The USS Gerald R. Ford, the US Navy’s most cutting-edge aircraft carrier and the world’s largest warship, transited the Strait of Gibraltar on February 20 and entered the Mediterranean Sea amid escalating tensions with Iran.
The US currently has 13 warships in the Middle East: one aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, nine destroyers, and three littoral combat ships, a US official said.
The Ford — the world’s largest carrier — was seen transiting the Strait of Gibraltar toward the Mediterranean in a photo taken on Friday. It is accompanied by three destroyers and, upon arrival, will bring the total number of US warships in the Middle East to 17.
Thousands of sailors crew both carriers, which have air wings comprising dozens of warplanes. It is rare to have two of the massive warships in the Middle East at the same time.
On February 13, when President Donald Trump was asked about the rationale for deploying a second Carrier Strike Group to the Middle East, he said the US would need the carrier there.
“We’ll need it if we don’t make a deal (with Iran),” the US president told reporters.
How Ready is USS Gerald R. Ford?
The deployment of USS Gerald R. Ford to the Middle East theatre marks the second major redirection during what can be called an extraordinarily extended deployment.
The USS Ford departed its homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, on June 24, 2025, initially for routine operations in the Mediterranean and European waters as part of Carrier Strike Group 12.
After months of NATO drills, port visits, and patrols, including participation in Neptune Strike, the CSG was redirected across the Atlantic to the Caribbean to further pressure Venezuela.
The USS Ford’s initial deployment was expected to end in the last week of December 2025; however, its redeployment to the Caribbean pushed that timeline. The crew on the world’s biggest warship was then expecting to come home by early March; however, that will get delayed, too.
Although the US Navy regularly kept carriers deployed for 9 months or longer during the post-9/11 wars, peacetime deployments typically last no more than 6 months.
The USS Ford was due for a major maintenance and refitting period at the Newport News Naval Shipyard in Virginia early this year. This deployment to the Middle East means not only will USS Ford have to spend more time in maintenance, but the cost of repairs and upgrades could also escalate dramatically.
One current service official told the New York Times last year that the USS Ford was expected to obtain necessary modifications to one of the systems used to land jets on its flight deck. Those modifications have been planned for the past eight years, among the ship’s many other planned upgrades that can be completed only while in an industrial repair facility.
That and other updates were identified as needed during the many years of testing since the Ford, a far more technologically advanced carrier than those that came before it, was commissioned in 2017. By comparison, the next two Ford-class carriers, the John F. Kennedy and the Enterprise, are being built with these changes from the outset.
When a carrier is deployed for more than six months, it faces many maintenance issues.
For instance, the rough asphalt coating on the carrier’s flight deck, called nonskid, begins chipping off in larger amounts after such a long time at sea. That requires a couple of days’ pause in flight operations to resurface the deck so warplanes will not slide around when not held fast by chains.
Senator Mark Kelly, himself a retired career naval aviator, said in an interview that deploying a ship continuously for over six months creates many problems.
“It kind of wears on you,” he said. “And you start to see accidents start to happen — not just pilots crashing planes, necessarily, but accidents on the flight deck,” such as sailors walking too close to air intakes for jet engines or spinning propellers.
“All kinds of stuff starts to happen when you’re out there for an extended period of time,” said Kelly.
Vice Adm. Mike Franken (retired) said the type of maintenance period the Ford is scheduled for after this deployment would probably take four to six months in a shipyard. Delaying that maintenance by continually extending the carrier’s deployment, he said, would lead to spiraling costs that the president and defense secretary probably have not considered.
“You plan better for this,” Admiral Franken said in an interview.
If supplemental equipment like the elevators that the Ford uses to bring warplanes up from the hangar bay to the flight deck begins to fail, he said, the president and defense secretary will eventually have a ship unable to fulfill its assigned mission.
These failures or maintenance issues could cost dearly in a war situation.
Incidentally, just last month, the US Navy’s top officer said that he will “push back” against orders to extend the deployment of USS Gerald R. Ford.
“I think the Ford, from its capability perspective, would be an invaluable option for any military thing the president wants to do,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), told reporters last month at the Surface Navy Association’s (SNA) annual symposium. “But if it requires an extension, it’s going to get some pushback from the CNO. And I will see if there is something else I can do.”
It’s worth noting that the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group suffered a series of mishaps during its 2024-2025 deployment to the Middle East during its military operations against Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea.
In a friendly-fire incident in December 2024, USS Gettysburg accidentally launched missiles at two F/A-18 Super Hornets, downing one and nearly hitting the other fighter jet.
In February 2025, the USS Truman collided with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt. Two more F/A-18 Super Hornets were lost, one in April during evasive maneuvers against incoming threats, and another in May due to an arresting wire failure.
The US Navy investigations found that all four mishaps were preventable, citing leadership gaps, training deficiencies, and a high operational tempo.
The USS Gerald R. Ford’s ultra-extended deployment raises concerns about similar mishaps that USS Harry S. Truman endured. Its multi-theater mission, from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean to the Middle East, risks straining men and material, including crew exhaustion and deferred maintenance.
