U.S. faces aircraft carrier shortage as tensions rise everywhere

NORFOLK, Virginia -- The U.S. Navy faces a shortage of aircraft carriers on the Atlantic coast with no East Coast-based ship ready for deployment to replace the USS D. Eisenhower, which has been responding against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea for months, as the country focuses on bolstering its presence in the Pacific Sea amid fraught tensions with China.

The U.S. Navy instead has redirected the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a San Diego-based carrier, to move from the South China Sea to the Red Sea as a stopgap measure, until the next East Coast-based carrier is ready.