Forging a Global Carrier Network: Leveraging Momentum and Building Structure for Repetition
The MOC
By
Commander Dan Justice, USN
May 15, 2025
At the time of this writing, the United Kingdom aircraft carrierPrince of Wales is training with the Italian carrier Cavour in the central Mediterranean at the beginning of its planned deployment to the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility. Large scale carrier operations like this have become a normal part of the rhythm in the Mediterranean over the last few years. Outside the Med, carrier operations are also on an upswing. In the past four years, four European carrier strike groups (CSGs) from three navies have deployed outside of the European area of operations to the Indo-Pacific. These missions demonstrate the UK, Italian, and French maritime ambition and commitment to the region as well as serving as an acknowledgement of the utility of CSGs to further national interests.
Operating a carrier strike group at all is a significant undertaking for any navy and deploying one to the other side of the world—away from national logistics, communication and operational support—all the more so. As the U.S. Navy stretches to meet carrier demand across the Indo-Pacific and Central Command (CENTCOM) areas of responsibility, recently extending the USS Harry S. Truman and diverting the USS Carl Vinson to CENTCOM, the value of additional allied carrier presence beyond Europe is clear. The United States should leverage the momentum of these past four European deployments, assist with deployment support requirements away from Europe, and maximize future utility of allied CSGs outside of Europe.
To capitalize on the momentum of these four deployments, the U.S. Navy should take a number of concrete steps. First the United States should advocate for revitalizing and restructuring the European Carrier Group Interoperability Initiative (ECGII). The ECGII was established in 2004 to foster cooperation and interoperability among European navies that operate aircraft carriers. However, it has stagnated as a useful forum, with little to show for its efforts since the mid-2010s. The U.S. Navy should advocate to formally join the group, perhaps in a special member or observer status. The Commander, U.S. Naval Air Forces should serve as the U.S. representative; helpfully, this role is dual-hatted with the role of Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMNAVAIRPAC). COMNAVAIRPAC is the force provider for naval air forces in the Indo-Pacific and therefor positioned to be able to shepherd the process of bringing allied CSGs into theater effectively. The European carrier-operating nations should continue to rotate the chairmanship and drive the forum. Other European members who do not operate carriers but may provide escorts to future CSG deployments should continue to participate as well. In addition to its previous role as a forum to share strike group tactics and procedures, it should also serve as a scheduling conference venue to align training cycles and future deployments of carriers and their escorts with the calendar of major exercises and operations in other theaters. Revitalizing the ECGII in this way would provide a practical and formal mechanism to ensure future CSG deployments deliver greater strategic coherence and operational impact.
While actual carrier deployments would continue to be staggered, collaboration and learning among the ECGII nations should remain continuous. Building a reliable cycle of pre-deployment preparations and post-deployment adaptation is essential to improving the effectiveness of allied carrier operations. Although all participants are NATO members, this effort should remain outside formal NATO structures to avoid unnecessary oversight or muddying the strategic messaging. National mandates should be preserved. Each nation should retain responsibility for certifying its own carrier strike groups readiness for deployment, while jointly developing a shared training framework. This training framework could follow the model being demonstrated in the current MEDSTRIKE exercise and leverage other national carrier-centric exercises such as POLARIS or MARE APERTO. These exercises could be modified to include components similar to a U.S. composite unit training exercise while maintaining national characteristics. They would be valuable opportunities to rehearse integrated carrier strike group operations and enable returning CSGs to pass on recent lessons from the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, integrating ECGII nations with escort availability will create a higher level of general readiness, so that individually deploying units are better able to be swapped in and out of the CSG, if unable to commit to the entire deployment cycle. Pairing the next deploying CSG with the most recent returnee for mentoring and preparatory training would enhance continuity and operational maturity across deployments. These exercises could also serve as engagement points for U.S. Navy participation, particularly through linkage with 7th Fleet, ensuring alignment with Indo-Pacific operational realities. Equally important is the institutionalization of shared learning: a centralized, accessible lessons learned database, coupled with mandatory post-deployment reports and briefings attended by all participating navies would help disseminate best practices and tactical insights across the community.
