The US’ ironclad commitment to Israel means lots of ships, jets

The United States has a significant amount of naval and air assets in the Middle East right now. The Pentagon said those forces are "postured to support the defense of Israel and protect U.S. troops and assets in the region."

Israel's war against Hamas is still mostly contained to Gaza, and the back-and-forth attacks with Hezbollah in Lebanon seem to be dying down after Israel preemptively struck thousands of weapons and launchers at dozens of sites in Lebanon.

Still, as long as Iran and its axis of resistance continue to attack Israel, there are fears the war in Gaza could expand into a wider regional conflict.

That possibility is why just this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told his counterpart in Israel that the U.S. resolve to defend Israel is "ironclad."

Here's what an ironclad commitment means in terms of naval and air assets.

In the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. Navy has four guided missile destroyers and the Wasp ARG, or Amphibious Ready Group. Each of the guided missile destroyers is capable of taking out ballistic missiles, drones, cruise missiles and other aerial threats.

The Wasp ARG/MEU, which is the ARG and the Marine Expeditionary Unit assigned to the ARG, consists of three ships as well : the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship, the USS New York amphibious transport dock, and the USS Oak Hill dock landing ship.

The Wasp is like a mini aircraft carrier for the Marine Expeditionary Unit assigned to the ARG, so it can launch F-35Bs, helicopters, and other aircraft. The two other ships in the ARG are designed to get the Marines and their equipment to shore if the need arises.

In the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman — the waters right in Iran’s backyard — the Navy has two guided missile destroyers, the McCain and the Michael Murphy, as well as two carrier strike groups, the Abraham Lincoln and the Theodore Roosevelt.

As the name implies, each of those CSGs consists of an aircraft carrier, and each one of those carriers is escorted by three guided missile destroyers. The Teddy Roosevelt CSG also has a guided missile cruiser steaming alongside it as well.

There are a lot of ships, and those carriers also carry a lot of planes.

The Abraham Lincoln has one squadron of F-35Cs and three squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets. The Roosevelt Carrier Air Wing consists of four squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets.

And somewhere in this region is a squadron of F-22 Raptors , just waiting to defend the skies. And the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered submarine that can shoot cruise missiles, is also somewhere in these waters.

There is an obvious lack of U.S. naval assets in the Red Sea right now, but that doesn’t mean there are no allied ships in the area. The Brits and the French both have naval assets in the Red Sea, and both the Saudis and Jordanians indicated they wouldn’t let Iranian weapons fly through their airspaces.

So, the U.S. forces are being put near Iran to try and take out weapons early, and near Israel to take out any threats that slip through the first wave of defense or come from areas closer to Israel — like Lebanon, Iraq or Syria.

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