The U.S. Navy is stretched thin, especially when it comes to aircraft carriers and as Richard Sisk writes at Military.com:
Last month, the carrier Theodore Roosevelt and its strike group – the destroyers Farragut, Sherman and Churchill (DDG 81), and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser Normandy, left CentCom’s and the Navy’s 5th Fleet area of responsibility in the Mideast. It was the first time since 2007 that the Mideast has been without a carrier strike group on station.
But there will be a carrier in the region. It just won’t belong to the U.S. Navy. As Adam Withal of The Independent reports:
France has announced that it will deploy its only aircraft carrier to boost its efforts in the fight against Isis. In a statement by the French presidency following a meeting of its defence cabinet, the government said the Charles de Gaulle warship would be sent to the eastern Mediterranean for operations against Isis in both Syria and Iraq.
The ship does not have the capabilities of a U.S. nuclear carrier. It has had a history of troubles and spends a lot of time in the yard.
Still … for now, it is in the fight.
