CNO John Richardson said Monday that, essentially, the Persian Gulf deployment was business as usual. “The Abraham Lincoln Strike Group was planned to deploy for some time now,” he told the SeaAirSpace conference.

While two carriers attracting most of the attention, a smaller US footprint is being established between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where Russia — and Turkey — are raising concerns.

The United States signed off on arms exports worth $192.3 billion over the past year, a full 13 percent increase from the previous year — even as the Trump administration keeps pushing hard to sell more weapons, more quickly, to more allies overseas.

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The Navy dragged its feet for years after committing to buy the F-35C for carrier operations. They worried it would be too expensive to maintain. They worried the tailhook problems would persist. They worried it was too heavy. Let’s face it: the Navy leadership was just worried. After all, they… Keep reading →