‘Nimitz Gap’ debate clouds Navy’s decision to retire oldest carrier

By GARY WARNER STARS AND STRIPES • February 27, 2026

Sailors man the rails as the USS Nimitz returns to its homeport at Naval Base Kitsap near Seattle on a foggy, rainy and cold afternoon on Dec. 16, 2025. The ship made a final deployment to the western Pacific in 2025. (Gary Warner/Stars and Stripes) BREMERTON, Wash. — The USS Nimitz sits in Sinclair Inlet, west of Seattle, its flight deck empty of aircraft and its hull showing scrapes and rust from its last official deployment across the Pacific that ended in December. The first of its kind, launched mere days after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the namesake of the 10 “Nimitz-class carriers” is slated to retire this spring after more than 50 years with the fleet. But military demands, delayed new carrier construction, protracted deployments and a congressional mandate to keep a minimum of 11 active carriers have cast doubt on whether the Nimitz is really going away. Sticking to the Navy’s timeline would create what critics call a rolling “Nimitz Gap” as the carrier retires in 2026 — up to a year before its replacement, the second Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, is scheduled for commissioning in 2027. The Kennedy would need additional shake-out cruises, meaning it likely wouldn’t be ready for its first deployment until 2029. The Navy would drop to 10 carriers at a time when demand around the world — from the Middle East to South America to the Indo-Pacific — is on the rise. The numbers problem would persist as other older Nimitz class carriers reach their expected 50-year lifespan before their replacements can be built, delivered and ready for deployment. The carriers being constructed after the Kennedy — a new USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller — are also suffering delays, pushing their delivery back by years. Taking the Nimitz off the Navy’s rolls would also, at least technically, mean breaking federal law. Congress in 2007 approved Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 8062(b), which explicitly says “the naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less than 11 operational aircraft carriers.” The Navy would need to request a waiver from Congress to retire the Nimitz before the Kennedy joins the fleet. When it sought a similar waiver to retire the USS Enterprise in 2009 before its replacement, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was delivered, Congress said no.

 The future USS John F. Kennedy, the second of the Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, underway during sea trials off the coast of Virginia Jan. 30, 2026. The carrier is slated to replace the USS Nimitz in the Navy fleet but isn’t expected to be commissioned until March 2027, nearly a year after the scheduled beginning of decommissioning of the Nimitz. (Kaitlin Young/U.S. Navy) Still, the Nimitz’s retirement appears to be a go. “USS Nimitz (CVN 68) is currently homeported at Naval Base Kitsap, Washington, and is preparing for an upcoming homeport shift to Naval Station Norfolk,” U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii said in a Feb. 24 statement. Losing a carrier, even for a year, means one less platform that on average carries up to 90 aircraft — including F/A-18 Hornet and F-35C Lightning II attack-fighter jets, EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets, as well as E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, C-2 Greyhound transport/reconnaissance aircraft and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters. Carriers have also operated U.S. Marine V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. It’s a problematic situation made all the more difficult by the additional realities of simultaneous military operations around the globe and a slow carrier development program that isn’t likely to catch up as more Nimitz-class carriers age past the target retirement age of 50. The Navy announced in 2023 that it planned to retire the Nimitz in 2025 and the second-oldest carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 2027. The Navy said last year that the “Ike,” commissioned in 1977, will operate into the 2030s. Mark Cancian, a former Marine officer who is now an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the Navy and Congress will be forced to bow to the twin realities of multiple international commitments and a domestic shipbuilding program that is chronically behind schedule. “The Navy needs to extend all of the Nimitz class carriers at least one more deployment, if not more,” Cancian said. “Trying to speed up production of Ford class carriers won’t have any result for many years, even if such an acceleration were feasible.” 

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and the oiler USNS John Lenthall conduct a vertical replenishment in the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 15, 2026. George H.W. Bush is the last Nimitz-class carrier, commissioned in 2009.  (Mitchell Mason/U.S. Navy) Cancian and others have pointed to President Donald Trump’s deployment of carriers to the Middle East to put pressure on Iran, and to the waters off Venezuela for the operations that led to the extraction of President Nicolas Maduro. “The carrier gap is concerning because we just got an example of its real-world effects,” Cancian said. “When the administration sent the Ford to the Caribbean, there was no carrier in Europe/Middle East. Then, when Iran erupted and the president said “help is on the way.” The United States didn’t have the forces, particularly a carrier, to make that threat real. Now there are two carriers in the region, but no carrier at sea in the western Pacific.” Not even the ten carriers take into account the reality of maintaining the carrier force. One carrier is almost always in the middle of a multiyear RCOH (Refueling and Complex Overhaul, a midlife maintenance process) that prepares the ships for the second half of their life span. Ships also go through prolonged intermediate maintenance periods. The USS Ronald Reagan, for example, entered a 17-month overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in August 2025. Bryan Clark, an analyst with the Hudson Institute, said the presence of two aircraft carriers in the Central Command area in the Middle East created a shortage. “With two carriers in CENTCOM, there is already a gap in Indo-Pacific carrier presence,” Clark said. 

An F/A-18E Super Hornet and an E/A-18G Growler fly over the USS Nimitz in the South China Sea on Oct. 27, 2025. The deployment was officially the last for the 50-year-old Nimitz, which is scheduled to arrive at Norfolk Naval Station this spring to begin decommissioning.  (Matthew C. Wolf/U.S. Navy) Clark said the only carrier in the western Pacific is the USS George Washington, which is forward deployed at Yokosuka, Japan, and is unavailable to deploy. “George Washington is in its annual maintenance period,” Clark said. Clark said that if and when the Navy goes down to 10 carriers, it will not be able to maintain more than two carriers deployed in a single area on a sustained basis. “Which will mean future operations like this one or in Venezuela will take carriers away from traditional deterrence and security cooperation missions,” Clark said. “However, the new national defense strategy suggests the administration intends this more fluid posture to be the norm.” The Navy announced last year that the Nimitz would arrive in Norfolk no later than April 16 to begin the lengthy decommissioning process. No date for the Nimitz departure from NB Kitsap or any other details were available due to “operational security,” the Navy said. Because the Nimitz is too large to fit through the Panama Canal, it would have to sail around the tip of South America to get to Norfolk on the Atlantic coast. Under the Navy’s earlier announcement, the Nimitz would start decommissioning in May, and its reusable equipment and parts would be offloaded. The ship would then be sent to HII Newport News Shipbuilding to have its nuclear fuel removed and the reactor removed, followed by a lengthy dismantling process. The Nimitz would be the second nuclear carrier to be retired after the USS Enterprise, decommissioned in 2017, the year the Gerald R. Ford entered Navy service. The Navy has delayed the beginning of dismantling the one-of-a-kind Enterprise, which used eight nuclear reactors. All Nimitz-class carriers have a pair of nuclear reactors. The process that will be developed for the Nimitz’s dismantling is expected to serve as a template for its nine sister ships as they retire in the coming decades. MILITARY VEHICLES CONGRESS AND THE MILITARY GARY WARNER Gary Warner covers the Pacific Northwest for Stars and Stripes. He’s reported from East Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and across the U.S. He has a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

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