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Washington, DC – Poor planning or the harsh reality of war? Reported conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier during its record-breaking deployment have sparked the latest front of debate over how the administration of US President Donald Trump is handling the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The recent attention, experts told Al Jazeera, has underscored the limits of US naval might amid the conflict, which has entered a grinding stalemate and shown no signs of a more complete cessation after nearly six months.

‘Not adapting quickly enough?’

Unlike the reported shortages of both key offensive and defensive munitions stockpiles, the reported conditions on board the USS Lincoln have related to crew morale, shortages of basic supplies, and maintenance issues.

Several family members have recounted concerns over loved ones’ wellbeing to US media, including troubling instances of personnel attempting to jump overboard.

Democratic lawmakers have charged that this has been a “pattern” throughout the Trump administration’s leadership during the war, with similar conditions reported on the USS Gerald Ford, which was deployed for 326 days before its rotation in May, and the USS Lincoln, which has been deployed since November 2025, during which time it broke the naval record for the longest period without a port stop.

In a letter published on Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers charged the circumstances “leave both Congress and the public concerned that the Department is not adapting quickly enough to the conditions in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, nor taking the appropriate steps to mitigate the continued challenges in our fleet”.

A widely circulated New York Times report has tied the supply shortages to Iranian attacks on US military sites in the Middle East, notably the heavy damage inflicted on the naval base in Bahrain in the early days of the war.

A US military official told the newspaper that the navy has been forced to use the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia as its main supply hub. The island is located about 3,540km (2,200 miles) away from where the USS Lincoln and a second aircraft carrier, the USS George HW Bush, have been operating near Iran.

‘Professionals talk logistics’

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Alexandru Hudisteanu, a maritime security expert and former Romanian naval officer, said the situation has underscored the burdens of US global power projection, which has long been based on its naval capacity, and in particular, its 11 active aircraft carriers.

Such carriers are the lynchpin of naval fleets, which typically include one cruiser, four to six destroyers, 75 aircraft, and 7,500 sailors and US Marines as part of a carrier strike group.

“There’s a maxim that’s quite famous in the industry of military,” Hudisteanu said. “They say that amateurs talk strategies, while professionals talk logistics.”

“All these types of power projection assets, especially aircraft carriers, carry with them the burden of logistics,” he said. “The logic of basing for the US was to never be more than a couple of days away from a resupply base somewhere. But with the base in Bahrain being out of order, the closest one is a little island somewhere 2,000 miles [3,220km] south of Iran.”

The Pentagon and White House have pushed back on the characterisation of conditions aboard the USS Lincoln as dire, instead acknowledging the demanding circumstances and austere environment to be expected in war.

Nevertheless, in the wake of the recent reports, acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao announced the aircraft carrier would soon return home. In its place, the USS George Washington, which has been primarily based in Japan, began travelling from the western Pacific to the Middle East.

The shift leaves no aircraft carrier in the western Pacific region, long a strategic priority for the US. The navy has not yet announced plans to replace the USS Washington.

Beyond the three aircraft carriers currently deployed, the USS Lincoln, the USS Bush and the USS Washington, all others are currently based in the US.

At least one, the San Diego-based USS Theodore Roosevelt, is expected to deploy in September, with two others expected to be available by the end of 2026 or early 2027, according to the Washington, DC-based Center for the National Interest think tank.

Asymmetrical conflict

Harlan Ullman, a former naval officer and chairman of the Killowen Group advisory firm, agreed the reported conditions aboard the USS Lincoln, in part, reflect the demands of a prolonged conflict under an administration that appeared to believe the military campaign against Iran would be swift.

“One of the things that we don’t realise is that Iran has now put two US naval aircraft carriers out of commission for what could be a year, the Ford and Lincoln,” he said, noting that post-deployment refit periods typically take at least seven months, but are known to stretch on.

“So we’ve lost two aircraft carriers for a long period of time to fight this war,” he said.

Ullman linked the conditions on the aircraft carrier to the grinding nature of the conflict, reflecting the constraints of using air power alone to achieve US objectives.

Despite degrading Iran’s limited navy and setting back its ballistic missile programme, military experts agree that any efforts to staunch Iran’s nuclear programme would likely require boots on the ground.

The Trump administration has more recently tailored its war aims, focusing primarily on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz while vowing an “indefinite” continuation of its blockade of Iranian ports.

But even those more limited aims are limited by what the current make-up of the navy can achieve at sea when facing asymmetrical threats, according to former US Navy Captain Martin, with Iran relying heavily on inexpensive drones and smaller vessels to assert influence over the strait.

While the US Navy has a relatively small number of advanced assets, it lacks a “small ship force structure to credibly deal with a prolonged blockade-type of operation”, he said.

“An aircraft carrier is a very capable platform for a lot of purposes, but for most of what we were dealing with with Iran, it is not,” he said. “It’s not a matter of having a really good air wing. It’s a matter of persistence, and it’s a matter of being able to rotate.”

“The problem is, frankly, that the navy just is not big enough to meet all the demands that have come as a result of this war and every other commitment that the navy is trying to keep.”

‘Embodies the broader challenge’

Mona Yacoubian, the director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said the stresses on the US Navy fit into the “emerging nature” of a new type of drone-driven warfare. She drew a parallel to Ukraine’s ability to largely combat Russia’s vast navy in the Black Sea with drones, despite having no significant naval fleet of its own.

The war with Iran has, in turn, led to a reckoning of US posture in the Middle East, and its constellation of bases largely established amid the “global war on terror” in the early 2000s, she said.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is considering a plan that could see it pull back troops from the region, particularly the Persian Gulf, although an official review of US posture has not been ordered.

In the nearer term, the renewed emphasis on naval stresses opens yet another politically vulnerable front in a war that has been met with widespread disapproval from the US public, Yacoubian said.

“I think in some ways the reporting regarding the deterioration of conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln really embodies the broader challenge that the US faces with respect to this conflict,” she said.

“It brings up questions over ‘What’s the strategy? What’s the end game?’” Yacoubian said. “How sustainable is our posture in the region? What are our contingency plans?”