Demands in the Middle East risk leaving an aircraft carrier-sized hole in US naval power in the Western Pacific

Navy Ensign Sarah Weinstein

• The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on its way to the Middle East after exercises in Asia.
• Its departure will leave the US Navy without a carrier in the Western Pacific region unless another can be tasked to the area.
• If not, soon the only carriers operating in the area may be China's.

Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are drawing the US military's focus...