The Navy’s current 6th Fleet commander lives with great power competition every day. It’s front and center, as her sailors are operating every day in the same waters, seeing a resurgent Russia modernizing its fleet and pushing out beyond its borders — making its presence known as they operate and exercise often or near the same locations where the US and NATO forces are.
Just 13 months after reactivation, the U.S. 2nd Fleet now has “full operational capability” though its commander stopped short of saying his command is fully up to speed, yet. The fledgling fleet declared its initial operating capability in May, just before jetting off to the Baltic Sea to honcho a large exercise there. And they’ve wasted no time since as they were heavily involved in July with preparing and evaluating the Truman Carrier Strike Group’s final exercises — the first such deployment under their watch.