Following on to an improved work up regime, during the deployments themselves the United States can provide critical enablers to ensure allied carrier strike groups operate effectively and safely away from their home waters. With its robust permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific the U.S Navy offers a unique set of resources that would be onerous and wasteful for allied nations to try and reproduce individually. These resources included advanced logistics hubs and mature networks, range facilities, increased operational familiarity and linkages, and regionally-relevant secure communications enclaves. U.S. support could include logistics assistance for refueling and resupply, leveraging its experience in replenishment and sustainment across the vast distances of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. While NATO standards, networks and communication practices may be partially available during Indo-Pacific deployments, the United States could also serve as a custodian of shared secure communication systems that includes non-NATO partners such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India. This would help ensure allied CSGs remain connected and interoperable with the broader constellation of regional maritime actors. Along these same lines, the United States can facilitate engagement opportunities with partners like Japan, whose helicopter destroyers will soon operate F-35Bs, similar to the UK and Italian carriers. This would enable joint operations and enhance strategic messaging while alleviating the planning burden of Pacific nations having to coordinate bespoke practices with each deployment. Finally, the United States’ deep familiarity with the operational pattern of life in the Indo-Pacific’s critical maritime areas and contested zones could be shared to help allied groups navigate the region effectively and avoid missteps.
This proposal is ambitious and would require sustained multi-year commitment from a broad coalition of nations with varying strategic priorities and domestic pressures. Within the United States, a centralized coordinating effort would be necessary to align the many stakeholders involved across nations, commands, and services. For participating allies, it could impose a degree of inflexibility, particularly for those who may prefer to retain their carrier strike groups for regional or national contingencies closer to home. Additionally, the plan could require the United States to look beyond the artificial boundaries of the unified command plan, fostering greater coordination with partners outside of the geographic confines they know well. Despite these challenges, the long-term benefits of predictable, integrated, and strategically-aligned allied carrier deployments to the Indo-Pacific would be significant. Establishing a known schedule of operations, with each deployment building on the last and integrating with ongoing regional security efforts would reduce the strain on the U.S. fleet while strengthening a cooperative maritime security framework in the Indo-Pacific, the benefit of all nations invested in freedom of navigation and regional stability.
Commander Dan Justice is a U.S. Navy Foreign Area Officer currently serving as Commander 6th Fleet liaison to the Italian Navy. Previously he has held roles in Policy Analysis and International Armaments Cooperation in additional to operational assignments
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views or policy of the U.S. Defense Department, the Department of the Navy nor the U.S. government. No federal endorsement is implied or intended.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Commander Dan Justice, USN
At the time of this writing, the United Kingdom aircraft carrier Prince of Wales is training with the Italian carrier Cavour in the central Mediterranean at the beginning of its planned deployment to the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility. Large scale carrier operations like this have become a normal part of the rhythm in the Mediterranean over the last few years. Outside the Med, carrier operations are also on an upswing. In the past four years, four European carrier strike groups (CSGs) from three navies have deployed outside of the European area of operations to the Indo-Pacific. These missions demonstrate the UK, Italian, and French maritime ambition and commitment to the region as well as serving as an acknowledgement of the utility of CSGs to further national interests.
Operating a carrier strike group at all is a significant undertaking for any navy and deploying one to the other side of the world—away from national logistics, communication and operational support—all the more so. As the U.S. Navy stretches to meet carrier demand across the Indo-Pacific and Central Command (CENTCOM) areas of responsibility, recently extending the USS Harry S. Truman and diverting the USS Carl Vinson to CENTCOM, the value of additional allied carrier presence beyond Europe is clear. The United States should leverage the momentum of these past four European deployments, assist with deployment support requirements away from Europe, and maximize future utility of allied CSGs outside of Europe.
To capitalize on the momentum of these four deployments, the U.S. Navy should take a number of concrete steps. First the United States should advocate for revitalizing and restructuring the European Carrier Group Interoperability Initiative (ECGII). The ECGII was established in 2004 to foster cooperation and interoperability among European navies that operate aircraft carriers. However, it has stagnated as a useful forum, with little to show for its efforts since the mid-2010s. The U.S. Navy should advocate to formally join the group, perhaps in a special member or observer status. The Commander, U.S. Naval Air Forces should serve as the U.S. representative; helpfully, this role is dual-hatted with the role of Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMNAVAIRPAC). COMNAVAIRPAC is the force provider for naval air forces in the Indo-Pacific and therefor positioned to be able to shepherd the process of bringing allied CSGs into theater effectively. The European carrier-operating nations should continue to rotate the chairmanship and drive the forum. Other European members who do not operate carriers but may provide escorts to future CSG deployments should continue to participate as well. In addition to its previous role as a forum to share strike group tactics and procedures, it should also serve as a scheduling conference venue to align training cycles and future deployments of carriers and their escorts with the calendar of major exercises and operations in other theaters. Revitalizing the ECGII in this way would provide a practical and formal mechanism to ensure future CSG deployments deliver greater strategic coherence and operational impact.
