The designation means that the 65,000-ton aircraft carrier, its air assets, including stealth F-35 fighters and helicopters, as well as its destroyers, frigates, submarines and escort supply ships, are ready to deploy five days after receiving the orders to do so.
Qualified pilots and ground crews are on alert.
Aircraft carrier strike group commander Commodore Steve Moorehouse praised his unit’s readiness in a Twitter post.
“In practical terms, my Strike Group is now in Very High Readiness, which means that we are 5 days ahead of time to deploy, if necessary, in response to global events and in defense of British interests,” tweeted Moorehouse.
In a follow-up tweet, he gave a hint of what’s to come. Aircraft carrier strike team is planning Queen Elizabeth’s first operational deployment, which Moorhouse said would encompass the Royal Navy’s largest task group in 25 years and would be proof of Britain’s commitment to maintaining security worldwide – “a visible demonstration of Global Britain”, Moorhouse called it.
Specific dates for the first deployment have not yet been announced.
United Kingdom as a global power
Since 2017, UK defense officials have said that the first deployment of the aircraft carrier would include Asia and the Pacific on a route from Britain that would likely pass through the South China Sea.
The carrier would take its contingent of next-generation F-35 stealth fighters to a region where “China is developing its modern military capability and commercial power,” Williamson said in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.
But the presence of any foreign warships in the South China Sea is frowned upon by China. Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea of 3.3 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) as its territory.
Even before the Royal Navy’s announcement of readiness on Monday, Chinese military officials warned London against interfering in the region.
“The Chinese military will take the necessary measures to protect national sovereignty, security and its development interests, as well as to safeguard peace and stability in the region,” he said.
NATO and the Chinese threat
“China has an increasingly global strategic agenda, supported by its economic and military weight. It has proved its willingness to use force against its neighbors, as well as economic coercion and intimidating diplomacy far beyond the Indo-Pacific region,” said the NATO report.
“It is increasingly likely that China will project military power globally, potentially including in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
However, the British presence in the South China Sea is not without precedent. In 2018, the Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Albion approached the Paracel Islands, claimed by the Chinese, in the South China Sea, in what Beijing called “provocative action”.
Cooperation between the United Kingdom and the US is expected to continue with the carrier’s deployment in Asia Pacific.
When Queen Elizabeth performed large-scale exercises in the Atlantic last fall, the US Marine Corps F-35B fighters and the Royal Navy F-35s were on board – forming the largest concentration of fifth generation stealth fighters ever at sea. This same contingent of aircraft is planned for deployment in the Pacific.
When these exercises for the aircraft carrier strike group began, Moorhouse, their commander, noticed the meaning.
“Protected by a ring of advanced destroyers, frigates, helicopters and submarines and equipped with fifth generation fighters, HMS Queen Elizabeth is capable of attacking from the sea at a time and place of our choice; and with our NATO allies at our side. , we will be ready to fight and win in the most difficult circumstances, “he said in a statement last fall.