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Albee Zhang

The US Navy has redeployed an amphibious strike group originally bound for the Middle East to the South China Sea, a move experts say may signal Washington shifting its focus back to the Pacific region after months of distractions from the Iran war.
The United States began turning its military attention to the Middle East early this year, moving global military assets, including those in the Pacific, nearer to Iran.
Among those assets was the USS Tripoli group, which is based in Sasebo, Japan, and is one of the US’ two main naval groups in the Pacific.
The Tripoli group is still in the Middle East but US Navy statements and satellite images indicate that other naval forces are coming into the Pacific.
The USS Boxer amphibious assault ship, accompanied by the amphibious transport dock USS Portland, joined the Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea from early June, according to US Navy statements and satellite images.
The Boxer’s home port is San Diego and it was initially bound for the Middle East before being redirected to the Pacific.
According to satellite images posted online by Hangzhou-based Chinese firm MizarVision, the Boxer was moving towards the northeastern part of the South China Sea on Monday, joining the Nimitz-class George Washington carrier strike group in the region.


The Boxer has a mix of capable aircraft, including F-35B stealth fighters and MV-22B Osprey helicopters.
Also aboard is the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which typically comprises more than 2,000 marines and sailors. The Seventh Fleet said the 11th MEU “is a persistent, combat credible force contributing to deterrence and crisis response” in the fleet’s area of operations.
The Seventh Fleet is headquartered in Yokosuka, Japan, and focuses on the western Pacific. It is considered a key division in Washington’s deterrence of China, and the departure of the Tripoli from the fleet raised concerns among US allies about Washington’s commitment to the region.
“The linchpin of US military force projection and presence has always been, mainly, the US Navy. So that has often been a source of assurance and a deterrence signal,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“When naval assets were diverted to the Middle East over the past two months for the campaign in Iran, that has caused some disquiet among mostly the US allies and close partners.”
However, there are signs that the US war against Iran is winding down, with the announcement by Washington and Pakistan on Sunday that a deal had been agreed with Tehran to reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz and end the US naval blockade.
Koh said the deployment of the Boxer to the Pacific “is to signal that the US naval force levels in the theatre have returned to some form of normalcy” and “is one way of trying to reassure allies and partners in the region”.
The American focus on the Middle East theatre in recent months not only made its Asian allies anxious, but also raised concern from the US Congress.
At a US Senate hearing on April 21, when asked how long expending munitions in the Iran war could go on without creating severe effects for the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Paparo said “there are finite limits to the magazine” and they were being employed “judiciously”, although he did not give a timeline.
Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military analyst, said both of the main political parties in the US considered China to be the US’ most dangerous rival in the long term.
“Other than military functions, pulling military assets is also a diplomatic stance that signals where its priority is,” Ni said.


Meanwhile, the US Department of Defence has changed the name of the Indo-Pacific Command back to the US Pacific Command.
The Indo-Pacific Command name was adopted in 2018 under US President Donald Trump’s first administration but the department said on Tuesday that the US Pacific Command “carries decades of military heritage and enduring regional partnership”, from the Korean war to the Vietnam war.
The department said the area under the command remained the same – from the waters off the west coast of the US to the western border of India – but the new name singled out its focus on the Pacific.
It did not specify whether the name change would accompany any changes in policy or military deployment.


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US Defence Department changes name of Indo-Pacific Command back to US Pacific Command, suggesting new focus


US Defence Department changes name of Indo-Pacific Command back to US Pacific Command, suggesting new focus.


As the Iran war comes to a close, is the US pulling warships back to the west Pacific?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US Defence Department changes name of Indo-Pacific Command back to US Pacific Command, suggesting new focus

US Defence Department changes name of Indo-Pacific Command back to US Pacific Command, suggesting new focus