BREMERTON — A Chinese aircraft carrier sails a narrow strait in the Pacific, alarming allies. Iranian Navy vessels "harass" the Navy and Coast Guard in the Persian Gulf. And a Russian fighter jet flies within 25 feet of a Navy surveillance plane over the Mediterranean, putting its "pilots and crew at risk."

The three incidents, all in the last week, help to underscore Pentagon leaders' anxiety that America's adversaries have been emboldened by the coronavirus pandemic, and its insistence the Navy keep deployed two aircraft carrier flotillas known as strike groups in the world at all times.

Soon, the Bremerton-based USS Nimitz will answer that call.

With the USS Theodore Roosevelt sidelined in Guam because of COVID-19 and other Nimitz-class carriers laid up for maintenance, the task of patrolling the Indo-Pacific will soon come to the Bremerton-based crew and its strike group.

The ship's imminent departure from Sinclair Inlet thrusts the 45-year-old warship into the global spotlight in the era of a pandemic.

"Our adversaries are watching us," Capt. Max Clark, who took command of the warship in August, told Capt. Dianna Wolfson, commander of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in a pier-side interview this week at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton.

"When they see 68 out on the watch, out on deployment, they’re going to know our country’s strength," Clark said, referring to Nimitz's hull number.

More:Nimitz at sea: Crew of carrier ready to meet era's new threats

That includes China, whose own and very first aircraft carrier Liaoning recently transited the Miyako Strait, between Japan's Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan. Both nations viewed the move as provocative.

Navy retired Capt. Brad Martin, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, said the presence of the Nimitz strike group will reassure allies in the same way it has for decades, even without the Chinese aircraft carrier transit.

"The transit does, however, provide a clear idea of what’s at stake," he said.

Meanwhile, almost a dozen vessels from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "harassed" both Navy and Coast Guard vessels in international waters, the U.S. 5th Fleet said Wednesday. Add a Russian fighter jet that flew within 25 feet of a P-8A Poseidon in what the Navy called a maneuver that put the "pilots and crew at risk." There's also the ever-present threat of North Korea.

Where the Nimitz fits in

Aircraft carriers, when encircled in strike groups of destroyers and cruisers and brimming with dozens of combat aircraft, provide their own "miniature air force" anywhere within the approximately 70% of the world covered by water. Nimitz will be joined by other warships, many of which are based at Naval Station Everett.

No nation comes close to the 11 carriers of the United States Navy. That "territorial independence" is "a tremendous advantage," said Barrett Tillman, author of "On wave and wing: The 100-year quest to perfect the aircraft carrier."

The Navy has called for two carrier strike groups within different hemispheres to continue patrol at all times. That means it will be able to provide an immediate response given carriers' ability to travel on a nuclear-fuel supply 20+ knots an hour, 24 hours a day.

With the USS Dwight Eisenhower in the Middle East and the USS Harry Truman in the Atlantic, the Navy is maintaining two such strike groups at sea. The Truman, whose deployment was extended, has been waiting for the Nimitz to deploy, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs, said last week.

Carriers and their strike groups must complete training and certain exercises to be certified for deployment. It's unclear what of those tasks, if any, the Nimitz and its Carrier Strike Group 11 need to complete.

The pressure will be immense, outside of the normal parameters of operating with billions of dollars in warships and aircraft and the coordination of thousands of sailors. Already, two carriers, the Roosevelt and the French carrier Charles de Gaulle have suffered shipwide outbreaks of coronavirus. Both have been sidelined.

For the Roosevelt, it took the extraordinary leaking of a letter from its captain, Capt. Brett Crozier, in which he stated plainly that "Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset – our sailors." The letter appeared shortly thereafter in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Roosevelt was then docked in Guam, where almost 600 crewmembers have been sickened and one killed by the virus.

Crozier, himself sickened by the virus, was fired.

The termination sends a message to other commanders of Navy vessels, including the Nimitz, that "they have to say yes, even when it's dangerous to do so," said Mandy Smithberger, director at the center for defense information at the Project on Government Oversight.

"There's a chilling effect," she said.

More:Nimitz at sea: Crew of carrier ready to meet era's new threats

On the Nimitz, the buck stops with Clark, a veteran Navy helicopter pilot and the Nimitz's 19th commanding officer since the warship debuted in 1975. Clark, a Philadelphia native, likes to use the phrase "be brilliant on the basics."

The Nimitz emerged from dry dock at the shipyard following a year of maintenance in 2018. It has been training in the time since, in an era when carrier deployments have been getting longer. The USS Abraham Lincoln, for example, completed 295 days at sea during an around-the-world deployment that concluded in January.

Already, its sailors have been quarantined onboard to ensure the virus doesn't venture to sea with the crew. The Navy has insisted there are no COVID-19 cases on the ship.

And, in an effort to thwart any potential spread of novel coronavirus, the crew turned to T-shirts.

Liza Dougherty, the Nimitz's public affairs officer, said the crew and its leaders sought a solution when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emerged with new guidelines recently that called for cloth face coverings "where social distancing cannot be avoided, such as in a shipboard environment," Dougherty said.

"Nimitz leadership took immediate action, utilizing resources on hand," she added. The standard-issue brown uniform T-shirt meets CDC guidelines and is able to be repurposed as a protective face covering."

The ship's sailors, who average about 24 in age, must also pass daily medical screenings and are minimizing group gatherings. Shipboard cleaning has also increased.

Reach reporter Josh Farley at josh.farley@kitsapsun.com.