USS Theodore Roosevelt Leaves Singapore for Middle East

The Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has left Singapore’s Changi Naval Base and passed through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean, putting the third U.S. carrier sent towards Iran on the final leg of its voyage to the Middle East. The carrier sailed on November 8 after a three-day port visit, and by midnight that day it was nearly clear of the strait with its AIS transponder switched off, according to ship-tracking data and the observations of ship spotters. Neither the Navy nor Central Command has announced the departure, although a U.S. official stated last week that the group would not reach Central Command’s area before mid-November. The move highlights how Washington keeps building naval power around Iran even while pursuing talks, with the Iran war now in its ninth month and the fleet stretched by long deployments.

The Roosevelt is the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 9 and sails with the Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Chosin and the Arleigh Burke class destroyers USS Paul Hamilton and USS Decatur, with Carrier Air Wing 11 embarked and more than 5,000 personnel. It left San Diego on September 27, called at Yokosuka between October 16 and October 19, and completed the Keen Sword 27 exercise with Japan on October 29 before turning south, mooring in Singapore late on November 5, U.S. Eastern Time. U.S. Navy photographs taken as the carrier left Yokosuka show F-35C fifth generation fighters parked among F/A-18E/F Super Hornets on its deck. By some estimates the group could reach the North Arabian Sea around November 16 at 30 knots, a pace its escorts would struggle to hold.

The Roosevelt is widely expected to relieve USS George Washington, the Japan-based carrier deployed to the Middle East since August, while USS George H.W. Bush, on station since April, stays in the region, and it remains uncertain whether Washington will keep three carriers in the region beyond a short handover. U.S. Central Command has put American forces in the region at about 50,000 personnel, with at least 15 Navy warships operating there besides the two carrier groups, many of them enforcing a blockade that Admiral Brad Cooper stated last month had prevented Iran from exporting at least $25 billion of crude oil. Announcing Task Force Iron Gate on November 8, Cooper said the task force “will further constrain Iran’s ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories, and replenish their military.” The strain on carriers is considerable, with USS Abraham Lincoln having come home on October 8 after 321 days at sea.

President Donald Trump said on November 8 that he saw no reason to escalate the war and predicted that Tehran would accept terms, stating: “They’re withering away as a country, and they’ll come and they’ll make a deal.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Paris the same day before a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, described Iran’s demands as “outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic.” The Roosevelt group is one of the last still sailing with a cruiser, with only five Ticonderoga class ships left in service after USS Lake Erie and USS Shiloh were decommissioned in late September, and the Navy plans to retire all of them by 2029. Each of those cruisers carries the Aegis combat system and 122 Mk 41 vertical launch cells, against 90 aboard each of the group’s two destroyers.