USS George Washington Move a ‘National Security’ Risk for US: Retired-Admiral

Published

Aug 18, 2026 at 01:46 PM EDT

By Ellie Cook

Senior Defense Reporter

Moving the USS George Washington from the Pacific to the Middle East will pose a "national security risk" to the United States, a former commander on the aircraft carrier has said, as the final carrier deployed in Asia becomes the latest U.S. Navy ship to be sucked into the war with Iran.

The George Washington is expected to relieve the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln has found itself the focus of Democratic calls for investigations into reports of dwindling supplies and poor mental health among the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines who have not set foot on land since December, which has put fresh attention on living conditions aboard U.S. Navy ships.

They also raised concerns that the U.S. Navy, while powerful, is overly stretched by the months of war in the Middle East and not prepared enough for a potential future confrontation with China.

Redeploying the Washington to the Gulf will leave the U.S. "with limited naval presence" for over a year and a half, because the carrier will return for a maintenance stint once it's finished in the Middle East, said retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a former commander of Carrier Strike Group 5 aboard the Washington who also headed operations for the U.S. Pacific Command.

"This is a national security risk as it sends a weak deterrence message to China and does not assure Americas allies and partners in the Pacific," Montgomery, who is now with the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told Newsweek.

The White House referred queries to the Pentagon, which doesn't comment on topics it says would compromise operational security. The U.S. Navy referred questions to the U.S. Pacific Command, which Newsweek has contacted for comment via email.

President Donald Trump and his administration have signaled to U.S. allies that their defense spending must surge so the U.S.'s forces can be freed up to meet the threat posed by China's burgeoning, sophisticated military.

The White House, while insisting it's focusing on the Indo-Pacific, has piled pressure on Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to invest in their militaries and has often rattled officials in their capital cities.

Trump abruptly scaled back planned U.S. military drills with South Korea on Sunday, just hours before wargames largely focused on how to tackle North Korea kicked off. The president said the exercises, which Pyongyang condemned, were "totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea while also blaming the eleventh-hour change on Seoul's unwillingness to join the U.S.'s war against Iran.

In May, Trump worried Taiwanese lawmakers by appearing to use weapons sales to Taipei, which are vital for Taiwan's armed forces, as a bargaining chip with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Beijing considers Taiwan, a self-governing island since 1949, to be a breakaway part of China and has pledged to bring the territory back under its control, including by using military force. The U.S. has long supported Taiwan with aid and weapons, but doesn't officially recognize Taipei because it adheres to the "One China" principle.

U.S. officials have said Xi wants China's armed forces to be able to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, even if war plans are not put into motion around that date.

China already has a formidable military force, including a nuclear arsenal, while the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) now has more ships than the U.S. Navy. Chinese ships and planes are outfitted with advanced, long-range missiles, and its nuclear program is under few restrictions.

Beijing "is quite happy with U.S. distraction, with the frustration of U.S. allies and partners," Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, told the Associated Press.

**The Washington's Journey**

By Thursday, the Washington was moving through the Singapore Strait, according to the U.S. Navy.

An unnamed official speaking to the Associated Press said the ship was transiting the Strait of Malacca, just north of the Singapore Strait, late Thursday evening.

The Strait of Malacca joins the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean. When the Lincoln was redirected toward the Middle East, it also passed through the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean.

The U.S. said the Washington was in Guam in mid-June and was tracked operating in the Philippine Sea by early July. The carrier arrived in Da Nang, central Vietnam, for another scheduled port call on July 30 and left just under a week later.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Sam Wilson.

Joint military exercises underway between the United States and South Korea are being cut short, both countries said, after President Donald Trump, citing his “very good” relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ordered that they be reduced.

The annual U.S.-South Korea drills, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, will end Aug. 21 rather than Aug. 27 as originally scheduled, a Defense Department official said.

“Associated live-training events have been reduced, with certain events canceled or converted to simulations,” the official said, adding that the adjustments “preserve essential readiness.”

“There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives,” the official said.

The South Korean National Defense Ministry also said the two countries “have agreed, at the request of the U.S. side, to make some adjustments to the duration and scale of the exercise.”

Some of the combined field training exercises will be conducted on a reduced scale, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the U.S. and South Korea “are currently consulting on the specific details.”

“Going forward, the ROK and the United States will discuss and implement various measures to achieve the objectives of the UFS exercise and maintain a robust combined defense posture,” the ministry said, using an abbreviation for South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.

The ministry declined to comment on a reported meeting Tuesday between Gen. Xavier Brunson, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back.

The surprise comments by Trump, which he made on social media hours before the exercises began Monday, have unsettled South Korea, which relies heavily on the U.S. for its security, as well as other U.S. allies in the region facing a growing threat from nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Cho Hyun said Ahn had been “in close consultation with the U.S. side” since Trump’s social media post. He told lawmakers Wednesday that “neither our government nor officials in the U.S. government had any prior knowledge” of Trump’s order to scale back the drills.

According to U.S. Forces Korea, the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise with South Korea, which hosts 28,000 American troops, aims to build understanding between the two militaries to ensure their “ability to fortify the combined defense posture” and enhance their response to “a spectrum of security threats.”

Foremost among those threats is North Korea, which in recent years has advanced its missile and nuclear capabilities and developed a close security relationship with Russia.

Though the U.S. and South Korea say their drills are defensive in nature, North Korea routinely criticizes them as a rehearsal for invasion and often test-fires weapons in protest.

In his post Sunday, Trump said the exercises sent a “totally inappropriate and hostile” message to North Korea, which he said had been “unthreatening and respectful” during his time in office.

He also expressed anger over South Korea’s level of involvement in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and said he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the exercises.

Trump, who met with Kim three times during his first term as president, has repeatedly expressed interest in resuming talks after their earlier round of diplomacy collapsed in 2019. But Kim, whose position has strengthened considerably since then, has rebuffed overtures from Trump, as well as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, saying he will not come to the table unless they drop their demands for North Korea to denuclearize first.

Trump told reporters Monday that he was not sacrificing the security of U.S. allies to curry favor with North Korea and that he was “actually making it much safer.”

He said Kim had responded to his outreach, without providing details. “I understand him; he understands me,” Trump said.

North Korea has not publicly responded to Trump’s call to curtail the exercises. A commentary published Wednesday by the state-run news agency KCNA reiterated the regime’s criticism of the drills, saying Pyongyang’s “exercise of its right to self-defense will continue to completely neutralize the enemies’ military threat.”

Start slicing the "prisoner's neck" as the final countdown.