How does the Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum enhance British influence?
The Big Ask | No. 38.2025
On 29th and 30th August, the Pacific Future Forum (PFF) – the Indo-Pacific component of the overarching Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum – was held aboard HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier, in Tokyo Bay. HMS Prince of Wales’ presence in the Indo-Pacific was part of a broader deployment of the Carrier Strike Group 2025 (CSG2025); a multilateral task force which was a representation of British and European defence diplomacy, a force amplifier for defence trade and a significant sign of hard power – a combination of various national interests.
The PFF featured a number of senior British stakeholders, including John Healey, Secretary of State for Defence, Douglas Alexander, Minister of State for Trade Policy, Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord, and Her Excellency Julia Longbottom, British Ambassador to Japan. The Government of Japan was also represented at senior levels, with Gen Nakatani, Minister of Defence, Adm. Akira Saitō, Chief of Staff of the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force, and Lt. Gen. Masahito Yajima, Commander, Air Defence Command, all speaking at the forum.
In this week’s Big Ask, we asked six experts and several senior former officials with ties to the Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum: How does the Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum enhance British influence?
Chairman, Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum, and Member, House of Lords
The PFF highlighted the forum’s role as a crucible for strategic thinking in a turbulent era. The iconic setting underlined the United Kingdom’s (UK) naval heritage, but the real substance lay in the agenda.
The PFF reaffirmed the profound codependence of national security and economic security, and of the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic. For Britain and Japan – both offshore advanced economies outside the United States (US), People’s Republic of China (PRC) and European Union (EU) – this reality carries special weight. The UK’s prosperity depends on open global trade routes, resilient undersea data cables and secure energy supply. Contributing to the security of those global networks is not optional, but a responsibility.
A second theme was ‘allied by design’. Delivering sustainable critical mass requires true interoperability and interchangeability among allies across all five domains – land, sea, air, space and cyber – as well as at the sub-threshold level. Deterrence is delivered not by intermittent exercises, but persistent, integrated engagement.
The PFF also explored the industrial base. The advantage of free and open nations lies in competitiveness and collaboration, aligning defence and industry, and drawing in technology firms whose dual-use innovations are vital not only to security, but to economic growth, climate adaptation and demographic resilience. Investment should flow into defence as a legitimate growth sector, backed by policy stability.
Finally, the PFF called for reform of governmental systems to keep pace with accelerating technological, demographic and geopolitical change.
Ultimately, the PFF demonstrated that Britain, alongside its allies and partners, can shape the rules of this contested century.
Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins KCB OBE ADC
First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, Royal Navy
The PFF is important to me personally as the Chief of the Royal Navy because it helps me to bring together allies and industries in a unique format, and to engage in important discussions about what future defence and security means for our respective nations, our respective forces and our respective regions. It was a real success.
The PFF brings together industry, allies and partners who contribute to the amazing capability of CSG2025, but who also have an investment and interest in seeing the UK’s defence – and the defence of our allies – develop into the future. I’ve been enthused by the depth of conversation, but also by the deeply thought intellectual debate about what the future of our forces should look like, and what the engagement between Europe and the Indo-Pacific should be.
In a world that is awash with conferences in anodyne theatres, the chance to come on board a British aircraft carrier, with its phenomenal convening power, is what set the PFF apart over the two days in Tokyo.
Director, Pacific Future Forum 2025
The PFF proved to be a significant and memorable event. For those attending, the sight of CSG2025 arriving in Tokyo Bay through the heat haze of August will live long in the memory. The sound of the Royal Marines Band playing the British and Japanese national anthems on the flight deck, surrounded by F-35A Joint Combat Aircraft, and with the Tokyo skyline providing the scenery, couldn’t fail to stir emotions.
This was the backdrop for the PFF and a very visible symbol of the UK’s commitment and interests in the Indo-Pacific. It also served as a powerful reinforcer of the deepening relationship between Britain and Japan.
