The U.S. Navy’s supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln is now in Thailand for a much-deserved and highly publicized liberty port call. The carrier had gone 286 days without making such a stop, with much of that time spent executing grueling combat operations against Iran. The ship has been run very hard, relying on at times a rickety conveyor of sea replenishments to continue operating for months on end, and it has the scars to show for it. The Lincoln looks very much worse for wear, with so-called “running rust” and algae caked all along the sides of the hull, as well as around the edges of the flight deck and sponsons on either side. It’s something of a startling appearance for one of the most powerful ships on the planet and a major symbol of U.S. power projection, but it is also a reminder of what the vessel and its crew have endured for months on end.

The Lincoln arrived in the Thai port of Laem Chabang earlier today. The carrier did make a stop in Guam in December 2025 and reportedly made another one somewhere in the Middle East in July. However, in both cases, these have been characterized as brief logistical stopovers that did not offer any real opportunity for personnel onboard to disembark. Thai media reports say the carrier is expected to remain in Laem Chabang through the end of the weekend.

“Our arrival in Laem Chabang provides a well-deserved opportunity for our Sailors and Marines to rest and recharge. It also underscores the strong and enduring partnership and alliance between the United States and Thailand,” Rear Adm. Robert E. Loughran, commander of Carrier Strike Group 3 (CSG-3), said in a statement in a press release today. “What this strike group has accomplished is truly historic. I could not be prouder of the exceptional professionalism and expertise demonstrated by every member of this team during our operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.”

Lincoln and its strike group had left port in San Diego in November 2025 for what was originally expected to be a routine cruise in the Pacific. The carrier, its air wing, and escorts were subsequently directed to the Middle East and arrived in that region in January 2026.

CSG-3 took part in the opening salvo of strikes on Iran on February 28 as part of what the U.S. military dubbed Operation Epic Fury. Lincoln and the rest of the strike group continued to support Epic Fury and subsequent operations against Iran for months thereafter. The decision was finally made to rotate the carrier out of the region last month following a raft of reports of severely flagging morale and mental health among the crew, which we will come back to later.

Two of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers assigned to CSG-3, the USS Michael Murphy and the USS Spruance, are still understood to be operating in the Western end of the Indian Ocean. A third destroyer in the strike group, the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., accompanied the Lincoln to Thailand and is now docked in a separate port in Sriracha, near Laem Chabang. The Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Robert Smalls also helped escort the carrier, and that warship “also arrived in Map Ta Phut, Thailand for their own scheduled port visit,” according to the Navy.

As mentioned, Lincoln definitely looks like it’s been at sea more or less continuously for the last nine and a half months or so. Pictures and videos of the ship in Laem Chabang seen throughout this story plainly show big dark rust stains all around the hull and other similar signs of wear elsewhere. There is also a bright green ring of algae layered on the hull at the waterline. While carriers have very large crews and usually keep the ship’s appearance up relatively well while on cruise, there is only so much that can be done out of port on particularly long deployments, where all resources are focused on sustained high-tempo combat operations.

Running rust on U.S. Navy ships has been something of a lightning rod for criticism in recent years, including from President Donald Trump. This is in part due to the negative optics of such visible wear and tear on American naval vessels, especially during calls in foreign ports.

“It’s terrible. I think they should be ashamed,” John Phelan told members of Congress at a hearing last year after being shown pictures of a very worn-looking Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Dewey, during a stopover in Singapore. “Would you want to go on that ship?”

Phelan was testifying at the time regarding his nomination to be Secretary of the Navy. At the time, he said that President Trump had already been texting him in the middle of the night regarding the issue. Phelan was subsequently confirmed and served as the Navy’s top civilian until he was unexpectedly fired in April, reportedly over disagreements regarding the new Trump class battleships and other more general friction within the administration,

Lincoln‘s current condition is, of course, an extreme case that is the result of very specific operational circumstances. The carrier has already been in the news for weeks now due to the aforementioned morale issues, which family members of those onboard have been very vocally calling attention to through the media. One sailor had to be rescued last month after deliberately jumping overboard. There were reports that at least one other individual onboard had attempted to do the same. President Donald Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth, among others, have pushed back on concerns about mental health and other issues on the ship. In a statement shared on social media on August 16, Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), acknowledged, but still downplayed, the seriousness of the mental health situation, in particular.

