Melissa Chen
The USS George Washington just sailed out of the western Pacific, leaving no American aircraft carriers near Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Yokosuka’s forward-deployed supercarrier is racing to the Middle East to relieve the exhausted USS Abraham Lincoln. It's not the first time that the western Pacific is without a carrier but it is unusual. Last month a Chinese destroyer ran live-fire drills off Japan’s southernmost island. This month, Chinese warships drilled right next to Scarborough Shoal. America still has 11 carriers but only two shipyards that can truly keep them ready. This “maintenance debt” means fewer carriers to deploy to Asia in the near future. The Pentagon says another one might fill the gap in a couple of months. Until then, Japan is going to have to rely on Godzilla. Just kidding. US Pacific Fleet still maintains a baseline presence (Destroyers, submarines, Marines) and there's still Guam and all the air bases in Japan (Misawa, Kadena, Atsugi and those in South Korea), which are basically aircraft carriers but not moving. Still, the current gap is real and notable and one should expect to see rising Chinese activity in and around the Pacific.
