Going global: HMS Prince of Wales leaves Portsmouth
The Cable | No. 16.2025
Welcome to the 39th Cable, our weekly roundup of British foreign and defence policy.
Parliamentarians returning from recess must confront a full plate of challenges in the United Kingdom’s (UK) foreign and defence policy. Global markets continue to react to tariffs enacted by Donald Trump, President of the United States (US), wars continue to rage around the world, and Britain faces the harsh realities of allowing rival countries to buy into and own its critical national infrastructure.
Welcome back to The Cable!
Where do Britain’s strategic interests lie?
On 22nd April, HMS Prince of Wales, one of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, left Portsmouth as the flagship of the UK-led Carrier Strike Group 2025 (CSG2025) to the Indo-Pacific under Operation HIGHMAST. A British aircraft carrier sailing through the Mediterranean and across the Indo-Pacific will serve the dual purpose of strengthening relations with regional allies and partners while also demonstrating Britain’s continued capability to project power across the globe.
This deployment is an impressive show of force, and highlights the UK’s ability to convene allies alongside it. However, a carrier can only be in one place at a time and there are some questions as to whether CSG2025 should remain focused on the Euro-Atlantic theatre. His Majesty’s (HM) Government finds itself in the predicament of having global interests and security commitments, but lacking capabilities after decades of underinvestment in defence, compounded by an increasingly fraught geopolitical environment.
While defence spending is scheduled to increase to 2.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2027 and 3% after 2030, this boost in funding may not prove sufficient for the UK to do all things at once, especially given the growing defence budgets of adversaries. Consequently, HM Government faces tough strategic decisions to ensure Britain pursues its national interests in the most effective and efficient manner.
This will probably mean that the UK will have to manage competing demands between its position as a central pillar of European security – particularly if the US refocuses its geostrategic effort (as it faces its own competing security needs) – and its Indo-Pacific commitments. Likewise, in terms of military capabilities, Britain will have to choose winners and losers among the branches of its armed services, as this recent article aptly argues.
Answers are hopefully on the horizon: with the publication of the new National Security Strategy (NSS) and Strategic Defence Review (SDR) in the coming weeks, the outline of Britain’s geostrategic posture should become clearer.
Key diplomacy
Last week, David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, participated in high-level talks in Paris with partners from the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ as well as members of the US administration, namely Marco Rubio, Secretary of State of the US, and Steve Witkoff, US Special Adviser to the Middle East. These talks focused on developing joint efforts to kick-start peace deal negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Further talks between the European nations and the US were due to take place on 23rd April in London. However, these talks have been downgraded as Rubio cancelled his trip, and a meeting due also to include foreign ministers from Britain, Ukraine, France and Germany was postponed. Additionally, the recent comments by Trump and Rubio indicate that the White House is growing impatient about the lack of progress in securing a lasting peace.
On 15th April, the UK, alongside Germany, France, the African Union and the European Union (EU) co-hosted the London Sudan Conference, bringing together foreign ministers and high-level representatives from a broad range of countries to establish a ‘contact group’ to facilitate ceasefire talks for the civil conflict, which has now entered its third year. This included the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Turkey, which are believed to be supporting opposing sides in Sudan. However, the talks ended without an agreement, as a planned communique was rejected by several Arab states.
On 21st April, Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, hosted Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand, to enhance defence cooperation between the two countries. This will include New Zealand continuing to support Operation INTERFLEX, the British-led mission to train Ukrainian military personnel. The two prime ministers also discussed a new security partnership, which will succeed the one signed in 2015. The new agreement will recognise the ‘vital cooperation between the UK and New Zealand in upholding stability and security across the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific’, with New Zealand set to provide a frigate to support the deployment of CSG2025. Sir Keir and Luxon also discussed the importance of growth and free trade for economic and national security.
Defence
British F-35B Joint Combat Aircraft will join HMS Prince of Wales for Operation HIGHMAST, during which the Royal Navy will aim to declare full operating capability in a milestone for UK carrier strike power. Additionally, CSG2025 will trial the use of large ‘octocopters’ during the deployment for moving logistical items around the task group remotely. The new systems should allow crewed aircraft – in particular helicopters – to focus on their primary role of protecting the naval group.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced it has finalised a new £752 million payment to Ukraine through the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine scheme. The loan, which will be paid for through the profits of sanctioned Russian sovereign assets in the EU, will be used to support Ukraine in procuring military equipment, in particular air defence capabilities.
The British Army successfully tested a new type of Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon capable of neutralising multiple aerial targets simultaneously by using high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside the targets. During the demonstration, the system defeated ‘two swarms of drones in a single engagement’. The MOD estimates that the system costs ten pence per shot, a cost-effective form of Short Range Air Defence (SHORAD) which could complement conventional air defence systems. The project has been delivered by Team Hersa – a collaboration between Defence Equipment and Support and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, in conjunction with an industry consortium led by Thales UK.
