Even though US President Donald Trump has postponed the offensive against Iran till April 6 giving primacy to diplomacy and dialogue, America has assembled a huge armada to tackle the next phase with three aircraft carriers and a huge amphibious assault ship waiting for military orders from Central Command.
US Navy sailors taxi an F/A-18F Super Hornet on the flight deck aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran from an undisclosed location. (Reuters)
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As of now, aircraft carrier Gerald Ford with supporting strike group is in the Mediterranean, aircraft carrier USS George Bush is off the coast of Gibraltar, aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is off the Gulf of Oman in Arabian Sea, amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and USS New Orleans with nearly 4,000 marines are in southern Indian Ocean Region (IOR). USS Alan Shepard, Ocean Titan and John L Canley, all logistics support and surveillance, are off the Malacca Straits, ready to be inducted into the battle.
US Navy awaiting next orders.
While reports from Washington indicate that President Trump has the option of deploying as many as 10,000 troops on ground in the Persian Gulf to allow freedom of navigation in Straits of Hormuz, the move is also to support the Gulf Countries who have been on the receiving end of Iran’s IRGC.
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The Gulf Sunni powers are in a belligerent mood against Iran for deliberately destroying their oil and military infrastructure and justifying it in the name of military support to the US. If the US does not come out openly to defend its Gulf allies and retaliate against Iran, then the Gulf powers will explore other options for their offensive security.
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The Gulf Sunni powers are in a belligerent mood against Iran for deliberately destroying their oil and military infrastructure and justifying it in the name of military support to the US. If the US does not come out openly to defend its Gulf allies and retaliate against Iran, then the Gulf powers will explore other options for their offensive security.
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With the anger of Gulf countries weighing on its mind, the US has no less than 11 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers in the Middle-East along with more than 1,000 fighters, bombers and interdictors in the region on board three aircraft carriers. This apart, the US is operating its nuclear-powered conventionally armed fast attack submarines of the Los Angeles class in the entire Middle East theatre to target whatever is left of the IRGC Navy.
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While there are many who believe that the US will be quagmire in Iran like earlier in Vietnam, the fact remains that anything is militarily possible with such an armada and this is after totally discounting the massive Israeli war arsenal. It is quite evident from the positioning of the armada and the fleet size that the US war arsenal may move into the Persian Gulf after securing the Iranian coast and islands within the Gulf and on the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, the war is still not over and it is just half-time.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/World News/Massive US Naval armada waiting for Trump's order on April 6
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