(Central News Agency, Washington, 15th Comprehensive Foreign News Report) U.S. President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is pushing the dispatch of U.S. aircraft carriers to the limit, leaving a window for the deployment of main warships in the Western Pacific. At this time, China is showing more signs of aggression.
The Associated Press reported that the USS George Washington, a US aircraft stationed in Japan, is about to leave the Pacific and is expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed in the Middle East. The Lincoln was originally scheduled to return in May, but its deployment was extended to support Iran's combat mission.
If the United States deploys another aircraft carrier to the Pacific in the next month or two, the "window period" there will not be too long; however, experts point out that this shows that fighting Iran has exhausted some US naval officers and soldiers, and also highlights that the Trump administration continues to withdraw from the Asia-Pacific and shift its focus to the Western Hemisphere.
Greg Poling, director of Southeast Asia studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), pointed out that the Trump administration’s erratic policies and the current status quo are contrary to the goal of withdrawing from the Middle East. This not only leaves Pacific allies at a loss, but also provides an opportunity for Beijing, which is happy to see Washington distracted.
In the eyes of the Beijing authorities, the presence of the US military in the region poses a threat to China's rise and is a major obstacle to seizing Taiwan. However, the United States believes that the Pacific region is economically crucial and cannot be missed.
Although no one thinks that China will immediately invade Taiwan because U.S. warships are diverted from the Asia-Pacific region, Bryan Clark, a retired naval officer and current defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, pointed out that the window period has given China an opportunity to show off its power.
Clark said: "China is using this to show the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia and other countries that the United States is no longer the hegemon in the Western Pacific." He said that China "hopes that regional countries will recognize that China is the more powerful force and that the United States can no longer provide guarantees for their security."
The Associated Press reported that China has recently shown frequent provocations against Japan and the Philippines, two major U.S. allies: it held joint military exercises with Indonesia this week, conducted drills at Democracy Reef (called Scarborough Shoal in China) in the South China Sea this month, and last month conducted live-fire firings from a missile destroyer near Okinotori Island in Japan.
In order to appease regional allies, U.S. Special Operations Command Commander Frank Bradley recently visited Manila and is expected to visit Japan, emphasizing that the U.S. military is ready to deepen joint training to consolidate bilateral alliances.
Evan Sankey, an analyst focusing on U.S.-China policy at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank, pointed out that aircraft carriers have a psychological comforting effect on U.S. allies. He said the lack of aircraft ships in the region would "exacerbate the overall perception that the United States is distracted by Middle East affairs."
Clark believes that the tight ship schedule is mainly due to the lack of anticipatory response and planning before the Iran war. He said: "If we had predicted earlier that the fight would take this long, we should have adjusted the ship rotation in advance so that more ships could be dispatched."
He said the United States has 11 aircraft carriers and usually deploys two to three at a time, but the number could soon reach four if the USS Theodore Roosevelt is diverted from San Diego to the Middle East to allow the USS Washington to return to the Pacific.
However, the aircraft will inevitably need maintenance, which may cause bottlenecks in the only two aircraft shipyards in the United States.
