USS Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, hull number CVN-71. Newport News Shipbuilding built her and she was commissioned on 25 October 1986. She displaces about 104,600 long tons, runs on two A4W reactors and carries roughly 3,200 ship's company alongside an air wing of about 2,480. She berths at San Diego, California.

Her service record is long enough to be a reference point in its own right. She flew 3,897 sorties in Operation Desert Storm. She spent 160 consecutive days at SEA supporting operations in Afghanistan across 2001 and 2002, one of the longest unbroken combat deployments by an American carrier.

Rotation, not treaty, governs the only American combat power that sits adjacent to Iran, and a rotation is scheduled months ahead. So a relief reads as continuity, not escalation. That distinction sharpened on 30 September 2026, when US Central Command flew its last troops out of Erbil Air Base, ending the Iraq leg of Operation Inherent Resolve and leaving the SEA as Washington's steady platform in the region.