The UK has confirmed that it is working alongside France and Italy to sequence aircraft carrier deployments in the Indo-Pacific, reinforcing a shared European commitment to regional security.
In response to a parliamentary question from Ben Obese-Jecty MP, Defence Minister Maria Eagle said that the three nations had ājointly sequenced aircraft carrier deployments, including coordinating the deployment of HMS Prince of Wales with France’s Charles de Gaulle and Italy’s Cavour.ā
This coordination is part of the European Carrier Group Interoperability Initiative (ECGII), a defence cooperation framework aimed at improving the ability of European navies to deploy and operate together as part of a composite carrier strike group.
According to a founding declaration for the ECGII, the goal is to āenable the generation of a combined European maritime strike capability, when required for multinational, EU or NATO operations, through the development of multinational interoperability.ā This includes aligning air groups, escort ships, and support assets so they can operate cohesively in a joint formation when called upon.
The initiative stresses that national sovereignty is preserved and that no country is expected to dilute its independent military capability. The declaration notes that ānothing in this Declaration affects the right of a Participant to conduct national operations or operations in conjunction with other countries,ā and that āthe transatlantic link remains fundamental if European naval forces are to maintain interoperability with the US.ā
While this does not amount to a standing European carrier strike group, it reflects an ongoing push by European allies to coordinate naval operations and increase the visibility and impact of their deployments in the Indo-Pacific region. The UK’s participation in ECGII and its sequencing of HMS Prince of Wales alongside allied carriers is part of that broader trend.
Eagle added that this effort āenhances regional security and strategic alignment,ā particularly at a time when Indo-Pacific maritime stability is a growing priority for both NATO and European nations.
F
UK
IT
What a great combination of nations.
Missing India, Argentina and Sweden
IN
AR
SE
You forgot Yemen
The India, Yemen, Argentinian, Swedish alliance.. that works with the European carrier allianceā¦
F, UK, IT, IN, YE, AR, SEā¦.
Don’t be so rude, there might be youngsters reading this.
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Oh no! Anyway
ššš
Oh I assumed it was the youngsters writing it..
You incited and encouraged me with your postā¦ you can go to prison for that you know. š«£
@ mark B it takes over half a century to develop the true comic appreciation needed to use ISO 3166-1 to make rude sentences.
Some of us youngsters have spent years at school perfecting this sort of thing on calculators…
The newer models with scientific symbols only broaden the possibilities!
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Half….I see what you did there! Very good.
Hi folks hope all is well with you.
Good to see and hopefully will send a message to those that have doubt that the UK and partners mean business if there’s a dispute about freedom of movement in international waters.
On a different note, I’ve seen recent detail about dismantling the stranded F35 in India for spares? This does question the serious issue of repairs for other frames? How that serious to write off this frame.
Cheers George
It probably means partial disassembly to allow it to be brought back in a C17. The US have done that on occasion. It does make you wonder how long our small fleet of F35s would last in sustained operations.
I believe itās being dismantled (wings taken off) and flew back to the UK for repairs not to be used as spares.
If youāre going to operate super high end stealth planes on the other side of the planet things like this will.
To have a such a capability you need global basing sovereign and allied as well as strategic lift to bring such planes home when things go wrong.
The UK is one of the few countries that can tick all these boxes. Imagine if China was operating J35 from its carriers in the Atlantic and something like this happened to them. They would be totally f**ked.
Don’t panic, Airfix have sent out a bunch of spares and some quick drying cement.
“They are a very model company”
Maria Eagle’s quote you’ve captured there doesn’t specifically say Indo-Pacific, so implies ALL carrier operations which is absolutely a good thing. So, I hope this aligns short and long term maintenance periods between the 4 ships. I dare say France and Italy will do well out of this arrangement; when one of our carriers out for maintenance, the other is up at high readiness. My only concern now is, having written this, does this open the door for one of our carriers to be sold off!!! We need to re-state the carriers aren’t there JUST for NATO commitments.
