The Upgraded Aegis BMD Destroyer USS Roosevelt arrives to Rota

The destroyer is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. It is replacing the USS Carney, which has been based at Rota since 2015, as part of a US Navy plan to gradually rotate the four Rota-based destroyers.

The destroyer arrived in Rota on Saturday 23th, after taking part in an exercise earlier this month that involved U.S. surface ships maneuvering in the Barents Sea for the first time since the Cold War. The drills in the waterway north of Finland and Russia were part of a US Navy effort to bolster its presence in the broader Arctic region, where Russia has invested heavily in recent years and China also has declared itself a power with economic interests.

The Navy’s Rota-based destroyers form part of the U.S.’s European missile defense shield, along with U.S. ground-based systems stationed in Romania and planned for Poland. The Roosevelt brings with it the “most modern combat systems upgrade,” the Aegis Baseline 9 BMD system. Also, it is the first destroyer in Rota able to deploy with two embarked MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopters.

¿What if all the wolves decide to attack now?

With a forced aircraft carrier in port and nuclear missile crews hit by Covid-19, the United States are now facing the possibility of a large-scale opportunistic attack, taking advantage of the drop in defenses on all fronts: According to Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, all US nuclear facilities except one have been affected by the virus.

Fortunately, the Pentagon has been completely proactive in establishing a "bubble" system in early March, creating two separate operational teams for submarines and nuclear missile silos. However, it is worth considering to what extent these measures should have been adopted previously, considering that on Thursday 9 the Newsweek magazine published a map showing that cases of coronavirus had appeared in 150 military bases.

In addition to what was reported by Newsweek, it is known that four aircraft carriers have also been reached, among which the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt stands out, forced to dock in Guam for a long period due to an outbreak that has affected 416 of the 4.800 on board . The other three aircraft carriers affected have been USS Reagan, docked in Japan, and USSs Vinson and Nimitz, both under maintenance in Washington state.

Perhaps the United States have done the big mistake in being so transparent, because nature shows us time after time that wolves get emboldened as more weakness they perceive in their prey. ¿Will China take advantage to expand its military presence further into the Pacific? ¿Will Russia fail to take advantage of this golden opportunity to strengthen its military presence in the Arctic? Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, North Korea... ¿Will all of them fail to seize this opportunity to deliver the great blow to their eternal and hated enemies? ¿Or perhaps are all of them just waiting for the best moment to deliver the great blow, when the United States will show its maximum level of weakness? I prefer not imagine it. In that case, May God mercy all of us. Good afternoon, and good luck.