The Pentagon has not announced specifically where Bush will go, but the carrier reportedly will head to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations, which includes the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Battlefronts in the war with Iran stretched 3,600 miles on Wednesday, with Turkey in southeast Europe reporting an Iranian missile attack while the U.S. sank an Iranian warship near the southern tip of India.

It’s still unknown whether Iran will attempt to attack targets farther afield, but NATO’s missile defense system was developed with a ballistic missile threat from Iran in mind. 

NATO’s Dynamic Manta kicked off near the coast of Sicily. The Mediterranean has many of the same vulnerabilities to its infrastructure as the Baltic Sea, which has seen suspected sabotage events in recent years.

The Defense Department released the names of the five soldiers killed Friday in a helicopter crash in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.