This is a two fold question I think, which gets at aspects of GFM that not a lot of folks (even within DoD) fully understand https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/1309648388946833408

Deployment of assets rotationally is ordered every year via the GFMAP (Global Force Management Allocation Plan). This is effectively DoD's "schedule" for who is going where when and for how long. This is what would set (for instance) x amount of fighter squadrons in CENTCOM

It's adjudicated by the JS GFM folks after extensive inputs by all the services and the CCMDs, reviewed by the Chairman, and ultimately ordered by the SECDEF

The force providers know this is coming well in advance and should be managing their forces to meet the published tasks

However, plans change, units have problems, world events occur...the GFMAP "edit button" is the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB)

Same basic process as the GFMAP w/same stakeholders, but on an accelerated timeline

The SDOB can both be used to increase forces to the GFMAP (in response to a Request For Forces from a CCMD after something changed in their AOR) or remove forces (often in response to a force provider having an unexpected shortfall)

One fact of life is that generally RFFs (especially from CCMDs that start with "C", also sometimes "I") take much higher precedence over any force provider concerns

At some level this makes sense, Iranians shooting down planes tends to be more urgent than ~readiness~ concerns

However the issue comes in when CCMDs get myopic (I had a much less charitable way of phrasing this originally)

It's one thing to provide a clear eyed ask for certain assets for certain purposes, it's another to turn into the SimCity guy when 1 of your 500 RFFs gets denied

YOU CAN'T CLOSE MY RFF WITHOUT SOURCING!!!!

YOU WILL REGRET THIS!!!!!

(CWOS is the term for when a RFF is denied or a previously ordered GFMAP movement is removed, often due to force provider concerns like deploy to dwell, readiness for other missions, etc)

I think it would be fair to say that a certain CCMD got accustomed to having their RFFs sourced without question due to the combat trump card, their face when the NDS got published and their pet adversaries were no longer top dog

It may seem like I'm picking on CENTCOM, and I am to some degree, but in fairness they've been given tasks by the NCA and are asking for the tools they think they need to complete the tasks

It's supposed to be incumbent upon the JS, Chairman, and ultimately SECDEF to balance

(That said when a particular RFF has been denied a couple times in a row maybe take the hint Tampa)

CC @RPG_volley @forbesmm just to see this meme again

So to bring this back to the QT at the top of the thread, the question isn't necessarily "what's the crisis"

Rather, are these taskings GFMAP derived? If so, two questions for Big Navy: why was this the best sourcing solution, and if so, did you try to reclama?

If these were previously scheduled taskings, and the Navy's force presentation model meant these were the least bad options to meet it, the changed environment due to COVID/Ike's extended trip/etc might make pushing a reclama supportable

Basically "all our other carriers can't go for reasons so the Ike and TR are it, the changed environment means sending these carriers out will have significant long term readiness impacts and reduce deploy to dwell, over to you SECDEF"

Side note, forces that are forward deployed (e.g. the Reagan) are considered binned in that CCMD, which means if you try to source them to meet a tasking elsewhere that CCMD gets a vote

Not unheard of (particularly for smaller units like FSs) but a CSG would be....unlikely

Opposite that, if this was an emergent SDOB ordered ask, then the question very much is "what's the crisis?"

In this instance the question then goes back to the Navy for "did you reclama, and if so, how hard?"

Reclama against a GFMAP ordered tasking tends to be more difficult because those are ordered well in advance so the presumption is force providers should have their lives together to manage it

An emergent RFF is very different

That's basically "we had a plan, and then some CCMD came in and crapped all over it with whatever the latest crisis du jour is"

As such reclamas due to readiness/D2D are more common/have better traction here

But a reclama is only as good as the language in it and the juice that's exerted on its behalf

It's one thing to shoulder shrug non-concur knowing you'll get steamrolled, it's another to throw serious (4-star engagement) wasta behind a reclama

The AF bomber fleet here is instructive. Getting out of AFCENT rotations and ending CBP didn't happen overnight, it took sustained senior ldr engagement, backed up by tons of data, to finally get the JS/Chairman and ultimately SECDEF to accept that the AF's contention was correct

So given the newsmaking of carriers on a similar topic, would be very curious to learn what if any pushes have been made by Big Navy on showing the bills that will likely have to be paid as a result of these double pumps and the impacts to retention/readiness

And proposing alternate COAs, which again to use the AF bomber example, we didn't just take our toys and go home, we proposed an alternate force presentation model (episodic BTFs) that by all accounts has been a great success, while also restoring readiness

Probably way more words than you ever want to read about GFM, but the inside baseball on this is likely a fair bit more complex than "Big Navy hates the Ike and TR"

One addendum: if I was a betting man I'd guess that the Ford's continued trials and tribulations may have something to do with this, she was supposed to be in the rotation now

That might also explain Big Navy's reluctance to engage more forcefully