US set for escalation in Red Sea against the Houthis with deployment of second nuclear-powered carrier

President Donald Trump has warned the US military will ‘annihilate’ Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group

Footage from a British RAF Typhoon over Yemen during a targeted strike, when the UK had joined the US in attacking Houthi infrastructure. Photo: Ministry of Defence

The US is set for a major escalation in the Red Sea against the Houthis with the expected deployment of a second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which the US Naval Institute says will be the USS Carl Vinson.

The Vinson, with nine squadrons of aircraft, about 60 in total – mostly combat aircraft – is redeploying from the Pacific region where it has been carrying out military exercises. It will join the USS Harry S Truman, another Nimitz class aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, which has been launching aircraft strike missions against the Iran-backed movement for more than week, since President Donald Trump said the US would “annihilate” the “barbarian” group.

The Houthis say they will resume attacks on Israel-linked ships in the waterway, which carries about 12 per cent of global maritime trade. At times during the war in Gaza, this has expanded to include attacks on US and UK-linked vessels, as well as ships from across the world, characterised as a general blockade, to involve mistaken targets such as a China-linked oil tanker carrying fuel to Russia last May.

Both US aircraft carriers weight about 100,000 tonnes at full load and are in a years-long process of being phased out and replaced with modern Ford class carriers, currently under construction.

The USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, arrives at a South Korean naval base in Busan this month, but is now on its way to the Red Sea. AFP

The US has often stationed two nuclear-powered carriers in the Middle East in times of heightened tension. At the start of the crisis in the Red Sea in October 2023, the US deployed the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Nimitz class carrier, and the USS Bataan, an amphibious assault ship with a displacement of about 40,000 tonnes.

Technically, the two vessels would represent a deployment of two aircraft carriers, although the Bataan, which can carry helicopters, F-35B fighters and Harrier II jets, is primarily a military task force vessel and is dwarfed by the nuclear-powered carriers.

The American amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, left, conducting routine operations in the Mediterranean Sea. Photo: US Navy

The joint strike power of two nuclear-powered carriers operating in the same body of water will be significant and has not been seen in the region since March 2020, when the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Harry S. Truman were deployed to the Arabian Sea, three months after the US and Iran came close to full-scale war. That followed the US assassination of Iran's Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, in Iraq, and the Iranian ballistic missile retaliation on a US base, in which 100 soldiers were injured.

The last time the US has deployed two nuclear-powered carriers to support the same air campaign was during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Combined, the presence of two US aircraft carriers could result in about 250 air missions in a single day, with each hitting up to six targets.

Such an onslaught is more likely in full-scale war with a major adversary such as Iran. But the Eisenhower, which fought in the Red Sea for eight months after the crisis began, managed peaks of 140 sorties, according to the commander of its Air Wing 3, Marvin Scott.

Many of those missions would have involved patrolling for drone and cruise-missile attacks, a practice also known as “force protection”, as well as conducting waves of strikes on Houthi targets, which began sporadically in January 2024.

US Navy Rear Admiral Marc Miguez said the USS Eisenhower flew seven “deliberate strikes” on the Houthis. The attacks, he told defence analyst Ward Carroll, were based on “pretty good intelligence, where we knew where they were keeping things”, and were aimed at “degrading” the rebel movement's military capability.

Whether Mr Trump intends two carrier groups to turn their full force against the Houthis, or their combined deployment will reduce the strain on the Truman, has not yet been established. Some experts believe the US lacks intelligence detailed enough for such a large campaign.