UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, on a visit to Tokyo following stops at the Pentagon and Hawaii over the last few days, announced today that, following the visit to Japan of the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier strike group (CSG-21) in September, the Royal Navy will permanently deploy two offshore patrol vessels and a special forces “Littoral Response Group” to the region, “thereby demonstrating the UK’s commitment to collective defence and security in the region in the decades ahead.” After announcing the ports in Japan that the strike group will visit, Wallace said that “the upcoming visit of the UK-led Carrier Strike Group to five ports across the country is a clear demonstration of our commitment to maintaining regional security and upholding the rules-based international order with Japan.”
Prior to his arrival in Tokyo, Wallace met with US Indo-Pacific Command commander Adm. John Aquilino at his headquarters in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. According to a statement issued by the UK Ministry of Defense, they agreed that the Queen Elizabeth strike group will undertake a series of multinational exercises with global allies in the Philippine Sea this August. “Operating alongside Naval and Air Forces from the United States, Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea, the UK Carrier Strike Group will undertake a number of integration exercises designed to build interoperability between like-minded international partners in this globally significant region of the world,” the statement said. “The HMS Queen Elizabeth led Strike Group will operate with a US Carrier Strike Group, which combined, will be the largest concentration of F-35 jets anywhere in the world.”
