\u201cWe\u2019ve seen that multiple times, instead of a seven-month appointment it goes to a nine- or 10-month deployment,\u201d said Dakota Wood, senior research fellow for defense programs at the Heritage Foundation. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t happy about that [and] there\u2019s a ripple effect across the ship maintenance schedule, and how the shipyard availability and the workflow has to be adjusted to account for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the Richard wasn\u2019t scheduled to deploy right away, the Navy could just \u201caccept the reduction in presence\u201d in the Pacific in the short-term, said Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute. However the service proceeds, \u201cI think there\u2019s going to be a significant impact down the road because, once you get into a year from now when Richard would have come up to deploy,\u201d there will be a gap that either gets filled, or doesn\u2019t. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to have a combination of the USS America, and the other two amphibious ships in San Diego, to basically do two more months of deployment to maintain that heel-to-toe presence in the western Pacific, or the Navy just has to accept not being able to maintain continuous presence.\u201d<\/p>\n Losing what amounts to a small aircraft carrier will echo throughout the fleet, but what makes it extra painful is that Richard was slated to join the exclusive club of F-35 capable ships, a tool the Navy has flaunted on recent deployments to the Middle East and South China Sea.<\/p>\n As it stands, the San Diego-based USS Essex and Makin Island have been updated to deploy with F-35s, and both are currently conducting exercises off the California coast. The Essex returned this spring from a deployment to the Pacific and Middle East, while the Makin Island is still working through its early reps on how to operate its F-35s for the first time. The ships join the USS America (currently in port in Japan) and the USS Wasp (pulling into port in Norfolk, Va.) as the Navy\u2019s ships capable of flying the fifth-generation fighter.<\/p>\n The demand for ships in the Western Pacific is increasing, as both China and the United States look to flex muscle in the South China and Philippine seas. China has remained aggressive in the region, and the Trump administration is looking to bolster the ruling of an international court that Beijing has no legal claims to most of the South China and the fake islands (coral reefs which China destroyed) which the PLA is equipping with radars, missile batteries, and airstrips.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the rhetoric between Washington and Beijing is becoming increasingly heated. The Chinese government has boasted of \u201cexpelling\u201d<\/a> the US Navy form the South China Sea several times this year, and last week, David Stilwell, the State Department\u2019s assistant secretary for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs urged allies to reject a Chinese official<\/a> hoping to sit on the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, likening it to, \u201chiring an arsonist to help run the fire department.\u201d<\/p>\n The carriers USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan are currently running dual carrier maneuvers in the South China Sea for the second time in as many weeks. Neither ship can deploy with Navy F-35Cs, a capability no big deck carrier will have until the 36-year old<\/a> USS Carl Vinson wraps up its $34 million refit in Bremerton, in 2021.<\/p>\n Neither of the first two of a new class<\/a> of Ford carriers \u2014 the first of which is late, overbudget, cost $13 billion and is still working out technical issues \u2014 have been designed to carry the Joint Strike Fighter. Congress has included language in the 2020 budget to force the Navy to upgrade the USS Kennedy, the second carrier, to accommodate the aircraft, however.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/avion-1.jpg\")