Keir Starmer has confirmed that the UK will deploy its Carrier Strike Group to the North Atlantic and High North regions later this year, with HMS Prince of Wales set to lead the deployment.
The Prime Minister said the carrier will operate alongside the United States, Canada and other NATO allies, describing the deployment as “a powerful show of our commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.”
The announcement places the Royal Navy’s flagship at the centre of a renewed focus on the High North, a region increasingly framed by NATO as strategically critical amid heightened Russian military activity and competition over Arctic routes and infrastructure.
Starmer also linked the move to wider European deterrence efforts, saying it was part of the UK’s commitment to NATO security. “That is also why we’re enhancing our nuclear cooperation with France,” he said.
He added: “For decades, the United Kingdom has been the only nuclear power in Europe to commit its deterrent to protect all NATO members.”
HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned in 2019, is one of the Royal Navy’s two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers and is capable of operating an air wing of up to 24 F-35B Lightning II aircraft, alongside helicopters such as Merlin, Chinook, Apache and Wildcat. The carrier previously led Operation Highmast, an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2025, including exercises with India and other regional partners, underlining the UK’s ability to operate at range while maintaining NATO-linked commitments.
Correct location for it, but it will be interesting to see what escorts and RFA can be scraped up for the deployment!
I’d suggest
– 2 x T45
– 1 x Tide
– 1 x T23
– 1 x Astute
I’ll be interested to see how many F35 Starmer insists on and for how long.
I’m 50/50 on the Astute, and I’m more inclined to think that it’ll be a single British destroyer, and various allied ships filling in. The Dutch, the Danes, but particularly the Norwegians would be interested. The French might do a sort of trade, considering we’ve just attached Dauntless to their CSG.
So, I’d guess:
– 1 x T45
– 1 x Tide
– 1 x Fridtjof Nansen/De Zeven Provincien/FREMM
– 1 x Astute (maybe – I don’t think they’ll pull Anson back, and I don’t think that any of the others are a guaranteed sight)
Virginia class as a substitute sub for an Astute maybe, although that maybe would need us to stump up more surface escorts as I’m not sure the US would want other allies in the group.
I would be surprised if they had not got another Astute out and about pretty shortly TBH.
I am sure it will involve parts rotations from one hull to another but it will be done otherwise the Astute to AUS starts to look embarrassing.
For sure there will be allied ships involved.
I think Starmer’s speech referenced ‘with US and European allies’.
In fairness a mission like this doesn’t necessarily need to be so heavy in F-35s. This is pretty much going to be the same use case as the Invincible class where 8-12 jets for air defence is probably sufficient and covering their entire role. Seeing an increased ASW capability (although the QE-class have already usually been pretty good on this) is probably more important, though it doesn’t get as much attention.
True
But Mad Vlad and The Tangerine play to trumps so the more F35B present the Bigger Beautiful(er) CSG.
Maybe if they put some gold leaf on PoW it could impress Tge Tangerine?
Maybe dedicate her as part of the RN Trump class?
Something I can agree with him on for once, even though other parts of his speech were posturing waffle.
You know when your country is scraping the bottom of the barrel when its PM makes a big thing of sending a capital ship into what are our home waters, which is something we took for granted for well over 200 years.
No doubting our force’s quality or commitment but the rhetoric is hollow.
The Invincibles were all over that tasking for decades….
Well we know we’re meant to speak softly and carry a big stick.
But our political class are so desperate to grandstand that minor detail gets ignored, and the big stick has shrunk to a twig.
Nice to see the carriers being used, may a bigger navy and Airforce is needed more than a bigger Army, just a thought. I know the currant government talks a lot but does nothing else its ok a lot problems to fix from the last 20 years.
We all want a better Army but in the world now is a bigger better Army as much use as bigger Navy or Airforce? Only my view but much more Anti UCAS/GBAD would be better than lots of vehicles, more excorts and ASW ships and Strike and SEAD and AWACS aircraft. By the time we scrap together a full Div if we ever really can? what ever happened will be over on the ground, others will have hold the line on land not us.
Most know any Div we field would under guned, lack heavy Armour/Arty, decent GBAD and little or no anti U-CAS/Drone defence. We just hate admitting it we are a shadow of what we were and the will and money to fix it will never be there. DIP will be a cut hidden as some thing else.
Well my view has always been the RN, RAF and intell first.
But, we do need a bigger army.