The Rust of the "Lincoln" and the U.S. Military's "Overdraft Effect"

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 19 (Reporters Chen Shulin, Liu Chen) The ground covered in limescale and rust, aging facilities... A video believed to have been released by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln has recently sparked widespread discussion on social media. Moreover, it has been reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed in the Middle East for an extended period, with poor living conditions leading to some crew members attempting suicide.

In recent months, news about low morale, equipment failures, ammunition shortages, and inadequate support within the U.S. military has frequently appeared in the media. American media and some analysts believe that the recent emergence of such "stories" reflects the increasing difficulty of the U.S. military's manpower, military manufacturing, and support systems to meet the demands of high-intensity operations and global deployments, revealing the "overdraft effect" of the U.S.'s long-term reliance on military power to maintain hegemony.

Embarrassing Situations

According to U.S. media reports, due to the prolonged conflict in Iran, the USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed in the Middle East beyond its intended duration, remaining at sea for 250 consecutive days without docking. The high-intensity operational tempo and harsh living conditions have led to low morale among the crew, with many experiencing mental breakdowns and attempting to jump overboard.

The chaos aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln is just a microcosm. Recently, U.S. media reported that the USS Benfold lost power for four days in the South China Sea, leaving crew members unable to use the toilets or air conditioning, and affecting food and water supplies on board.

In May of this year, the USS Gerald R. Ford finally returned to port after completing 326 consecutive days of missions, during which it participated in U.S. military operations against Venezuela and Iran. During this time, incidents of clogged toilets and a laundry room fire occurred, and the ship is now expected to be out of service for at least a year due to major repairs.

CNN cited analysts commenting that the global deployment demands, including the conflict in Iran, have left the U.S. Navy "overburdened." The conflict in Iran has also exposed shortcomings in the U.S. military's critical ammunition stockpiles. The interception missiles of the U.S. military's Patriot and THAAD air defense systems have been significantly depleted, and some offensive ammunition stockpiles are also showing "red flags."

Some U.S. media pointed out that the recent revelations of low morale, equipment failures, and ammunition shortages in the U.S. military are the result of the U.S. government and military leadership's lack of adequate preparation and planning for military operations, as well as excessive use of military force.

Frequent Accidents

In fact, over the past decade, incidents of U.S. naval vessels colliding and aircraft crashing have occurred frequently.

In June 2017, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged cargo ship in Japanese waters, resulting in the deaths of seven sailors, including the ship's captain, and injuries to three others; in August of the same year, the USS McCain collided with a merchant vessel in eastern Singapore, causing the deaths of ten crew members and injuries to five others. Statistics show that the Seventh Fleet, to which both ships belong, experienced five collision incidents that year.

In recent years, the U.S. military has also seen multiple non-combat-related aircraft crashes. From mid-March to early April 2018, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force experienced at least six crashes within a month, involving various aircraft types, including fighter jets and armed helicopters, resulting in 16 non-combat deaths.

On October 26, 2025, a helicopter and a fighter jet from the USS Nimitz crashed within half an hour of each other.

The most severe incident in recent years for the U.S. military was the fire aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard. In July 2020, while undergoing maintenance, the USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire, with the blaze lasting for several days, ultimately leading to the early retirement of this expensive warship. This incident is considered one of the most serious safety accidents in the U.S. Navy in nearly 20 years.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has warned in multiple reports that the continuous accidents involving U.S. naval vessels, aviation, and ground forces reflect long-standing issues such as personnel fatigue, insufficient staffing, and inadequate training, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Multiple Overdrafts

Analysts believe that the embarrassing situations faced by the U.S. military are driven by multiple factors. In the short term, the most direct reason is the overburdened deployment leading to a "double overdraft" of personnel and equipment. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Iran, the U.S. military's high-intensity operational deployments and actions have continuously squeezed the space for personnel rest, equipment maintenance, and military rotation, resulting in this "overdraft" state exposing and mutually influencing issues such as troop morale and logistical support.

The New York Times also believes that the chaos aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reflects insufficient planning by the U.S. military. The logistics supply base in Bahrain was abandoned after being attacked by Iran, forcing U.S. Navy supply ships to go to Diego Garcia in the central Indian Ocean for supplies, significantly lengthening the supply line and reducing supply efficiency.

Furthermore, amid frequent military mobilizations in the U.S., the military's production capacity and human resources have long been unable to keep up with demand.

On one hand, the hollowing out of American manufacturing directly drags down the military and shipbuilding industries. The number of U.S. military shipyards is severely insufficient, leading to slow shipbuilding progress and long maintenance cycles, forcing naval vessels to serve and deploy beyond their intended periods, resulting in frequent safety incidents. Additionally, due to the high concentration of production facilities and supply chains, U.S. military enterprises cannot quickly ramp up production capacity, leading to insufficient supplies of critical ammunition.

On the other hand, the U.S. military also faces issues of quantity and quality in manpower. An article on the National Interest website pointed out that even after lowering recruitment standards, the number of recruits in the U.S. barely meets the minimum requirements, and the overall quality of personnel has significantly declined. The manpower gap and production capacity bottleneck have become important shortcomings limiting the U.S. military's sustained combat capability.

Ultimately, the root cause of the U.S. military's overdraft lies in its militaristic approach. An article on the U.S. Foreign Policy Research Institute website states that the U.S. maintains large-scale military deployments overseas and frequently initiates wars to uphold global hegemony, but currently, the U.S. domestic economy and industrial base can no longer support this.