The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier and its strike group for a military exercise in Alaska.
Exercise Northern Edge 2025 commenced on Sunday and involves over 6,400 military personnel, 100 aircraft, and seven U.S. and Canadian vessels, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three accompanying destroyers.
Why It Matters
Alaska, which hosted a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, has also been in the headlines because of the presence of a fleet of five Chinese research vessels in nearby Arctic waters, as well as a joint naval patrol by Russia and China that approached the northernmost U.S. state’s outlying islands.
The Pentagon views Alaska as a key strategic location for homeland defense and the Navy recently deployed a destroyer in the North Pacific Ocean for routine operations.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries for comment via email.
What To Know
Led by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Exercise Northern Edge 2025 aims to deliver what the U.S. military called “high-end, realistic warfighter training” to strengthen cooperation and sharpen the combat readiness of participating forces, according to a press release.
The war game will ensure readiness to deter and defeat any adversary, said U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Rick Goodman, the exercise director. Canada, which co-forms the North American Aerospace Defense Command, deployed air and naval assets for the drill.
The Abraham Lincoln left San Diego with aircraft on its flight deck on August 12. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Todd Whalen said the mission of the carrier strike group in Alaska is to deliver sea control and power projection “wherever the nation needs us.”
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Nimitz-class aircraft carrier leaving San Diego – August 12, 2025 SRC: YT- SanDiegoWebCam pic.twitter.com/6aMnKTnrHs
— WarshipCam (@WarshipCam) August 12, 2025
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was deployed with the destroyers USS O’Kane, USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. and USS Michael Murphy. Its aviation force consists of nine squadrons of fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft, the latter referring to F-35C stealth fighter jets.
For the first time, Exercise Northern Edge 2025 and Exercise Arctic Edge 2025—being hosted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command until the end of this month—are being conducted concurrently in the Alaska Theater of Operations.
This includes mainland Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, “all the way to Adak Island,” according to the press release. Located south of the Bering Sea, Adak Island is approximately 900 miles from the eastern coastline of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
Conducting both war games simultaneously allows the U.S. and its allies to practice establishing and sustaining a fight in, from, and through Alaska, the press release said.
What People Are Saying
U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Rick Goodman, director of Exercise Northern Edge 2025, said in a press release on Sunday: “Arctic Edge is focusing on the homeland defense here in Alaska, and Northern Edge is going to add on a very specific layer of power projection and that high-end war fighting capability.”
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Todd Whalen, commander of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, said in a press release on Sunday: “The Sailors and Marines of Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group are excited to serve alongside our joint force counterparts to demonstrate our commitment to the region and our combined lethality.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether the U.S. military will expand its presence in and around Alaska amid growing Russian and Chinese military activity in the region.
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