The president “is reaching for the military instrument much more quickly than the past,” Rosemary Kelanic, the Middle East Director of Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates a more restrained U.S. foreign policy, told the Washington Examiner, adding that he’s “resorting to military force more as a first-order resort, rather than a last resort, like we typically see” from U.S. presidents.

Trump’s military operations prompt asset repositioning

The first major U.S. military operation during the second Trump administration was the roughly seven-weeklong war with the Houthis. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, which cost about $13 billion to build, including the nine-squadron air wing with about 80 aircraft aboard the ship, led the U.S. campaign and was supported by the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Jason Dunham.

The Navy has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which are a formation of naval vessels and submarines surrounded by the carrier, which also have aerial assets, that are generally either deployed, preparing to deploy, or getting maintenance and repairs after a deployment. They are also very expensive to operate, maintain, and then restock when assets, such as missiles, are used and need to be replenished.

The heavy tempo of operations exhausted the carrier strike group, which had incidents during its deployment that investigators found were avoidable before returning to Norfolk, Virginia, last June. The carrier collided with a merchant vessel, shot down one of its own fighter aircraft, lost another one of its fighting aircraft while trying to evade an incoming Houthi ballistic missile, and lost a third fighter jet due to an arresting cable failure as the pilot attempted to land on it. The two aircraft lost at sea totaled more than $90 million of sunk equipment.

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was also involved in Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis and stayed in the region after the Truman left the region. The Vinson, which was accompanied by the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser Princeton and two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the Sterett and the William P. Lawrence, was in the region amid the tension between Israel and Iran in June.

The U.S. had the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier sail from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East in mid-June to join the Carl Vinson Strike Group. American B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and carried out the bombings of three Iranian nuclear facilities with support from the assets already in the region.

The USS Nimitz is the oldest of the nuclear-powered carriers and will be decommissioned this year while her replacement, the USS John F. Kennedy, which will be the second Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, is behind schedule and will not be commissioned at least until March 2027. The Kennedy is estimated to cost more than $13 billion, according to the Navy’s FY2026 budget submission.

The Navy subsequently reduced its presence in the region to bring more personnel and firepower to the Caribbean in the summer and fall as part of the administration’s decision to prioritize the region and carry out the department’s Operation Southern Spear, targeting drug cartels in Central and South America.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and several associated warships to redeploy from European waters to the Caribbean.

At its peak, the military had 11 warships and roughly 15,000 sailors and marines in the Caribbean, marking one of the largest concentrations of U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere in decades. Since the mission to capture now-former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, they have slightly reduced their presence there.

Despite vast resources, military options aren’t ‘risk free’

U.S. forces have killed more than 100 boaters whom the administration said are drug smugglers heading for America’s shores and have seized six illegal oil tankers connected to the shadow fleet, which is primarily Iran, Russia, and Venezuela’s way to skirt international regulations and sanctions against them.

During the Maduro operation, a handful of U.S. service members were injured, which exemplified the risks involved in these missions, even as they continue to have extraordinary achievements.

“Certainly, these are not risk-free operations, and adversaries have a vote in this,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, who served as the former commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Washington Examiner. “So, we shouldn’t take this lightly, as we saw in Venezuela, we had a helicopter shot up. We had some operators wounded. I don’t know the full extent of all that, but I think it just kind of reminds you that these things, there’s no free chicken here. We have to recognize that there’s risk associated with that.”

There were also three Americans, two service members and a civilian, killed in December in Syria by an Islamic State group militant.

Iran conflict prompts unexpected aircraft move

The U.S.’s military presence in the Middle East is smaller than it had been at various points over the last two-plus years of sustained conflict in the region, which may be a contributing factor behind Trump’s decision to wait on carrying out military operations against Iran over their crackdown on protests.

The department is expected to order the USS Abraham Lincoln to travel to the Middle East from the South China Sea, according to the Wall Street Journal, which would give the president more options. The U.S. also has to be prepared for any possible Iranian retaliation against American targets in the region.

The possibility of moving an aircraft carrier out of the Pacific region to the Middle East is contradictory to the widespread expectation from experts and officials that the military would pivot away from the latter to prioritize the threats from Beijing.

But it also represents the delicate balance the military has to conduct successfully because it cannot be everywhere in the world at once. There is also the balance of ensuring soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen’s well-being are kept a priority as well.

Admiral Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, said this week that he hopes the president does not decide to deploy the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier group from the Caribbean to the Middle East over Iranian protesters clashing with the government because he doesn’t want to see their deployment extended.

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“And so if the president needs options in the Middle East, we can go build out what that looks like for him,” Caudle said during a Surface Navy Association event, according to Defense One. “I think the Ford, you know, from its capability perspective, would be an invaluable option for any military thing the president wants to do — but if it requires an extension, you know, it’s going to get some pushback from the office” of the CNO. 

The Ford left its Virginia home port in June of last year for the Mediterranean Sea on what was planned to be a seven-month deployment.

With the military demonstrating its capabilities in all of these different missions, the president has threatened new operations in multiple countries in addition to Iran, such as Mexico and Colombia. He also warned that with the U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil, the U.S. would not need to militarily intervene to topple the Cuban government.