U.S. Navy sailors line the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) aircraft carrier as it returns to its home port of Naval Air Station North Island after a 9-month deployment on October 15, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
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The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), the United States Navy’s fourth Nimitz-class supercarrier, is now at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., readying for its next deployment. The nuclear-powered warship led last month’s Rim of the Pacific 2026 international military exercises off the coast of Hawaii, and has spent most of August preparing for what is likely to be an extended time away from home.
CVN-71 is now expected to head to the Middle East to relieve the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, the Yokosuka, Japan-based USS George Washington (CVN-73), which is now operating in the Arabian Sea. It is a bit of a carrier musical chairs, as CVN-73 was in turn dispatched to the United States Central Command area of responsibility to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which had been deployed since November 21, 2025, spending more than 250 days at sea without a port visit. There have been reports that morale has suffered on CVN-72, something that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has dismissed as “fake news.”
Sending the USS George Washington to the Middle East has also left the Pacific Ocean without a carrier on station. There was a similar lack of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific this spring after the USS Abraham Lincoln was redeployed from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea in February as part of the build-up of U.S. military forces.
Aircraft from CVN-72, along with the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), took part in the Operation Epic Fury strikes on Iran. CVN-78 returned to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, in May, completing a lengthy deployment that lasted 326 days or nearly 11 full months. It was the longest time away from its homeport for any U.S. aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War, and the longest ever for a nuclear-powered flattop.
Carrier Deployments To Be Extended
Such lengthy deployments are likely to be the new normal as the U.S. Navy is forced to cover multiple global hotspots with too few carriers. As a result, each deployment is likely to be extended.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which shows no clear sign of resolution, follows the U.S. military having spent more than two and a half years addressing the threat from the Iranian-backed Houthi militants, which began targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza that was brought on by the Hamas terrorist attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
From late October of that year through September 2025, the United States maintained a near-constant presence of supercarriers in the Middle East, and a similar tempo is likely to be maintained for months to come.
“We’ve been in conflict pretty much the whole time I’ve been in the seat, and that’s certainly stressed the force,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters on Wednesday, per USNI News.
“I’m trying to work with my chain of command to put the extension process in a way that gives more certainty for planning … If we know we’re going into harm’s way, we should be able to project with a little bit more fidelity how long the carrier and the strike group is going to stay on station,” added Caudle, who was joined by Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman, each one year into the job. “We do these extensions in little chunks, and the families don’t see any endpoint so they can plan their own lives. That creates a lot of stress for sailors.”
Perryman acknowledged that families of the sailors and Marines serving on the USS Theodore Roosevelt already expect the deployment to last longer than the usual six to seven months.
“[Sailors] will go do really hard things for me without really batting an eye because they like that part of it. But we do have to be able, when possible, to stick to schedules and be very honest, like we are with Roosevelt,” said Perryman. “They know they’re going to be there longer than seven months. Their [commanding officer] is giving them eight months to plan on.”
Caudle added that he would prefer to see seven-month deployments, and acknowledged the stress that extended missions have on the crew as well as the families back home.
“But the enemy gets a vote,” Caudle explained.
Perhaps More Port Calls
Although the deployments could be longer, Caudle also emphasized that efforts will be made to avoid the lack of port calls, which allow for some much-needed downtime for the crews.
It is unclear where the carriers could make such port visits, but options are being explored that include places in Africa, India, and perhaps even as far away as Singapore.
The issue is that just as the enemy may get a vote on how long a deployment may last by continuing to engage the United States; it also sets terms on where a carrier can head into port. Since the start of the conflict, Tehran has struck numerous U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
A carrier in port could be simply too inviting a target, so it would need to be out of the active combat zone. However, the U.S. Navy has avoided sending its carriers through the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait to the Red Sea as the Houthis have begun to again target vessels in that chokepoint and in the Red Sea. That limits the ability for the U.S. Navy’s supercarriers to transit the Suez Canal – which arguably is another chokepoint – into the Mediterranean, which would otherwise offer multiple options for port calls.
The Big Stick Set To Return To The Middle East
When the USS Theodore Roosevelt finally deploys in the coming weeks, it will head back to familiar waters. It has operated in the Middle East several times since being commissioned 40 years ago this coming October.
Known by the nickname “The Big Stick,” a reference to President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous foreign policy adage, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” CVN-71 was launched in October 1984 and commissioned in October 1986. USS Theodore Roosevelt began her maiden deployment in late December 1988 with Carrier Air Wing Eight embarked.
Yet, that deployment almost never happened.
In 1976, then-President Gerald Ford had cancelled the order for the nuclear-powered flattop, seeking instead to build two conventionally powered carriers that could operate with vertical- and/or short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft.
President Jimmy Carter also initially opposed the building of the nuclear-powered carrier. However, he reversed course following the Iran hostage crisis, which highlighted the need for U.S. carrier battle groups to operate in remote regions of the world. Construction of CVN-71 was finally authorized under the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 1980 authorization bill.
While named for the man who remarked it was wise to speak softly and carry a big stick, Roosevelt was still one who didn’t shy away from doing his part. It was somewhat fitting that, just over two years after entering service, USS Theodore Roosevelt was deployed to participate in Operation Desert Shield and arrived in the Persian Gulf in mid-January 1991.
During the subsequent Operation Desert Storm, which began just the day before the carrier arrived on station, CVN-71 took part in combat operations where pilots flew more than 4,200 sorties, more than any other carrier. In total, aircraft operating from USS Theodore Roosevelt dropped more than 4.8 million pounds of ordnance.
Aircraft operating from the carrier later took part in patrols during Operation Provide Comfort to support Kurdish forces in Iraq, and then a year later in Operation Deny Flight to support the U.S. no-fly zone over Bosnia. CVN-71 then became one of only a few nuclear-powered warships to that point to transit the Suez Canal when she was deployed to participate in Operation Southern Watch over Iraq.
USS Theodore Roosevelt began her seventh deployment just after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, and joined the already-present USS Enterprise (CVN-68) and USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and conducted attacks against al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. While deployed in the region, USS Theodore Roosevelt spent a total of 160 consecutive days at sea and broke the record for the longest period underway of a U.S. carrier since World War II.
In 2020, CVN-71 was sidelined by an outbreak of Covid-19, forcing the warship to undergo a complete cleaning in Guam while the crew recovered.
During her 2024 deployment, the supercarrier operated for nearly three months, from mid-July to mid-September 2024, in the CENTCOM area of responsibility in the Middle East to deter regional aggression. The aircraft carrier returned to San Diego in October.
USS Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most decorated warships of the post-Cold War era. Her awards include a Joint Meritorious Unit Award, three Navy Unit Commendations, five Battle Efficiency Awards (Battle “E”), two National Defense Service Medals, two Security Excellence Awards, and a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, among others. The warship was also awarded a NATO Medal as well as Kuwait Liberation Medals from both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
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