At the crux of Northern Edge 2025 is the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
The joint military exercise between the United States and Canada, dubbed Northern Edge, is well underway at various locations in and around Alaska. More than 6,400 service members and dozens of American and Canadian vessels are partaking in the ongoing set of drills. This annual exercise is aimed at strengthening air and sea-based readiness among both nations and is led by US Indo-Pacific Command. “Northern Edge 2025 brings together multidomain capabilities in high-end combat to ensure readiness to deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversary … One of the key goals [of the exercise] is intercombatant command coordination between INDOPACOM and NORTHCOM. This highlights the importance of Alaska as a key strategic geographic location for national defense, as well as for power projection in the event of conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” stated US Air Force brigadier general and exercise director Rick Goodman.
At the crux of Northern Edge 2025 is the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. The Nimitz-class warship conducted flight operations as part of the military drills, ensuring sea-based readiness for the Navy. As the fifth nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of its class, Abraham Lincoln possesses all of the top-tier capabilities and features of its sister Nimitz ships. The carrier was named to honor former President Abraham Lincoln and officially reached operational capacity with the Navy in 1989.
Appropriately designated as “supercarriers,” the Nimitz ships measure more than 1,000 feet in length with a beam of over 290 feet. Notably, they boast flight decks that are roughly six acres in area. Up until the introduction of the USS Gerald R. Ford in 2017, no other carrier ever built across the globe exceeded the size of a Nimitz warship. Two A4W pressurized water reactors power the Nimitz ships, in contrast to the diesel-electric systems or gas turbines typically used to power their predecessors.
In terms of air power associated with Northern Edge 2025, F-35As, F/A-18 Super Hornets, and EA-18G Growlers are leading the way. Nicknamed the “runway queen” Lightning II, the Air Force’s Alpha variant of the fifth-generation fighter is designed to operate from conventional runways. The F-35A is the largest iteration of its platform and is perhaps the most exported. Foreign air forces, including Denmark, Australia, South Korea, Norway, and others, have purchased this Lightning II iteration.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet may be a fourth-generation platform, but these fighters remain the service’s most advanced frontline carrier-based strike fighter. Serving the Navy for nearly a quarter-century and incorporating a litany of enhancements over the years, the Super Hornet arguably plays one of the most significant roles in the service’s aerial strategy today.
The EA-18G Growler represents a specialized electronic warfare iteration of the Super Hornet, sharing 90 percent of its components. This platform may not host any guns, but the Growler can handle nearly 18,000 pounds of fuel and ordnance among its nine hardpoints.
If Northern Edge 2025 is meant to deter foreign adversaries, the US military’s participating contingent of formidable warships and unparalleled aircraft should do the trick.
About the Author: Maya Carlin
Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has bylines in many publications, including The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.
Image: DVIDS.
