High Hopes for Op HIGHMAST?

 

The Royal Navy has sailed a force of warships from their home ports, setting out on a global journey to the Indo-Pacific, to showcase British and NATO maritime power and prestige. Led by the aircraft carrier HMS PRINCE OF WALES (PWLS), and escorted by British, Canadian and Norwegian vessels, this is the highest profile Royal Navy deployment in years – but is it actually worth the effort to show the RN as a truly global force, or is it a Potemkin operation by a failing navy desperate to recall its now long gone glory days?

The goal of the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) deployment is to send a task group, that is intentionally international by design and construct, to carry out a global deployment to work with partner nations and deepen defence relationships. This construct is part of a years long rebalancing effort for the Royal Navy, which has now mostly moved away from the notion of long-distance deployments of escort ships to far flung waters, and now either relies on forward presence, or group visits.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2025

This is demonstrated by the global presence of five RIVER class Batch 2 patrol vessels, operating around the globe as the ‘day to day’ defence engagement and presence for the RN in distant waters. For example, only this week HMS SPEY completed participation in major Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA) exercises in Southeast Asia. At the same time this has been underpinned in recent years by group deployments, for example in 2024 there was a deployment of the Littoral Strike Group, led by RFA ARGUS out to Australia – although it attracted very little publicity.

The last CSG was in 2021, led by HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH and deployed out to the Pacific. This was, candidly, a bit of an odd deployment, in a world gripped by the madness of Covid lockdowns, most port visits were cancelled, and crews unable to go ashore. There were plenty of impressive exercises, but the whole thing was perhaps less impactful than planners had hoped, due to events entirely out of their control. The deployment was notable in that it too was international by design, incorporating US and Netherlands escort ships, and also embarkation of 10 USMC F35s as part of the combined airwing.

The international by design concept is central to why CSG matters – despite many people believing that the RN should be able to deploy a solo carrier group, and believing that our national power and prestige is judged by this metric, in reality most navies that operate carrier groups deploy them with international partners. The UK does not plan to go to war in isolation – any future operation involving a carrier group will doubtless be part of a bigger international effort. It makes perfect sense to deploy and train as you plan to fight – trying to get used to integrating foreign partners into your battle group as live missiles are inbound is not sensible – do it in peacetime instead.

The deployment is a good opportunity on two fronts for international cooperation. Firstly the presence of the Canadians and the Norwegians as part of the task group is a very welcome development. Canada has a long history of deploying their HALIFAX class frigates as part of US Carrier Battle Groups and they are exceptionally capable operators, with lethal moosemilk too. The Norwegians are a close partner of the UK, with a defence relationship that has gone from strength to strength in recent years, particularly with the pressing security challenges of the High North. This sort of deployment will go a long way to enhancing the interoperability of British and Norwegian forces on maritime operations.

More widely it bodes well for defence exports – Canada is a partner in  the Type 26 project, while Norway is hopefully considering the design to meet its own requirements. The potential for a future common user pool, drawn from a similar design and benefitting from economies of scale, and shared tactics and procedures is huge. This deployment will play a real part in helping set the basic foundation for the future of shared collaboration as the Type 26 fleet comes into service.

More widely this deployment is a good chance to thicken links with partner nations globally that the RN wants to continue to work with, but which it doesn’t always get to operate alongside with at the highest levels of capability. For example, there is the opportunity for closer work with the Australians, a critical security partner that the UK is firmly committed to working with on the long haul with nuclear submarines, and also New Zealand, whose navy will send ships to participate in the operation at times too.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2025

The presence of HMS ASTUTE will allow for joint SSN operations with Australia and potentially test the ability of Fremantle to support SSN operations as part of future plans to see an RN SSN near permanently based in the region as part of AUKUS. When added to the opportunities for wider exchanges, particularly with FPDA allies and other partners, there is huge scope here for a lot of good work that will be useful for years to come.

Deploying to the Indo Pacific gives a chance for the UK to remind the USN that it too can conduct big deck carrier operations in the region – this will be the second time a major British carrier group has deployed in the area in less than 4 years, which when coupled with French and Italian carrier deployments in the last 12 months out to the region, points to a very high level of European commitment of carrier power to the Indo-Pacific.

For the UK having 18-24 F35s embarked will provide a very substantial level of air power that commanders will be keen to see put to good use. It will be the largest carrier air wing deployed by a single Royal Navy carrier in nearly 50 years, with 18 jets, and potentially 9-12 helicopters embarked on PWLS – surging to even higher numbers as the deployment continues. This will see the QE class operating as a true strike carrier for the first time, putting one of the most capable and balanced air groups out to sea ever deployed on a Royal Navy aircraft carrier.

This capability will be a useful reminder both to the US and other nations that the UK can, and does, deploy carrier airpower in meaningful ways, and that this operation is a key stepping stone in ensuring a long-term capability exists that can be used by the UK, NATO and other allies as required. HIGHMAST will lay a key role in ensuring that the UK learns and relearns the challenges of big deck carrier operations and complex strike group deployments, while building, expanding and renewing defence relationships with partners around the world.