At the same time, the carrier’s marathon deployment is indicative of larger shipbuilding, readiness, and other issues that the Navy continues to struggle with. Strains on the service carrier fleets in particular have been steadily building for years and are now becoming a low-level crisis. The USS Gerald R. Ford wrapped up a historic 326-day-long deployment in May. The Navy has publicly said that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is set to begin its latest cruise soon, could be away from home for at least eight months. The longer the ships remain deployed, the longer they typically have to spend in port afterward, further compounding the situation with each passing day during months-long extensions. This all has very worrisome cascading impacts on even routine maintenance cycles, let alone deep overhauls and upgrade efforts, as well as personnel management matters, as we have explored in detail in the past.

“It’s my earnest attempt to really try to keep those [deployments] at seven months,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Navy’s top officer, said during a question-and-answer session at Fort Meade, Maryland, Monday, which was livestreamed. He also said he wanted a Navy “that can sustain a seven-month deployment and still give our combatant commanders the amount of naval force they need to accomplish their missions, solve their key operational problems, and make sure they have all the naval force necessary to do what they need to do.”

Caudle had notably acknowledged concerns about strains on the Ford while speaking to TWZ and other outlets at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium back in January.

The Lincoln‘s visibly worn state certainly draws new attention to the stress on America’s carrier fleets as personnel onboard are now finally getting a much-earned reprieve in Laem Chabang.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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Chinese state-run shipping company COSCO has been using concealed systems on its vessels to gather signals intelligence around North American, European, and Asian coastlines for decades, it has been alleged. Similar claims have been made in the past, and overlap between nominally civilian enterprises in China and the country’s military and intelligence services is well established at this point.

Reuters first reported on the use of COSCO ships as discrete signals intelligence platforms earlier today, citing two unnamed officials within President Donald Trump’s administration.

“The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment of the Chinese program, said COSCO has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing,” according to the report. “The arrangement allows China to collect communication signals from vessels ​and aircraft operating across Europe, North America and Asia, they said.”

It is worth noting here that China’s National Intelligence Law, enacted in 2017, includes a specific provision that requires all organizations and citizens within the country to support state intelligence work as required. It also obligates the state to protect entities that do so.

“The advanced equipment aboard the ships is intended to enable China ​to gather information about ‘military communications technologies and encryption developments,’ one of the officials said,” Reuters‘ story today added. “The officials did not detail the type of equipment COSCO ships were allegedly using, but said they were ‘sophisticated signals intelligence collection’ platforms, not routine communications hardware.”

Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., unsurprisingly denied these assertions, according to that outlet.

Purpose-built signals intelligence suites can range widely in size and shape, as can their capabilities. They can be very small and basic or far more elaborate systems. Even the latter could be concealed as modern commercial ships, which already feature lots of antennas.

What might happen to intelligence collected by the ships is unknown. At the very least, systems onboard could record the data, which could then be batched out when safe to do so, either physically or via transmission. Basic passive signals suites can also run autonomously, or even be controlled from anywhere in the world if the ship is connected via satellite communications (SATCOM). High-bandwidth SATCOM is very common now on ships around the globe.

Personnel on the ship could also operate the systems, and even process receptions of interest. It might be possible to fit the ships with suitable datalinks to then transmit the collected data in near-real-time to other nodes, including ones back in China, for further analysis and exploitation.

Reuters‘ sources said scooping up data on “military communications technologies and encryption developments” was a priority for the commercial vessels turned spy ships. Signals intelligence can take many other forms, from emissions from radars to communications chatter. Depending on what is collected and how, specialists can use that information to glean details about how systems function, as well as insights into standard operating procedures and other details. This is especially true when multiple forms of intelligence are fused together. Generally speaking, signals intelligence is routinely used to help build out so-called ‘electronic orders of battle’ detailing the disposition and capabilities of an opponent’s forces, especially air defense and command and control networks.

As mentioned, this is not the first time claims in this general vein have emerged, either. At least some evidence has been presented in the past, through open-source analysis. Reuters‘ sources directed that outlet to a report published last year by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College exploring exactly this topic in relation to China’s quasi-military maritime militia. The maritime militia is made up of ostensibly civilian fishing fleets, but has direct ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese Coast Guard. It is routinely used to harass and intimidate foreign vessels in disputed waters, especially in the South China Sea.

