although the number of deployment days of the "Lincoln" has obviously exceeded the standard, it is not an exception, nor has it broken the record: The U.S. aircraft carrier "USS Gerald R. Ford" just completed a 326-day deployment in May this year.
In addition, an analysis of the U.S. Navy's information releases in the past 10 years shows that out of a total of 11 aircraft deployments since 2023, 8 have been deployed for more than 8 months; there have been as many as 5 deployments lasting at least 9 months, accounting for nearly 50%.
Kaschal and Rowland mentioned in the article that according to US guidelines, the use of naval aircraft is a three-year cycle, of which 7 months are used for deployment, and the other time is used for maintenance, personnel training and rotation scheduling, and for the aircraft to enter a high combat readiness state; the US Navy, with as many as 11 aircraft in active service, should have 2 to 3 aircraft at sea performing deployment tasks at any point in time, and other aircraft are at different stages of the three-year cycle.
The article pointed out that once the deployment time is too long, the maintenance time required for the aircraft ship will usually increase, which will affect the use cycle of other aircraft ships. This can be compared to a car that does not receive routine maintenance on time. Once the car is quite old, the cost of time and money for the car owner will be higher.
For example, the article stated that the "Lincoln" was officially put into service 44 years ago; the two oldest aircraft carriers in the United States, the "USS Nimitz" and the "USS Dwight D. Eisenhower", are 51 and 48 years old respectively.
Not only aircraft ships, the article mentioned that similar deployment and maintenance constraints can also be seen in destroyers, amphibious fleets and other US warships. For example, the destroyer USS Benfold lost power and drifted in the strategically sensitive waters of the South China Sea for four days in July this year.
It is worth noting that the "Banford" is part of the strike group of the aircraft carrier "USS George Washington", and the "Washington" recently took over from the "Lincoln" to perform missions in the Middle East. This means that when the USS Bamford encountered drifting danger in the South China Sea, it was at the beginning of its mission, not at the end of it.
On the other hand, the article pointed out that the Iran war may have pushed the United States' global military deployment to the brink of crisis, which can be seen in the navy and other military resources. For example, the United States has consumed the equivalent of 10 years of anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Defense (THAAD, also known as the THAAD system); the stockpile of various key high-end weapons may take several years to replenish.
The article mentioned that China may consider such a situation to be beneficial to itself. Regardless of whether China's determination is reasonable or not, the focus of the issue has always been not on whether a specific crisis indeed creates opportunities for adversaries, but on how competing or hostile parties assess changes in the strategic situation and what actions they take. (Editor: Chen Huiping) 1150907