Environment and climate
New analysis published by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has found that the UK’s electricity supply from domestic sources has increased over the last decade, due to falling reliance on imported fossil fuels and the corresponding growth in renewable energy sources. In 2014, approximately 65% of the UK’s electricity generation was dependent on imports, falling to just under 50% in 2024. The ECIU states that future deployment of renewables will continue to improve Britain’s energy security, particularly as the country electrifies transport, heating and industrial processes over the coming years.
The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM) has announced that it will enact reforms to prioritise grid connections for businesses which will deliver clean energy and energy infrastructure across the country. The reforms – originally drafted by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) in partnership with the energy industry – aim to unlock £40 billion per year of mainly private investment in the energy sector, while also removing so-called ‘zombie projects’ which are holding up the queue for grid connection. Currently, businesses can wait up to 15 years to be connected to the grid.
How Britain is seen overseas
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published a commentary exploring how Australia can enhance its cybersecurity regulatory framework by drawing lessons from Britain’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. It highlights the establishment of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which consolidates cybersecurity mechanisms and provides guidance to both the public and private sectors to ensure greater understanding of the threat. The authors suggest that Australia could benefit from a similar centralised body to coordinate cybersecurity initiatives.
How competitors frame Britain
Following HM Government’s intervention to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant from closure, the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), reported on a statement from the Chinese Embassy to the UK responding to public criticism directed towards Jingye, the plant’s current owner. A spokesperson from the embassy urged HM Government to ‘follow the principles of fairness, impartiality and non-discrimination’ in relation to the potential nationalisation of British Steel. The spokesperson also stated that the ‘anti-China rhetoric’ and attacks on Jingye by some British politicians reflected ‘their arrogance, ignorance and twisted mindset’. How would Beijing respond if a British company acted like Jingye in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)?
Russia Today published propaganda stating that the UK is a ‘chihuahua that thinks it’s a lion’. The article states that Britain’s global standing has diminished and that Britain has ‘little influence, even as a junior partner’. The author goes on to say that the UK has acted as a spoiler on the world stage for centuries and concludes by stating there is ‘nothing positive for Russia, or the world, in the continued existence of Britain as a foreign policy actor.’ The Russians appear to be deflecting from their own insecurities and failures; after all, Russia’s fall from superpower status has been far swifter and steeper than that of Britain.
How Britain thinks about foreign affairs
Yesterday, the Royal Navy’s CSG2025 left Portsmouth for its global tour. The group includes the following vessels: HMS Prince of Wales with 18 (later 24) F-35B Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft; HMS Dauntless, a Type 45 class destroyer; HMS Richmond, a Type 23 class frigate; an Astute class nuclear powered attack submarine; RFA Tidespring, an auxiliary; and vessels from the Canadian, Norwegian and Spanish navies. Arguably, the group contains more military capability than most of the world’s national armed forces.
How does the UK view such deployments?
Isolationists – so-called ‘Little Englanders’ – see the deployment of aircraft carriers as pretentious acts which attempt to recapture Britain’s lost geopolitical glory. They mock the deployments as an anachronism of empire and call for their cancellation in the future.
Continentalists see CSG2025 either as a mistaken procurement or as a misguided deployment. At the most base level, they believe that the resources invested in such capabilities would have been better spent on additional armoured divisions or air squadrons – or drones – for deterring Russia in Europe. The more enlightened continentalists are not hostile to the CSG2025 as a capability set, but would prefer to keep it in Euro-Atlantic waters.
Internationalists see the deployment of CSG2025 as an instrument through which to align allies and partners and demonstrate Britain’s commitment to the free and open international order. They celebrate the participation of other countries’ warships or auxiliaries, and seek to use the deployment to uphold freedom of navigation from the Black Sea to the Taiwan Strait.
Assertive nationalists share a similar perspective to the internationalists, though they place greater emphasis on the assertion and demonstration of the UK’s global reach and power, especially to deter aggressors. They celebrate the Royal Navy’s near-unique ability to assemble and operate such a large and technologically sophisticated force, even on the other side of the world.
At the moment, the internationalists and nationalists have merged into a single coalition supportive of the deployment of CSG2025. But it is unclear if the continentalists will gain ground in the years to come. With the upcoming publication of the SDR, will the Euro-Atlantic region be the focus of the next Carrier Strike Group?
This section is named after Gould Francis Leckie, author of An Historical Survey of the Foreign Affairs of Great Britain (1810) – the first modern geopolitical text.
If you found this Cable useful, please subscribe or pledge your support!
What do you think about this Cable? Why not leave a comment below?