U.S. Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle wants commanders to stop treating aircraft carriers as the default tool for crisis response and instead use smaller, newer ships and other assets in more tailored combinations, he told The Associated Press. Caudle, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, framed the shift as part of his “Fighting Instructions,” designed to give commanders more flexibility as threats develop and to better match the Navy’s resources to specific missions.
The push comes as the Trump administration has moved aircraft carriers and other ships to regions around the world to address emerging concerns, disrupting standing deployment plans and forcing ships to sail long distances. Caudle said the strain is landing on vessels and equipment already dealing with mounting maintenance issues, and he pointed to recent carrier movements to illustrate the operational churn.
Caudle said he has spoken with the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the Caribbean and Venezuela, and that the two are negotiating how to define Southern Command’s “problem set” so Caudle can convey what the Navy can deliver there with a tailored package. In his description of how that approach could look, he said he envisions a future Caribbean mission emphasizing interdictions and monitoring merchant shipping.
In the Caribbean context, Caudle said the Navy’s posture could rely more on capabilities that better fit interdiction missions than on large carrier strike group formations. He said the mission “doesn’t really require a carrier strike group to do that,” adding that he believes it could be accomplished with smaller littoral combat ships, Navy helicopters, and close coordination with the Coast Guard.
Caudle described the current regional deployment picture as a major shift: the Navy has had 11 ships, including the USS Gerald R. Ford and several amphibious assault ships carrying thousands of Marines, in South American waters for months. He said that is different from a region that historically saw deployments of one or two smaller Navy ships, and he questioned whether operating many destroyers there makes sense for the kind of maritime awareness the mission requires.
He said he “doesn’t want a lot of destroyers there driving around just to actually operate the radar to get awareness on motor vessels and other tankers coming out of port,” calling it “really not a well-suited match for that mission.” Caudle said the Navy is already conducting interdiction work tied to Venezuela sanctions evasion and described the seizure of suspicious, falsely flagged tankers connected with Venezuela as part of a broader shadow fleet of merchant vessels.
To compensate for a move away from larger carrier-centric formations, Caudle said he wants the Navy to lean more on drones or other robotic systems to provide commanders with similar capabilities while requiring less investment from ships. He acknowledged that could be difficult to implement, saying that even when a commander knows about a new capability, the staff may not know “how to ask for that, integrate it, and know how to employ it in an effective way to bring this new niche capability to bear.”
Caudle said that would require what he called an “education campaign,” aimed at changing how staffs request, integrate, and employ newer capabilities. He said his vision is already operating in Europe and North America over the last four or five years, and he suggested the model could apply soon in the Bering Strait as the Arctic’s importance increases for China, Russia, and the United States.
Caudle said he knows he would need to offer commanders in the Arctic region “more solutions,” and he said his “tailored force packages would be a way to get after that.” He linked those considerations to Trump’s stated emphasis on threats involving China and Russia, including Trump’s demands related to Greenland, an Arctic island overseen by NATO ally Denmark.
As for how quickly the approach could reshape specific deployments, Caudle said he would discuss compensation if the USS Abraham Lincoln redeployment to the Middle East happened under his plan. He gave an example in which, as Lincoln comes out, he would have “a three ship (group) that’s going to compensate for that,” pointing to the need to adjust force packages when ships shift theaters.
Caudle’s remarks echoed the backdrop of recent carrier movements. He cited the USS Gerald R. Ford’s late-year redirection from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean Sea, where its crew supported last month’s operation tied to the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He also cited that two weeks earlier, the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the Middle East as tensions with Iran rose after being pulled from the South China Sea.
Throughout his interview, Caudle returned to the core theme that missions should drive the composition of naval forces. He said his strategy would make naval presence in regions such as the Caribbean “leaner” and “better tailored” to meet actual threats as they develop.