Pacific Carrier Strike Group Deploys Next Week

The Navy announced today that the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group will deploy on Monday May 19th. This is a scheduled deployment, part of the excellent availability the US Navy has achieved with its carrier forces this year. The timing has very little to do with ongoing events, specifically by departing on May 19th, the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group will be home by Christmas.

The Ronald Reagan Strike Group has five escorts:

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76)
USS Chancellorsville (CG 62)
USS Gridley (DDG 101)
USS Howard (DDG 83)
USS Decatur (DDG 73)
USS Thach (FFG 43)

Strategically this gives the US Navy a number of short term and long term options. In the short term, this deployment will free up 2 aircraft carrier strike groups, the Kitty Hawk and the Nimitz, both currently operating in the western Pacific for a possible response to Myanmar for humanitarian operations.

Over the long term we observe that for the next 5 months, the Navy will have two of its west coast carrier strike groups, the Reagan and the Lincoln, forward deployed and available for contingencies in the Pacific throughout the Olympic games. The Lincoln CSG is currently the only aircraft carrier operating in the Middle East, but will be relieved of those duties later this summer (likely August) by the Roosevelt CSG when it deploys from the west coast. This should provide the Navy with plenty of regional coverage while the George Washington replaces the Kitty Hawk in Japan this summer.

While it is possible the Reagan CSG conducts exercises with India, we do not expect the Reagan Carrier Strike Group to deploy to the Middle East.