Iād be surprised if they sell off one of the carriers, although you can never sure with this lot – wouldnāt they be cutting back of F35B orders if it was the plan? Nothing in the SDR suggests selling off is an option.
One at sea, one in some sort of readiness state, was the original plan and still seems to be. And it fits the 35B numbers.
‘you can never sure with this lot’ – the party that planned to slash the regular army to 73k, cancelled Nimrod MR4 for political reasons, and generally degraded the forces across the board are no longer in power.
Agreed in full with H. You can add to that Joint Force Harrier, CVS , selling Ocean to Brazil , Largs Bay to Australia, axing C130 much prized by SF, Armd Bde BCT’s from five , to three , to two, dismantling most of our infrastructure and training facilities in Germany at a time we need it most etc etc etc. Yeah you can never tell with that lot, thank heaven’s they are no longer in power. š¬š§š
Fair point. āā¦ you can never be sure with any politicianā¦ā
If we can coordinate carriers with the French then why not SSBNās, ensuring 3 ENATO SSBNās at sea (not necessarily on patrol) would be quite the capability enhancement for ENATO.
We already do I thought, at least to some extent.
Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. Let’s just let the enemy in the fog.
Not much of a deterrent then
I think you and Bazza are on the same page. Keep them guessing. This what Henry Kissinger meant when he approved letting the Brits have Trident. A certain kind of constructive ambiguity.
This is the sort of thing that needs to be encouraged. It would also be great to see further cooperation – for example, mixed air components on the carriers?
This is the sort of European cooperation that should have been going on for years in all manner of capabilities. It strengthens European military capabilities and cooperation and a potential unified front without threatening the trans Atlantic relationship. Though it has to be said if we had then the same old voices would be claiming the present US ādisengagementā was a direct result. Always dangerous leaving a dictator like Putin in a position where he feels he only has to be able to bend the ear of one particularly powerful figure the rest of us have allowed ourselves to see as āDaddyā.
Well said that man š
At present we canāt land on ot take off from the French PA1 and vice versa. Italy is no problems at all same F35B and Merlins š„ŗ
True, but mixed air components could include both helicopters and drones being operated by units of the different countries – the idea is to improve cooperation and generally make the different fleets more familiar with each each other and their operating procedures.
Now if only U.K and France could actually sit down now and plan to align the future SSBN deployment, maintenance and training schedules to maximise the at Sea Deployed boats to 3 out of 8 at any onetime.
Better still would be for both to announce that they are going to 5 each, that may sound odd but itās actually the cheapest and most effective way to keep Putin from pushing into NATO.
If anyone actually analyses Putins psychological pressure points they just need to start with his rhetoric and what Russia actually spends its defence budget on. They know they canāt compete western technology or production capacity for Land, Air or Surface Navy, and for the latter 2 its mainly down to not owning the Ukraine anymore.
However where they can compete is in Nuclear Weapons, Missiles and Submarines which is why thatās where they spend money. They are busily churning out 955/955A/B Borei SSBNs so far they have 8 out of 14 plus the 855/A Yasen SSNs 6 out of 12, which is massive chunk of their budget and effort.
So the 2 European Nuclear powers building 10 SSBNs and coordinating them would mean 4 out at a time, which is double what we have now but at minimal extra cost.
Before anyone jumps in and points out we are buying 12 F35B so we can possibly drop a couple of US supplied B61 tactical bombs, itās a pin prick compared to what an SSBN can do with just 1 missile. And itās costing bugger all extra money.
At present itās my understanding that there is a window of opportunity to order a 5th Dreadnought without impacting on the SSN(A) delivery, but that decision has to be made this year. That may sound counter intuitive but in reality it means that the supply chain gets kick started up a gear 7/8 years earlier, which makes SSN-A (AUKUS) delivery less of an uplift.
I actually think that there are some clues that this is being considered in the recent SDR, how the Dreadnought build interacts with facilitating the SSN-A build, NATO needing to enhance its deterrence and also how it helps to actually strengthen the NPT within Europe.
So š¤š» that the 2025 DIP has a nice surprise in it.
