U.K.-led Operation Highmast departs for Indo-Pacific deployment with Allies and Partners
FORUM Staff
The United Kingdom’s Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales departed Portsmouth Naval Base in late April 2025 to lead a multilateral deployment to the Indo-Pacific.
The eight-month deployment of the U.K.’s Carrier Strike Group 2025, called Operation Highmast, will be joined by vessels and/or personnel from 13 nations, including Australia, France, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. Frigates and auxiliary vessels from Canada, Norway and Spain will reinforce the deployment.
The group will sail through the Mediterranean Sea and the Indo-Pacific for port visits and exercises, including NATO’s Neptune Strike in the Mediterranean and the Australia-hosted multilateral Talisman Sabre in July. Bilateral training with the Japan Self-Defense Forces also is planned.
“One of the purposes of being in the region is to hold up international order,” Royal Navy Commodore James Blackmore told The Telegraph, a London newspaper. “It’s demonstrating our commitment to that and reassuring our partners and allies.”
The strike group includes 24 F-35B stealth fighter jets, uncrewed aerial vehicles, helicopters, anti-submarine frigates and an Astute-Class nuclear-powered attack submarine. About 2,500 personnel from the Royal Navy, nearly 600 from the Royal Air Force and 900 from the British Army will participate in the deployment, according to the U.K. government.
It is the strike group’s second deployment; the first was led by the HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2021. The HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned in December 2019, is one of the nation’s largest warships ever built.
The deployment allows the U.K.’s Armed Forces to conduct a global deployment and rehearse complex operations alongside Allies and Partners. The strike group will transit the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean before continuing to the Pacific Ocean, according to Navy Lookout, a U.K.-based publication.
Operation Highmast is about readiness and deterrence. As global threats mount, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, the U.K. aims to project power and reinforce its alliances and partnerships, including with NATO and the Quad nations of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S., according to UK Defense Journal, an online publication.
Blackmore said the deployment “sends a message to partners and allies because it reassures, and to any of those adversaries out there who might want to cause disruption on a global stage — the U.K. has a capable and credible capability in its U.K. Carrier Strike Group if required.”
