The Department of Defense (DoD) has allocated aircraft carriers to U.S. Central Command (CentCom) for Iranian deterrence at the expense of strategic competition with China and Russia repeatedly over the past decade. DoD is locked in a cycle that regularly deprives Indo-Pacific Command (IndoPaCom) and European Command of the carriers necessary for strategic competition. Incoherent strategic messaging has resulted from priority misalignment between DoD and CentCom, changing political approaches, and overreliance on carriers for demonstrations of resolve.1
Though 2022 has seen a reduction in carriers assigned to CentCom, history suggests that unplanned political tension with Iran will draw carriers back to its constrained waters. DoD must break this cycle and rely on the potency of other assets allocated to CentCom. Iran can and must be deterred from aggression—but without continually holding an aircraft carrier in a stationary and strategically disadvantageous position.
Out-of-Sync CentCom Priorities
Deterring Iran understandably remains CentCom’s top priority, not strategic competition with China. Recent CentCom commanders have consistently maintained intense messaging and a credible military threat against Iran and its proxies despite fluctuating policies from successive presidential administrations. Since his February 2022 nomination for CentCom command, General Michael Kurilla has asserted that Iran remains the most destabilizing actor in the Middle East and that it requires significant deterrent attention from the United States. Likewise, the March 2022 posture statement of General Kurilla’s predecessor, General Kenneth McKenzie Jr., acknowledged China as a strategic competitor in CentCom but explained that Iran remains “the greatest single day-to-day threat to regional security and stability.”2 The 2022 posture statement listed competition with China and Russia as CentCom’s third strategic priority.
CentCom’s focus on Iran is rarely consistent with national strategic guidance, despite the attention that country receives. Iran was the fourth threat cited in the Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), after China, Russia, and North Korea.3 Nevertheless, Iran received heavy focus during the Trump years, culminating in the January 2020 killing of General Qasem Soleimani.4 The dissonance between Iran’s low priority in the Trump-era NDS and the intensity of the “maximum pressure” campaign showcased how short-term objectives in CentCom can supersede long-term focus on strategic competition.5
The Biden administration has further minimized Iran as a military priority. In March 2021, the President signed the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, which pivoted away from the intensity of “maximum pressure” and returned to President Barack Obama’s more diplomatic approach. That document mentioned Iran only four times and emphasized that leaders “do not believe that military force is the answer to the region’s challenges.”6 President Joe Biden justified the removal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 by citing the importance of more pressing future challenges. He specifically mentioned competition with China, proliferating terrorist threats, and the need to strengthen alliances. Iran was not mentioned. The March 2022 NDS Fact Sheet mentioned Iran only as a threat to be “managed” while striving toward “integrated deterrence” of strategic competitors.7 CentCom’s top priority is a localized challenge in the present, but integrated deterrence requires global future readiness. When tensions again flare with Iran, CentCom will have to make do with less.
Both the Obama and Trump administrations included nonmilitary instruments in their approaches to Iran.8 They employed economic sanctions and denunciations of the regime that varied in intensity. Even “maximum pressure” primarily used these tools. Signals from the Biden…