America’s massive military build-up near Iran | The Economist

Lay out exactly how this. American build-up. has happened. and what they have. in the region now. Sure, so this, Ed, is. mostly an air and naval build-up. which we can see here on this map. It’s not substantial ground forces. And the centerpiece. is really a pair of. aircraft-carrier strike groups. And a strike group, as you know, is the aircraft-carrier itself. It's the air wing. and it's all the escort. ships around it. that have air-defence capacity. that have weapons of their own. There is one. aircraft-carrier strike group.

nearby in the Gulf of Oman. There is another one. that's been making its way. into the region, it's somewhere in. the Mediterranean. We don't know exactly where it is. That's a USS Gerald Ford. That's probably also within. striking distance of Iran given. it can be refueled. And then there are huge. numbers of aircraft. So F-35s, various others. The really striking one. that I noticed in the last. 24 hours, 48 hours. or so is F-22s. And, as you may know,

the F-22s are America's. most advanced. fighter jet, they have landed in Israel. That's very, very unusual. We don't normally see them there. They are very capable aircraft. And all of this. is now spread across. a number of bases. Some countries, Saudi Arabians, the Emiratis have said. they will not allow their air bases, their ports to be used. as staging grounds for attacks, although inevitably. they are caught up in this. And so a lot of the force. build-up is in places. like Jordan, Bahrain, some of it in Israel. But a vast bit of it. is simply floating.

on aircraft-carriers. And how does that force compare. with previous build-ups. we've had over the years? Not as big as you might think. It's very big in absolute terms: two aircraft-carrier strike groups, more than 100 fighter jets. There is enough here. to start a war with Iran with little. or no notice, don't get me wrong, but if you look at this chart. what you see very clearly is. this is much, much smaller. than, say, the five. aircraft-carrier strike groups. that were in the region. for the second Gulf War in 2003. It is even smaller than the.

campaign, the number of forces. that were there. for the strike campaign. against Iraq in 1998. And the key thing here, Ed, is that there are no big visible. special-operations forces of the kind. we saw in the Caribbean prior. to the Maduro raid. There are no substantial. marine-amphibious forces. that we see. And this is enough. a big strike campaign. It's not enough for months. and months of strikes. Though we must factor in. of course the Israeli. Air Force in all of this. which I think would be pretty. likely to be get involved.

if a conflict were to begin.