Largest US Warship and Aircraft Deployment in Decades Moves Into Middle East

23/02/2026

WASHINGTON (AP), Feb 23: The Pentagon is building up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, as President Donald Trump warns of possible military action against Iran if talks over its nuclear program fall apart.

“It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal,” Trump said last week. “Otherwise bad things happen.”

Trump likely will have a host of military options, which could include surgical attacks on Iran’s air defenses or strikes focused on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, experts say. But they warn that Iran could retaliate in ways it hadn’t following attacks last year by the U.S. or Israel, potentially risking American lives and sparking a regional war.

“It will be very hard for the Trump administration to do a one-and-done kind of attack in Iran this time around,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. “Because the Iranians would respond in a way that would make all-out conflict inevitable.”

Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program and earlier over Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

Aircraft carriers bolster US presence in the Middle East

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three guided-missile destroyers have been in the Arabian Sea since the end of January after being redirected from the South China Sea.

The strike group, which brought roughly 5,700 additional service members to the region, bolstered the smaller force of a few destroyers and three littoral combat ships that were already in the region.

Two weeks later, Trump ordered the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, along with three destroyers and more than 5,000 additional service members to head to the region.

This will bring the Navy’s presence in the region to at least 16 ships and it will dwarf the 11-ship fleet that was, until the Ford’s departure, stationed in the Caribbean Sea.