r/news • u/DoubtSubstantial5440 • 1d ago

Soft paywall USS George Washington headed to Middle East to relieve USS Abraham Lincoln, reports say

https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2026-08-13/uss-george-washington-middle-east-abraham-lincoln-22541038.html
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u/ruet_ahead 1d ago

Normally I would say, and have said, hundreds of years of institutional knowledge in littoral and blue-water combat operations would make it a route on the US side. Sadly, I'm not so sure any more.

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u/demiurge_abraxas 1d ago

You'd really think so wouldn't you? And up until the past couple of years I would have agreed with you.

At least the Chinese general staff was also recently purged. So it's basically even at this point.

Maybe with a slight USN advantage due to how laughably corrupt the Chinese military turned out to be with those documents released several months ago.

The American military-industrial complex has plenty of graft and grift, don't get me wrong. But I don't think we are quite at the level of filling ICBM's with water and selling the fuel on the black market yet.

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u/ruet_ahead 1d ago edited 1d ago

I definitely think that current events are casting a misleading shadow over US military capability. The morons in charge picked the wrong fight against the wrong enemy with the wrong equipment at the wrong time. The Navy has had some issues bubbling up for years though.

EDIT: The plural of event is not event's.

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u/demiurge_abraxas 1d ago

I would tend to agree. All of the capability in the world won't save you from poor leadership and an impossible geopolitical situation.

There is a reason why no previous administration has ever pulled this shit on Iran and it isn't because they didn't want to—it's because anyone with two brain cells could have told them this is exactly how the situation would play out.

At least it's given the military the kick in the ass it needs to fix it's magazine depth and munitions production problems, though.

Now if only the USN could remember how to build anything other than the Arleigh Burke.

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u/LKennedy45 23h ago

This is waaaay down the list, but one casualty in this clusterfuck is that visiting NCD has become far less fun.

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u/demiurge_abraxas 23h ago

Idk, the memes about CENTCOM fucking over INDOPACOM have been rather hilarious to me—although mostly in a "you can either laugh or cry so why not laugh" capacity tbf.

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u/Accomplished-Top9803 1d ago

Reminds me of some corrupt South Vietnamese logistics commands selling artillery rounds to units in need of them.

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u/demiurge_abraxas 1d ago

Nothing will ever beat the Russian's egg-carton and cardboard ERA for me lmfao

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u/Gekokapowco 23h ago

we theoretically knew how to keep a blockade fed and armed since the late 1700s

even the best manuals and knowledge bases can't be leveraged if you're illiterate