USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group Reroutes Around Africa to Avoid Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Threat Zones

According to USNI News, citing two defense officials, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) carrier strike group — including guided-missile destroyers USS Donald Cook (DDG-75), USS Mason (DDG-87), and USS Ross (DDG-71) — did not transit the Strait of Gibraltar as expected and is instead sailing around the southern tip of Africa. The strike group was observed operating off the coast of Namibia as it makes the journey to the CENTCOM area of operations via the Cape of Good Hope route, bypassing the Suez Canal and avoiding the potentially contested zones of the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The rerouting adds approximately two to three weeks to the transit time compared to the standard Mediterranean-Suez Canal route, representing a significant operational decision that reflects the assessed threat environment across multiple maritime chokepoints simultaneously. The Red Sea has been the site of sustained Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial and military shipping since late 2023. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, is effectively Iran's second maritime leverage point after the Strait of Hormuz — Iranian-aligned Houthi forces have repeatedly targeted vessels transiting this corridor.

The decision to route a nuclear carrier strike group around Africa rather than through two NATO-proximate chokepoints is a striking indicator of how severely the normal maritime infrastructure of global naval power projection has been disrupted by the Iran conflict. The USS George H.W. Bush departed Naval Station Norfolk on April 1 and is expected to eventually relieve the USS Gerald R. Ford, which has been on an unprecedented 11-month-plus deployment. The Ford suffered a shipboard fire on March 12 during Operation Epic Fury operations and has since been repaired and returned to full operational status.

The Cape of Good Hope routing means the Bush strike group will not be available for CENTCOM operations until late April or early May at the earliest — a period during which the fragile ceasefire may have already either collapsed or been extended into formal negotiations. The routing decision underscores Admiral Caudle's publicly stated concern about "how do you buy down risk in other parts of the world while you're focusing a lot of resources in one area."