US Military Assets in the Middle East: List of Equipment and Bases
The massive presence of US military assets in the Middle East, including warships, fighter jets, and aerial refuelling aircraft, provides the foundation for a major campaign against Iran.
Below, this report examines the principal US military assets deployed to the region, following Washington’s strikes that President Donald Trump said targeted Tehran’s navy and missiles.
Washington currently maintains more than a dozen warships in the Middle East, including one aircraft carrier—USS Abraham Lincoln operating in the Arabian Sea—nine destroyers, and three littoral combat ships.
USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, has been deployed in the Mediterranean Sea alongside several other destroyers. The carrier took on food, fuel, and ammunition at Souda Bay on the island of Crete earlier this week before leaving port on Thursday. Satellite imagery showed its presence several hundred miles west of the port of Haifa, Israel, the following day.
Both aircraft carriers are crewed by thousands of sailors and possess air wings consisting of dozens of fighter jets. It is rare for two large warships to be in the Middle East simultaneously.
Beyond the aircraft aboard the carriers, the United States has deployed dozens of additional fighter jets to the Middle East, according to open-source intelligence reports on X, flight-tracking website Flightradar24, and media reporting. This includes F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jets, F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft, and KC-135 aerial refuelling aircraft required to support their operations.
The United States has also reportedly increased its land-based air defence capabilities in the Middle East. Guided-missile destroyers in the region provide maritime air defence capability.
Although ground forces are not expected to participate in offensive action against Iran, the United States maintains tens of thousands of military personnel at bases across the Middle East that could potentially be vulnerable to retaliatory strikes.
Tehran launched missiles at a US base in Qatar after Washington struck three Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, though the missiles were shot down by air defences.