The PFF and its Atlantic counterpart are British leadership events. The Cabinet Office direction to my organising team was to influence decision makers and thought leaders across the Indo-Pacific to enhance the international security on which our shared prosperity depends. It was also to demonstrate the UK’s convening power, support the British defence industry and promote the need for industrial resilience, interoperability and the UK’s strengths in critical edge technologies.
Last month in Tokyo, I felt we did just that. Over 15 countries were represented at the PFF. 450 delegates, including political leaders, military chiefs, business and academia, attended. They participated in two days of plenary discussions and debate, staged alongside a packed programme of side-bar events, briefings and bilateral discussions. Importantly, over 30 leading industrial companies helped to curate and shape the event with us.
The PFF was the largest and most complex forum we’ve staged since the inaugural 2018 Atlantic Future Forum in New York, on board HMS Queen Elizabeth. With every iteration, the ambition, scale and impact of these forums increase. In part, this is testament to the proven convening power of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, and evidence of Britain’s enduring soft power projection.
Deputy Director (Geopolitics), Council on Geostrategy
The PFF is an incredible force for good in the UK’s defence diplomacy. The old cliché that a warship is so many tonnes of diplomacy resonates when used on the Royal Navy’s newest and most impressive warships – the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. While I have only been on the latter, I can absolutely stand by the statement that the PFF delivers on a range of lines that will be of interest to His Majesty’s (HM) Government.
Defence trade is a major part of the recently published Defence Industrial Strategy, and a pillar of ‘defence growth’ – the concept that defence industry and exports deliver on jobs, economic growth and innovation as well as securing British national security interests. Close access to the carrier, and visibility of its aircraft and helicopters, for Japanese officials will have been a superb display of the UK’s industrial ‘can-do’, a reason to lean into the already strong bilateral relationship.
Strategic alignment is another output of the PFF. The simple fact is that while soft power is a major part of the kit of modern statecraft, it rests on the essential base of hard power. In an age of global instability and rising assertive powers, the combination of the two is often irresistible for potential allies and partners. Britain’s ability to deliver kinetic effect over long distances, combined with its democratic values, will deliver new opportunities in the Indo-Pacific and further afield.
Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy
In the HBO series Chernobyl, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, reminds the politburo that ‘Our power comes from the perception of our power’. While a country needs resources and instruments to project strength overseas, it can also leverage them in such a way to compound their impact.
The PFF is one such way the UK can extend and amplify its reach into the Indo-Pacific – an increasingly important theatre, not least due to the growth of Chinese and North Korean influence in the geopolitics of the Euro-Atlantic, the nation’s primary theatre.
The majesty of HMS Prince of Wales alongside Tokyo Cruise Terminal was a sight to behold, and not only because of its symbolism in cementing the growing ties between Britain and Japan. The PFF provided a platform for the diffusion of British ideas and narratives to participants, who came from both the UK and across the Indo-Pacific region. The use of the carrier showed that the ‘long arm’ of Britain can still reach out to secure the country’s interests, both discursive and physical.
As the Council on Geostrategy has argued elsewhere, narrative projection and discursive statecraft matter in the new era of geopolitical confrontation. The Royal Navy and HM Government should continue to support the Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum, as it tilts once again towards the Euro-Atlantic in 2026 – to mark the 250th anniversary of America’s declaration of independence.
Co-founder (Strategy), Council on Geostrategy
British influence rests on a number of key components, including hard and soft power, the nurturing of relationships with key allies and partners, and its people. It also undeniably relies on convening power and thought leadership.
The Atlantic and Pacific Future Forum is a unique annual event, facilitating future-focused debates on strengthening the UK’s deterrence and preparedness, together with key allies and partners, to protect and underpin the free and open international order. It seamlessly blends thought leadership, military strength and two geographic theatres into a brilliant combination of a UK-led geopolitical conference hosted on one of the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers, attended by like-minded democratic nations in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.
The PFF in Tokyo reinforced the message of CSG2025 by providing a diplomatic and intellectual platform to foster closer links with Britain’s Japanese friends and other nations. The forum demonstrates the UK’s commitment to lead intellectually, and deter and defend militarily, as well as its ability and keenness to continue to invest in its presence, dialogue and partnerships globally.
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