“Undergirding these operations is a cadre of maritime militia intelligence specialists called ‘information personnel.’ Information personnel are organized into force contingents that support operational militia forces,” according to that report. “Most have day jobs in the fishing industry, but many hale [sic; hail] from other sectors, including marine shipping and even maritime law enforcement units.”

“It is more likely than not that PRC [People’s Republic of China] vessels operating overseas have already begun embarking information personnel to serve intelligence collection and reporting functions. In the case of China’s fishing fleet, serving this foreign intelligence collection function could be as simple as adding a new duty to the ‘information personnel’ that already embark aboard some distant-water fishing vessels,” that report added. “Aside from their primary responsibilities of tallying and reporting production numbers, serving as experts on international and national fisheries regulations that affect their work, and handling interactions with foreign officials while at sea and in port, they might also be tasked with collecting and reporting military and political intelligence while operating overseas.”

“Similar processes may already be in place in the commercial shipping industry,” it continued. “For instance, Guangxi province’s Beihai city has built up its ranks of maritime intelligence specialists by recruiting from among marine shipping personnel.”

No explicit mention is made in the report about signals intelligence gathering.

In the past year or so, there have been multiple reports that Russia is also using its so-called ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tanker ships in a secondary role as intelligence-gathering platforms. The primary job of those vessels is to help the Kremlin evade sanctions.

There is other tangential evidence that also lends credence to today’s report from Reuters. As mentioned, in the midst of still mysterious drone swarms that harassed U.S. Navy ships off the coast of southern California back in 2019, U.S. authorities at least explored the possibility that a Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier, the M/V Bass Strait, might have been a launch point. It remains unknown, at least publicly, whether the Bass Strait or another nearby ship might have been the source of the harassment, or if it came from somewhere else, potentially further away. TWZ was the first to report on this detail as part of a deeper investigation into these incidents, which came amid a spike in news about claimed sightings of what are now commonly referred to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). We have been saying for years now that, while some UAP sightings do remain unexplained, many more are likely to have been drones (as well as balloons), which foreign governments could be using for intelligence gathering and other malign purposes.

It’s also worth noting here that intelligence collection from international waters and airspace is a practice that nation state armed forces and intelligence agencies globally, including those in the United States, engage in regularly with varying degrees of openness. Leveraging nominally civilian ships, as well as aircraft, for these purposes is hardly new.

Despite the official denials to the Reuters piece today, it would be hard to imagine Chinese authorities not making use of commercial ships for this purpose, if possible, given that major deepwater ports worldwide are often dual-purpose civilian/military facilities. Radar sites and other critical facilities are often positioned along or near coastlines. Cargo ships and tankers often pass by major exercises and under major military operating airspace, where they could scoop up critical data.

With commercial ships already plying their routes, this would also just offer the Chinese government ways to readily bolster maritime intelligence-gathering capacity at low cost and low risk. China’s commercial fleets dwarf any other on Earth, making their presence commonplace and providing many opportunities to hide these operations.

A 2021 report published through the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) Tearline Project also highlighted the possibility of Chinese-owned facilities at ports around the world being used for intelligence gathering or even for launching non-kinetic attacks, including electronic warfare jamming. It specifically noted how COSCO’s facility in Belgium’s Port of Zeebrugge is “in close proximity to a Belgian Naval Base and thus could fulfill additional militarized requirements.”

Concerns about land owned by Chinese companies and nationals being used to collect intelligence or for other purposes have become an increasingly hot topic of discussion in the United States in recent years.

Reuters‘ piece does not say what, if any, steps U.S. authorities have taken or may be planning to take now to monitor for or take more active countermeasures against Chinese-flagged ships being used for intelligence gathering, despite this being said to be a decades-old practice. The report does note that “the Pentagon put COSCO on its list of companies linked to China’s military in January 2025, a designation that carries serious reputational costs for companies ​as well as U.S. government procurement ​bans, but does not entail ⁠formal sanctions.”

Though no hard evidence has yet been provided, Chinese authorities using cargo ships as additional discreet signals intelligence-gathering assets is very plausible, and would certainly seem to be an issue that should be taken seriously, if it is not already being addressed.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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