The strike group represents a decisive step in Britain’s long-term renewal of its military capabilities and a visual statement of the Johnson government’s desire to “ restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe.” HMS Queen Elizabeth, with its air wing of F-35Bs, stands as a quantum leap in carrier capabilities for the fleet after a decade-long “fixed wing carrier holiday” following the decommissioning of the venerable HMS Ark Royal. Judging by the fact that, shortly after the crossing, the carrier group was already conducting an exercise with the Japanese destroyer JDS Setogiri in the Gulf of Aden, there is a clear commitment to meet this ambitious agenda. By the end of the second phase, the strike group will have visited more than 40 countries conducted approximately 70 engagements, exercises, and operations and sailed over 26,000 nautical miles. It is no coincidence that the first phase of the deployment included an array of NATO exercises, and support to the NATO operation Sea Guardian in the Black Sea, including a test of Russia’s revisionist territorial claims by HMS Defender, one of the carrier’s escorts. This deployment, led by the new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, marks a renewed determination to wield British maritime power and influence “east of Suez.” The carrier group’s schedule crucially suggests that Britain intends to venture well into the Indo-Pacific and give substance to its engagement in the region’s security dynamics, without undermining its Euro-Atlantic commitments. The last carrier deployment to the region marked a decline in British Indo-Pacific presence, as the task group visited Hong Kong prior to the handover of the former colony to the People’s Republic of China. On July 6, a British carrier strike group passed through the Suez Canal, heading to the South China Sea and the Western Pacific Ocean for the first time since 1997.
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