Would this 5th Dreadnought just be for nuclear ICBMs or could it also be used for conventional strike as in an arsenal type configuration and if it’d be possible to insert the same modules as going into the SSNR?
What the point of a single SSGN? It’ll only be available of third of the time.
It could if not required for the SSBN role. This has been proposed by atleast one think tank.
Perhaps by the time boat five is ready in 2040 China and Russia are proper liberal democracies and we donāt need a fifth or even a fourth boat and we can have the excess converted to an SSGN but maybe by 2040 China is a mega power and Russia remains totally hostile and other powers like Nigeria are arming up and the US is trying the Munro doctrine 2.0 then Europe does need 10 SSBNās. This is our last chance for forty years to increase the fleet.
Jim you donāt spend Ā£2/3 billion on an irreplaceable Nuclear armed deterrent and endanger it by using it for a task that an SSN can. Not even the Yanks are doing that one again !
Do you know why the UK and France have always gone for the type of long, large SSBNs that the USN and Russia build?
It seems to me that if Dreadnought had a slightly shorter hull and 8 missile tubes, they might fit two lengthways into the DDH and build more of them, without much of a drop in at-sea missile capacity.
Because nuclear reactors are not cheap.
Submarine, even small, are not cheap (look at SSN).
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So you will not have X2 or X3 SSBNs by making half length SSBN.
Steal is cheap, what is inside the steal hull is not.
Good point, I suppose oil tanker economics apply here.
Would the ability to fit four hulls more easily into the DDH and so build faster not help balance that?
Itās worth thinking about boat five especially in the context of problems with US production woes. We have seen utter failure on a number of legacy replacement programmes at the Pentagon and in almost every example the solution has been severe curtailments in programs or outright cancellation in the hopes of magic solution to replacement said capability.
Look at the sentinel ICBM program, KC46 and now E7.
The Colombia class could well go the same way, it would be surprising if it didnāt. Uncle Sam may be looking at the UK to shoulder more of the burden in the joint integrated nuclear plan for NATO as well. That may be even more so as the Dreadnaught class represents a cut of 25% in UK nuclear missiles while Columbia is a reduction of around 40% in US SLBM numbers as 12 boats replace 14 and with 16 rather that 24 tubes.
These cuts were all based on a reduced nuclear posture assumption with America having a full Triad.
This is really important in the new world order if European geopolitics needs are not going to left behind and Europe sidelined it will need to show it can project meaningful European power.. essentially the pacific powers that normally align with NATO did not turn up to the NATO conference this year.. essentially because the US is trying to cut Europe out of world geostrategic power. Essentially the US is trying to have its cake and eat itā¦ but European nations need to show the U.S. that if itās going to eat the Cake.. essentially leave Europe to its own device’s geostrategically , it cannot have the cake.. a Europe that lets the US lead the world Geostrategically..
The world is splitting into power blocks and Europe needs to decide if in the 21c itās going to be an Africa ( essentially a passive recipient of what the worlds powers decided is happening ) or if itās going to be one of the powers that defined the world.. because the U.S. has made it clear the western alliance as was no longer exists.
Trump is essentially working towards a world with three powers.. US, china and Russia.. he does not see or want Europe as a peer power to the U.S. he wants and sees a world in which nations are essentially either vassal states to the US, Russia or china.. and this was always what Ukraine was about.. he was negotiating with Russia about which parts of Ukraine would be a U.S. vassal state and what would be Russian.. so not only does Europe need to defend itself against Russia ( which quite frankly is the easy bit) but it now has to remake itself into an alliance of independent nations that can act as a world power to challenge the Trump, Xi, Putin world view that would see the world carved up into three.. because the world is more complex than Trump really understands and its head for a multi polar state of many power blocksā¦ US, china, Russia, India, Europe..possibly a South American power block as well as a Middle Eastern block.. Europe will need to be able to project out into that world and stand take its place as one of the pre eminent power blocks.
