I'm John Bachelor. Gordon Chang, At G. Chang is my colleague, and we're very pleased to be

joined by the vice president of the Lexington Institute, Rebecca Grant, because what we are observing now is the U.S. Navy at its very best, over-extended, perhaps by tours, but not by capability, especially two of the objects that are unique in the solar system, to my knowledge, the carrier strike groups.

One around the Gerald Ford, the largest ship, a warship, I believe, in existence.

Rebecca will help me on that.

And the other, the USS Nimitz of Carrier Strike Group as well.

Gordon, you're keen on the Nimitz. Why is that in this

combat moment? The Nimitz was supposed to be retired. It was supposed to have made its final

voyage to Bremerton and then to, I guess you can say, to Newport News to be decommissioned,

but it's now got a new mission down to Latin America.

And this is important because we need every carrier. It was wrong, I think, for the Navy to plan

for the decommissioning of the Nimitz. At least what they should have done was to warehouse it

at Bremerton. And I'm glad they're using it now.

Rebecca, a very good day to you. Your comments on extending the Nimitz. Is that wise? Good day to you.

Yes. I think Gordon was right. The Nimitz still has a role to play, but this means that the

Nimitz will go from Washington and take up her new home

port in Newport News.

She'll be tied up at the pier there and still scheduled for decommissioning.

But before that happens, Nimitz will join Southern Command for an important series of naval

exercises.

And she may or may not have an air wing on board information still to come,

but Nimitz will now be standing in probably for another carrier that will now, instead of doing

workups in Southern Command, deploy straight towards the Middle East to relieve USS Gerald

...