While actual carrier deployments would continue to be staggered, collaboration and learning among the ECGII nations should remain continuous. Building a reliable cycle of pre-deployment preparations and post-deployment adaptation is essential to improving the effectiveness of allied carrier operations. Although all participants are NATO members, this effort should remain outside formal NATO structures to avoid unnecessary oversight or muddying the strategic messaging. National mandates should be preserved. Each nation should retain responsibility for certifying its own carrier strike groups readiness for deployment, while jointly developing a shared training framework. This training framework could follow the model being demonstrated in the current MEDSTRIKE exercise and leverage other national carrier-centric exercises such as POLARIS or MARE APERTO. These exercises could be modified to include components similar to a U.S. composite unit training exercise while maintaining national characteristics. They would be valuable opportunities to rehearse integrated carrier strike group operations and enable returning CSGs to pass on recent lessons from the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, integrating ECGII nations with escort availability will create a higher level of general readiness, so that individually deploying units are better able to be swapped in and out of the CSG, if unable to commit to the entire deployment cycle. Pairing the next deploying CSG with the most recent returnee for mentoring and preparatory training would enhance continuity and operational maturity across deployments. These exercises could also serve as engagement points for U.S. Navy participation, particularly through linkage with 7th Fleet, ensuring alignment with Indo-Pacific operational realities. Equally important is the institutionalization of shared learning: a centralized, accessible lessons learned database, coupled with mandatory post-deployment reports and briefings attended by all participating navies would help disseminate best practices and tactical insights across the community.
Following on to an improved work up regime, during the deployments themselves the United States can provide critical enablers to ensure allied carrier strike groups operate effectively and safely away from their home waters. With its robust permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific the U.S Navy offers a unique set of resources that would be onerous and wasteful for allied nations to try and reproduce individually. These resources included advanced logistics hubs and mature networks, range facilities, increased operational familiarity and linkages, and regionally-relevant secure communications enclaves. U.S. support could include logistics assistance for refueling and resupply, leveraging its experience in replenishment and sustainment across the vast distances of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. While NATO standards, networks and communication practices may be partially available during Indo-Pacific deployments, the United States could also serve as a custodian of shared secure communication systems that includes non-NATO partners such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India. This would help ensure allied CSGs remain connected and interoperable with the broader constellation of regional maritime actors. Along these same lines, the United States can facilitate engagement opportunities with partners like Japan, whose helicopter destroyers will soon operate F-35Bs, similar to the UK and Italian carriers. This would enable joint operations and enhance strategic messaging while alleviating the planning burden of Pacific nations having to coordinate bespoke practices with each deployment. Finally, the United States’ deep familiarity with the operational pattern of life in the Indo-Pacific’s critical maritime areas and contested zones could be shared to help allied groups navigate the region effectively and avoid missteps.
This proposal is ambitious and would require sustained multi-year commitment from a broad coalition of nations with varying strategic priorities and domestic pressures. Within the United States, a centralized coordinating effort would be necessary to align the many stakeholders involved across nations, commands, and services. For participating allies, it could impose a degree of inflexibility, particularly for those who may prefer to retain their carrier strike groups for regional or national contingencies closer to home. Additionally, the plan could require the United States to look beyond the artificial boundaries of the unified command plan, fostering greater coordination with partners outside of the geographic confines they know well. Despite these challenges, the long-term benefits of predictable, integrated, and strategically-aligned allied carrier deployments to the Indo-Pacific would be significant. Establishing a known schedule of operations, with each deployment building on the last and integrating with ongoing regional security efforts would reduce the strain on the U.S. fleet while strengthening a cooperative maritime security framework in the Indo-Pacific, the benefit of all nations invested in freedom of navigation and regional stability.
Commander Dan Justice is a U.S. Navy Foreign Area Officer currently serving as Commander 6th Fleet liaison to the Italian Navy. Previously he has held roles in Policy Analysis and International Armaments Cooperation in additional to operational assignments
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views or policy of the U.S. Defense Department, the Department of the Navy nor the U.S. government. No federal endorsement is implied or intended.