Having a European carrier battle group approach is a first step.. after all that gives Europe 3 large and 2 small carriers to project power.. the next will need to be
1) a greater intergration of strategic nuclear deterrent
2) integrated ballistic Missile defence
3) an integrated amphibious force brigade level.
4) an integrated air mobile division
5) integration around SSN deployment
I choose option C where the commonwealth, EU and Japan get together and form a fourth block much larger and more powerful that the other 3 based on the idea of respecting international law and promoting free trade.
There is already talk on this with trade combining CTPP and EU to replace WTO with a world trade club.
I think the Commonwealth, Japan and maybe some of the other South East Asian nations could do a lot worse than forming some sort of Oceanic League, with a toned-down trade zone in the manner of the EU and also guarantee each other’s free shipping using navies. A sort of multilateral form of the British Empire, with open borders and gunboat diplomacy.
I don’t think Europe will want to be sidelined by the US or Russia or China. UK&Europe have made a commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. Ukraine is switching Europe “on”. If “Europe and the rest of the West (Japan, Aus, NZ, India?+ others) maybe the last countries standing for democratic principles and the rule of law then they’ll have to muscle up and put themselves out there in the world. It could be a fight to maintain influences and their areas of influences, relationships and opportunities and not let it be swallowed up by the “three” who seem to think the world is there for their taking.
No reason they canāt if required, the USA had close to no military in 1939 happy to let Britain do all the heavy lifting. Europe could easily move into global number one if the US retreats. I certainly donāt see Europe chopping up the world with Russia and China. I think it will always be in favour of rules based order as will Japan and CANZUK countries.
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I do think there is an opportunity for a European “Kido Batai”, where the European carriers combine in to a joint battle group. I’d imagine that only the main carriers would be used. So one of the QE class, the Charles de Gaulle and the Cavour. But it could be supplemented by Italy’s Trieste LHD, Spain’s Juan Carlos 1. Perhaps also including Turkey’s Andalou and one of the French Mistrals. Giving a total of 7 carrier capable ships, would make a cool photo if nothing else!
Plus the 2 Canberra LHDs from Australia š¦šŗ! And doesn’t India has 3 carriers?
interrestingly, Italy and Spain have announced their will to build fully capable carriers. At the same time, in france, some are pushing for a 2nd Pang (even a 3rd, 4th, but unrealist). Probably something to be done here between the 3 countries.
Getting the Pang(s) funded the EU defence fund was always Micronās dream.
I don’t wish to be a killjoy but we can’t even agree to build a European aircraft or tank or for that matter a warship. Add to that that France will always want to be the lead nation and the chances of a Euro-sub or A Euro-deterrent are virtually nil. I it were simple to co-operate with our Eurpean “partners” the French would stop thousands of illegal immigrants coming across the channel.
Ah back to this non argument are we
you mean warship like the Fremm or incoming european corvettes?
Your comment has very little relevance to the article. You’re complaining about a lack of European cooperation in defence projects underneath an article about the successful and ongoing coordination of European carrier strike deployments.
We built a European aircraft – it’s called the Eurofighter, and involved the UK, Spain, Germany and Italy. There are two ongoing collaborative next-generation fighter projects. France and Italy built the FREMMs together, the UK, France and Italy cooperate on the Aster missile family, the Dutch, Danish and Germans collaborated on their naval radar technology. France, the UK, Germany and Sweden cooperated in the development of the Meteor missile, and Germany, Italy, Sweden, Greece, Norway and Spain all collaborated on the development of the IRIS-T. There is an ongoing plan to design and field a collaborative European tank family. The nEUROn UCAV was developed primarily by Sweden and France.
There are many examples of successful European joint projects, many of which involved the oft-villanised nation of France.
European aircraft eh Tornado, Typhoon?
We know how to work together.
The issue is when pride is involved.
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France, UK and Germany have a big, very big ego. So it’s hard for these 3 to work together on critical projects.
But we do work together when it’s not shiny enough to get politicians involved.
What if we collaborate on a program to develop cross-bred European politicians.. and then weaponise them
sounds like a good idea