By John Catalinotto
August 18, 2026

August 16 — Major U.S. media have delivered the news of a collapsing supply line to the U.S. war fleet in the West Asia region. Thousands of personnel on aircraft carriers and other warships in the region have experienced exhausting working conditions, threats to safety on deck, a lack of supplies, food shortages, water contamination and disruptions in the mail system.

That’s according to their relatives, who showed their anger at an Aug. 7 virtual town hall meeting with top U.S. Navy officers in San Diego. MS NOW reported the discussions, which were then reproduced in military newspapers, in the Guardian and later in the New York Times and other media.

Pentagon spokesperson Vice Admiral Douglas Verissimo blamed Iran’s knocking out the U.S. naval base in Bahrain, a logistics hub, for the inability to deliver mail and supplies.

Conditions on the ships have led to mental health crises, with little to no counseling available, and to attempted suicides, which even the corporate media have reported.

The extensive news coverage of the deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has shone a spotlight on a broad change in attitude at least among the enlisted personnel (non-officers). It’s what the Naval leadership describes as “demoralization.”

The first step

Often in military history what appears as demoralization is the first step to a greater consciousness. This is a consciousness that the people giving you orders and determining your life are acting neither in your interest nor for some ideal, but to serve the interests of the ultrarich who rule society.

At least some of the flight deck personnel are aware that a growing proportion of people in the U.S. consider the work of the USS Lincoln to constitute war crimes. A half-dozen military veterans in the U.S. Congress last December told the world that U.S. military personnel have not only the right but the duty to disobey orders to commit these war crimes.

The first step to the change in consciousness on the USS Lincoln comes after more than nine months on a combat mission with no time on land. There are 5,000 personnel on the Lincoln, and the enlisted personnel on the flight deck are mostly between 18 and 22 years old. They often work 16-hour shifts. The ship is like a giant factory, which after nine months at sea must seem like a prison.

It’s no wonder some Navy personnel are “demoralized.” It’s no wonder some have attempted suicide. It’s even less of a surprise that many of their relatives are mad as hell at the Navy top bosses.

And it wouldn’t be hard to imagine they all are furious at the MAGA commander in chief and his sycophant at the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth. Both swept aside the relatives’ concerns. They treated the sailors and their relatives as useful cannon fodder. And unlike most U.S. governments in the recent past, they did it with open arrogance.

What to do?

Given this rapid expansion of the struggle, the antiwar and anti-imperialist movement must consider how to respond to the new challenge. What can the movement do to help the relatives get their message out to the people? What can be done to make sure the military rank and file remain in contact with their relatives and with the people of the U.S.?

Organizations like Veterans For Peace have publicized the right of people in the military to refuse to obey illegal and unconstitutional orders, like orders to commit war crimes. They have reached out by placing billboards near many bases around the U.S. and the world. Other groups have offered legal counseling. All this is good.

But the movement must take into account what is behind the corporate media reports on the failures of the MAGA administration. The media criticism reflects a struggle among different sectors of the rulers of U.S. society: Many consider the MAGA regime incompetent to defend and expand U.S. imperialist interests. While this struggle creates a temporary opening, the movement must encourage resistance independent of both ruling factions.

Can the movement also promote the idea that rank-and-file personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces have the right to form their own organization, much as workers would form a labor union?

Can the movement demand that the military personnel and their relatives have access to media of all types and have the right to report on and express their opinions on what is happening to them?

The actual form of any organization of active-duty personnel will have to grow from their own needs and reflect their own demands, but the movement can begin to find ways to provide support. Antiwar veterans of prior U.S. wars of aggression — against Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, for example — can play a valuable role in this work, as they have already begun to do.

Here’s an article with additional information and insight into the USS Lincoln developments by retired Col. Ann Wright: workers.org/2026/08/94296/

Catalinotto is author of “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions,” World View Forum, 2017.