Operation Highmast got underway in late April, as the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales and supporting warships embarked on an eight-month deployment, also known as Carrier Strike Group 25, to the Pacific and Australia. Highmast is the biggest test to date for the Royal Navy’s return to the carrier business, a plan 30 years in the making. At least in theory, this renewed British power-projection capacity offers to support the United States in the Pacific—if not by deploying there in a crisis and joining in the fighting, then maybe by relieving the US of duties in the Middle East.
A British carrier group is coming to the Pacific—with doubts looming over it | The Strategist
