The Politics of Military Readiness: What the Crisis Onboard the USS Lincoln Reveals

The USS Abraham Lincoln departed San Diego on 21 November 2025 for operations in Asian waters. Following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, the carrier was redirected to the Arabian Sea and assigned to support the wider campaign, including blockade operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz. This redirection extended the ship’s time at sea to approximately 260 days—nearly nine months—before it was relieved by USS George Washington and began its return to San Diego.

The experience of USS Abraham Lincoln demonstrates the limits of an approach to military readiness that prioritises platforms, presence, and the continuation of operations over the people who sustain them. President Donald Trump’s threat of an “indefinite” blockade assumes that naval forces can maintain a high operational tempo without end. Yet the Lincoln’s deployment shows that extended missions impose serious costs on crews: low morale, inadequate living conditions, and declining physical and mental health reduce the human capacity required to operate and maintain a carrier effectively.

The crisis aboard USS Abraham Lincoln therefore exposes a structural weakness in contemporary U.S. naval doctrine. A carrier strike group may remain deployed and visibly capable, but deterrence depends not only on ships, aircraft, and weapons; it also depends on sailors who are rested, supplied, healthy, and able to sustain demanding operations. When these requirements are neglected, the pursuit of an “indefinite” blockade can undermine the readiness it is intended to demonstrate and weaken the credibility of U.S. deterrence in the Middle East.

Although the USS George Washington has taken over the Lincoln’s duties, the Lincoln’s nine-month deployment raises wider questions about the Trump administration’s understanding of military readiness. Readiness is more than the ability to deploy forces quickly or order them into action. It is the ability to sustain personnel, equipment, and operations over time without exhausting the force itself.

Traditionally, military readiness refers to a military’s ability to sustain conflict and meet primary objectives. According to the US Department of Defence, military readiness is defined as “…the ability of military forces to fight and meet the demands of assigned missions…”. This ability is contingent on the US military maintaining military hardware; logistical support; but most vitally, the physical and mental wellbeing of the soldiers involved in military campaigns. Basically, the core of efficient and effective military readiness is the human and operational readiness within a conflict zone or during peacetime. When it comes to assessment of military readiness, it ultimately boils down to two broad points of assessment, one being having properly trained personnel and the other being whether the military is adequately supplied with the right equipment. While this is the usual criterion to properly assess the military’s readiness to confront threats, it fails to consider the actual readiness of the individuals involved from the human standpoint.

The Trump administration failed to address the human aspect of military readiness onboard the USS Lincoln, choosing instead to assess military readiness on the criteria of military strength and the availability of military hardware to maximise the use of American hard power. This is clearly illustrated by the actions taken by the Trump administration from the beginning of his term to the US-Israel War on Iran, as Trump accelerated the development of advanced weaponry to be used by the US, which resulted in a defence budget increase from “…$883.67 billion (2025) to $1.012 trillion in 2026—crossing the trillion-dollar threshold for the first time, with a 14.5 per cent increase”. The Trump administration’s focus on the quantity of military hardware and military aesthetics resulted in the administration losing sight of the human aspect of military readiness, which is best illustrated by the continuous decline in mental health and operational readiness onboard the USS Lincoln.

The hyperfocus on military hardware and projection of military might has resulted in the neglect of the human aspect of military readiness, especially when it comes to the mental health of troops being deployed. Once again, the USS Lincoln was deployed for more than 260 days, which, although it is not the longest deployment by a naval force, has contributed to mental and operational decline. This is clearly shown through the numerous attempts by crew members onboard the USS Lincoln to jump overboard, with the primary reasons being declining mental health, low morale, and over-exhaustion, as well as poor living and operational conditions.

These signs of mental and physical health decline are directly linked to extended deployments, with the decline worsening following President Trump’s proclamation that the naval blockade will be extended indefinitely. To understand the decline, it is important to know about the routine of a naval vessel, as the roles of a navy crew combined with extended deployment play a significant role in a worsening mental health crisis. A naval vessel is operating 24 hours, with the crew working in shifts to ensure operations are continuous, which results in disruptions to the crew’s sleeping patterns and impacts their physical and mental health. Naturally, poor conditions onboard, months of isolation, and sleep deprivation contribute to increased physiological and mental disorders stemming from naval overextension. Moreover, a study for the International Maritime Health Foundation concluded that sleep deprivation negatively influences an officer’s ability to make decisions in tactical and moral domains of a naval operation. The inability to make tactical and moral decisions, therefore, translates to obstructed preparation and planning during said operations, which can contribute to tactical and fatal errors out at sea. This shows that human exhaustion directly neutralises the $1.012 trillion hardware advantage, as exhausted naval officers cannot effectively operate such military hardware at an efficient level, which can lead to errors and fatalities.

In the case of the USS Lincoln, these factors have contributed severely to the decline of operational readiness. This is clear, as retired senior naval officer Harlan Ullman stated that extended deployments “…erode the readiness and capability of that ship the longer it’s at sea, and it lacks the ability to repair and extend maintenance…” Despite such warnings, the Trump administration claims there is no mental health crisis and even went as far as to say that the ship is “beautifully maintained”, which shows that President Trump prioritises military hardware as readiness as opposed to human wellbeing.

