The designation means that the 65,000 tonne aircraft, its air assets, including F-35 aircraft and helicopters, as well as its accompanying destroyers, frigates, submarines and supply ships, are ready to do so within five days of receiving orders.
Qualified pilots and ground staff are on notice.
The commander of the service provider strike group, Commodore Steve Moorehouse, indicated in a Twitter message the readiness of his unit.
“In practical terms, my Strike group is now on a very high alert, which means we are on 5 days notice to deploy, if necessary, in response to global events and in defense of British interests,” Moorehouse tweeted.
In a follow-up tweet, he indicated what was to come. Staff of the carrier strike group are planning for Queen Elizabeth’s first operational deployment, which Moorhouse said would include the Royal Navy’s largest peacekeeping task force in 25 years and be a testament to Britain’s commitment to maintaining global security – a visible demonstration of global Britain ‘. Moorhouse mentioned it.
Specific dates for the first deployment have yet to be announced.
United Kingdom as a world power
Since 2017, British defense officials have said the carrier’s first deployment will include Asia and the Pacific on a route from Britain that is likely to take it through the South China Sea.
The carrier will take its contingent of the latest F-35 fighter jets to an area where ‘China is developing its modern military capability and its commercial power’, Williamson said in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute. think in London.
But the presence of foreign warships in the South China Sea is not ignored by China. Beijing claims almost all of the 3.3 million square kilometers of South China Sea as its territory.
Even before the Royal Navy’s announcement on Monday, Chinese military officials warned London against interference in the region.
“The Chinese military will take the necessary measures to protect national sovereignty, security and its development interests, as well as to protect peace and stability in the region,” he said.
NATO and the Chinese threat
“China has an increasingly global strategic agenda, backed by its economic and military leverage. It has proven its readiness to use force against its neighbors, as well as economic coercion and intimidating diplomacy far beyond the Indo-Pacific region,” “reads the NATO report. .
“China is likely to increasingly project military force worldwide, including possibly in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
Yet a British presence in the South China Sea is not without precedent. In 2018, the amphibious assault ship HMS Albion, Royal Navy, steamed to the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in what Beijing called a ‘challenging action’.
Cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States is expected to continue with the forthcoming deployment of the carrier to the Asia-Pacific.
When Queen Elizabeth held large-scale exercises in the Atlantic last fall, the U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter jets and the Royal Navy F-35s were on board, forming the largest concentration of fifth-generation steal fighters ever at sea. The same aircraft contingent is planned for the deployment of the Pacific Ocean.
When Moorhouse, its commander, began the exercises for the strike group, it noticed the importance.
“Protected by a ring of advanced destroyers, frigates, helicopters and submarines, and equipped with fifth generation fighters, HMS Queen Elizabeth can strike from the sea at a time and place of our choice; and with our NATO allies on our side “We will be ready to fight and win in the most demanding conditions,” he said in a statement last autumn.