The big problem is the airborne radar: nobody should know better than the Royal Navy that you don’t go up-threat without airborne radar. The blooding we suffered in the Falklands was more or less entirely down to our lack of airborne radar then, and we absolutely must not repeat that mistake.
The picture would be very different if we could arrange that CSG25’s Red Sea time coincided with the presence of a US strike group. With an American E-2 radar bird watching over everyone from on top and the option of refuelling from American aircraft if needed, our F-35s would then get invaluable operational experience and the carrier could finally flex her operational muscles. Maybe the shooting will be over by then anyway, but if not, CSG25 is going to have to deal with the Red Sea conundrum either as a point of aim or a hump to clear before heading further East. Planners would have to accept that any transit of the Red Sea would be likely to mean combat and that can always involve losing people and/or ships.
There is a third option, in which we’d move the centre of gravity entirely away from the Indo-Pacific and shift it into the North Atlantic and the High North. This would allow Nato and UK land-based resources to mitigate the airborne radar, stores and refuelling issues. It allows us to tackle the Russian submarine threat to our Critical Under Sea Infrastructure in our own backyard (which is a core RN skill) and do so together with the US, Norwegians and others. It would also be possible to argue that this type of mission would not require so large a group of F-35 jets, easing that pinch point.
‘Train how (and where) you mean to fight’ is another well-worn expression and as Cold War 2 approaches, the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap, the Baltic, the High North and the wider Atlantic over to the States are going to be the battlegrounds as they were in the old days. With the carrier group in place to cover for TAPS and other near-home duties it would still be possible to detach a frigate and destroyer to the Indo-Pacific where they could join up with our currently unprotected Littoral Response Group South (LRGS) who are already in Australia. The LRG is a pair of almost unarmed fleet auxiliaries acting as a mobile sea base for a capable force of Royal Marines.
LRG(S), given some proper Navy backup, could then tick off many of the original objectives around the world. The carrier could meanwhile form up in the Atlantic with forces from the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and LRG (North) and deploy to the High North and Northern Norway. Norway and increasingly Swedish and Finnish Special Forces all have integration with the UK written into their doctrine. To break things up, CSG25 could head to the US Eastern Seaboard and maybe even take the lead for US Carrier Strike Group 2 there, again, providing much needed relief for the heavily worked Eisenhower.
The criticism here is that this sort of close-to-home, shore-dependent work is not what our carriers were built or intended for. Furthermore, we have just done this kind of deployment with last year’s half-arsed CSG23 – again with just eight jets briefly aboard the ship. It isn’t the kind of thing that the world’s number three or number four Navy should be limited to.
In sum, option one would deliver strong influence but involves sending most of our best air and sea forces to the other side of the world. Option two would deliver genuine operational effect but needs coordination with the US – and involves some risk of blood on the carpet. Option three is Russia-centric, vice China, and will stretch resources less but leaves our global reach in doubt. All three have utility for the US but the precise attitude of the Americans will all depend on the events of November.
So what will happen? At the highest level, a deployment like this comes down to ‘what are your influence objectives’, ‘to whom’ and what level of risk (threat and resources) can you tolerate to bring these two items together. In an ideal world, the incoming government, Defence and the Royal Navy would all agree. Back-channel conversations will have been happening for a while.
On the plus side, we have our carriers offering strategic political options and positive impacts for our allies, and this before they have even sailed.
This is the flexibility of maritime power, and the Royal Navy still has it, just. Before my optimism glass overflows, however, the ships do also need to be working (HMS Prince of Wales should be) and the fragility of the support infrastructure, vessels and people will have to be managed very carefully or risk levels will climb unacceptably high and/or people will leave.
The other thing to remember is that when the group does sail, something will drive a bus through the plan anyway – it always does. Last time it was Covid: for the USS Ford and the USS Eisenhower, both of whom came home months later than expected, it was Gaza and the Houthis respectively.
However CSG25 pans out it will tell us a lot about the new government: their views on maritime Britain, the role of the Royal Navy within it and, critically, whether they want to fund it properly.
Over to you, Prime Minister.