The crisis on the USS Lincoln shows how the concept of military readiness should not only be viewed through the lens of military power projection and hardware, but rather through the human aspect as well. This is clearly defined in the traditional view of military readiness, which includes adequate training as well as physical and mental healthcare as essential components to effective military operational readiness. The case of the USS Lincoln shows the dangers of prioritising hardware over human wellbeing, as the neglect of mental health brought on by overextended naval deployment contributes to mental and physiological health decline, which impedes effective military readiness.

Although the crisis onboard the USS Lincoln reveals that human well-being is a vital component of military readiness, it also demonstrates that readiness is ultimately a political responsibility. While maintaining readiness is a core objective of the armed forces, civilian leaders and policymakers bear a sizeable responsibility in ensuring that deployed forces are sustainable and supported. This chain of accountability extends from operational commanders to the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House. The crisis onboard the USS Lincoln exposed a sharp divide in transparency and accountability between the executive branch and congressional oversight bodies.

The Trump administration and the Department of Defense framed their defense of the deployment around two key arguments: first, that naval overextension is not unprecedented; and second, that prolonged deployment was an operational necessity for the war with Iran. Regarding historical precedent, extended deployments are indeed common during major conflicts. The administration cited Vietnam-era deployments—such as the USS Midway (332 days), the USS Coral Sea (329 days), and the USS Saratoga (308 days)—to argue that the Lincoln’s nine-month deployment was neither extraordinary nor politically negligent.

As illustrated above, the USS Abraham Lincoln’s 260-day deployment substantially exceeds modern standard operating thresholds, including the U.S. Navy’s Optimised Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) target of 210 days, as well as allied benchmarks set by the UK Royal Navy (210 days) and the French Marine Nationale (150 days). While the administration relies on Cold War and Vietnam-era exceptions to normalise prolonged deployments, contemporary metrics reveal that operational durations nearing the post-2021 East Coast average (267 days) reflect a chronic structural overextension rather than an isolated tactical necessity, directly accelerating material fatigue and crew degradation.

Beyond arguing that overextension is historically routine, the administration also justified the carrier’s prolonged stay under the premise of mission necessity. Framing readiness around “what the mission demands” is standard operational doctrine when strategic objectives are clear and attainable. As defense readiness rubrics establish, Combatant Command (CCDR) readiness relies on generating units capable of meeting mission specifications until objectives are achieved. However, in the case of the USS Lincoln, the naval blockade failed to weaken Iranian resolve, resulting in open-ended deployment without a decisive strategic endgame. In this context, political responsibility was reduced to merely “getting the job done”, exacerbating both operational fatigue and living conditions aboard the ship.

This operational stagnation raised serious concerns regarding political accountability and troop welfare, expanding the debate into congressional oversight and public scrutiny. Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee demanded formal Pentagon investigations. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) questioned the Navy’s capacity to sustainably generate carrier strike groups while preserving service-member well-being, while Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) directly attributed the ship’s deteriorating conditions to unresolved strategic flaws in the broader war effort.

Despite mounting scrutiny, the administration consistently downplayed the crisis. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed reports of declining crew welfare as “fake news”, President Trump asserted that the carrier had not been deployed excessively, and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao insisted that the sailors were “not victims”. By deflecting these findings, the executive leadership sought to distance itself from the structural shortcomings of its deployment strategy.

Crucially, the fallout extended beyond personnel welfare to project strategic vulnerability across the region. Carrier strike groups serve as primary instruments of American power projection; visible operational distress directly degrades deterrence credibility. Adversaries exploited these structural strain points—exemplified when Iranian strikes on the U.S. naval base in Bahrain disrupted critical logistics, forcing the USS Lincoln to operate roughly 2,000 miles from the nearest dedicated resupply hub. The resulting inability to sustain crew readiness highlighted how logistics vulnerabilities can compound operational failure.

In response to executive evasion, the legislative branch intervened to reassert oversight. All 13 Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee demanded accountability from Secretary Hegseth, characterising the crisis as a symptom of poor strategic planning exacerbated by an unsound conflict strategy. Through these enquiries, Congress emphasised that force generation and deployment timelines are not solely military decisions but profound political choices requiring rigorous institutional checks and balances.

Overall, the crisis on board the USS Lincoln has revealed that rapid and overextended deployments with a focus on maintaining the latest military hardware over human and operational readiness are not sustainable in the long term. This is clearly shown through the deviation from the traditional definition of military readiness, which highlights the importance of balancing the needs of the mission with the human and operational to ensure efficient levels of readiness in conflict. The Trump administration’s fixation on being the biggest, strongest, and most high-tech military shifts the focus away from human and operational readiness, which contributed to the rapid decline of mental and physical wellbeing while at sea.

Moreover, the Trump administration’s framing of political responsibility of military readiness in the context of the USS Lincoln crisis was limited to overextensions are not unusual and the overextensions happen because “the mission demands it”. This simplistic view removes the sustainability from the equation, as the length of deployment and carrying out the mission are prioritised over readiness. Naturally, this raises questions over political responsibility over the sustainability of long-term human and operational readiness, resulting in a political body such as Congress demanding accountability and transparency when the executive branch and military refuse to acknowledge the crisis at hand. In the end, the crisis that afflicted the USS Lincoln raises concerns about long-term deployments and their impact on military readiness. It is therefore the responsibility of political and military bodies to enact actionable mechanisms such as implementing strict deployment-to-dwell (D2D) ratios, expanding rotational forward-deployed naval forces, or accelerating the integration of unmanned maritime systems (USVs) to alleviate the operational burden on manned crews during extended blockades.

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