It sends a signal too that even with the core focus on deterring Russian aggression, the RN is still able to play a leading role in defending the nations interests more widely. It should also not be forgotten that this is not a single service operation – the RAF and Army will play equally important roles in supporting HIGHMAST as well, albeit in different ways. The RAF will have hundreds of crew embarked to support the F35 and Chinook forces as well as using air mobility forces to move personnel and logistics to support, while the British Army will operate in support of joint exercises as well. This is truly a joint operation.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2025

That’s all well and good – but what are the downsides to HIGHMAST? While it is clear that this is a very capable and very high profile deployment, it does come with some costs attached to it as well. Firstly it is clear that the RN has nowhere near enough escort ships to generate to properly support the deployment – historically the MOD view was that the CSG would need 2 x Type 45 and 2 x Type 23 to be escorted, as well as extra foreign escort ships. They are only going out with one of each, which speaks to the heavily denuded escort fleet and its challenging state of readiness for force generation.

Secondly it reduces available vessels in UK waters to respond other incidents, either locally or more widely afield – for example in the Med or off Norway. While this is a risk taken every time a task force deploys, it will become ever harder, as the fleet gets ever smaller, to mitigate these risks with fewer escorts available.

Another challenge is the critical lack of a solid support ship – this is an area that the RN used to excel in. With four stores ships available as recently as 2010, in the last 15 years this has been reduce to just one on paper, but in reality zero. Without RFA  FORT VICTORIA, a now very elderly hull in reserve, the RN has no ability to call on its deep water support for supplies, food and munitions. This is a critical shortfall, that this blog has repeatedly highlighted over the years poses a serious risk to delivery of carrier strike.

This time around the UK’s blushes have been saved by Norway committing their own stores ship, the MAUD, but the blunt reality is that the RN is in pretty desperate straits if it cannot deploy and independently sustain its own carrier without another country helping out. This is a genuinely huge risk, not mitigated by the TIDE class, which can only carry a fraction of the stores of the FORT VICTORIA, and which will only go away as an issue, when, and if, the three new RFA’s currently on order ever enter service in the 2030s – date TBC.

This isn’t just about the lack of platform, but also the skills gap being lost too – even a few years ago, a RAS (replenishment at sea) was an utterly routine event carried out regularly. Today it is now several years since the RN last did a major stores replenishment exercise at sea (not fuelling) and the corporate skills fade will be high – without opportunities to regularly practise, and engage in this activity, the ability of the RN to resupply, and rearm, in foul weather and difficult conditions while the enemy stays in harbour have gone – and relearning them will be a slow and painful process.

The wider challenge is whether the RN has sacrificed too much to make this dream of a big deck carrier viable. The Royal Navy of today is, in many ways, an absolute shadow of itself in the mid-1990s  when the first discussions on the future carrier requirement emerged. The papers written then, and scenarios envisaged looked to a future carrier, much like we see deployed today, but in the context of a much bigger navy. The state of the modern RN though is desperately worrying – shorn of escort ships, without LPH, LPD and rapidly losing its few remaining MCMVs, it feels like many different capabilities have been lost to feed the relentless beast that is the carrier strike concept.  

A cynic would argue that much of what we have seen today, to a fanfare of national media coverage is in fact what, until relatively recently, was seen as ‘business as usual’ as the RN dispatched major task groups throughout the late 1990s and 2000s on a near annual basis (e.g. OCEAN WAVE, TAURUS etc) with relatively little fanfare or interest. But that would seem unduly cynical – the world has changed significantly, and the RN needs the nation to understand what it can deliver. The modern blended model of small forward presence and larger occasional deployments may not be as exciting as prior years, but it feels that this is the right balance to keep the RN available for operations.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2025

The final big challenge is whether this is the right focus for the UK at a time when NATO is occupying the bulk of MOD interests. It is clear that deterring Russia is a vital mission for the armed forces – there is an argument that could be made that the CSG is a task group that is ideal for the world of 2010, not 2025. In a world where the UK’s security horizon has had to inevitably close in to focus on the near threat, is operating abroad necessary?

To the author, the answer is an unmitigated yes, yes it is. Russia under Putin will not be a threat forever – times change, as do regimes. The nations we aspire to work, trade and engage with globally are open to working with different partners for different reasons. As one player departs, another emerges to fill the vacuum – if the UK does not step up to fill the gaps in western leadership that seem to be rapidly emerging, then other nations more hostile to our interests will seek to fill them in areas critical to our national interests. It is vital that we take a long term perspective, and build relationships now that will last throughout the complex decades to come.

Looking ahead this deployment can be seen as a ‘changing of the guard’ moment. It is likely to be the last big RN carrier deployment to the Indo-Pacific for 2-3 years, assuming no change in the challenges in the Euro-Atlantic area. By the time the next deployment arrives, the Type 26 and 31 will be entering the fleet, the first FSS should be inching closer to completion and the Royal Navy will hopefully find itself with a more modern and versatile escort force than it has possessed for decades. With the potential for a growth in fleet numbers, the arrival of more F35s and new equipment and missiles, the long term prospects look good.

The RN of 2025 may be far smaller and less capable than the RN of 2021, and rather than being a world leading navy by size, it is a mid-ranking navy by capability and platforms, but it still has plenty left in the tank, and a lot of future promise that should see it regain its position of regional pre-eminence and global reputation. This deployment is another step on the path to demonstrating that the RN is ready and able to deploy to whichever part of the ocean, whenever the government of the day wishes it to go, and that it will arrive ready to fight, and win. Very few navies are capable of making such confident promises to their political leadership.