The Navy, after over thirty years of experience in operations blue water and on aircraft carriers operated in maritime contexts of the type expeditionary, today can count on a high-quality, versatile and flexible structure such as the carrier strike groups, the pillar on which the use of the military capabilities of the maritime instrument of Defense is based in support of the national role of medium regional power with a strong maritime connotation. The awareness of being able to project one's Forces and exert influence on a global scale came at the end of the first historic operational deployment in the Indo-Pacific. For the Navy, an absolute first of using an aircraft carrier group in an operational campaign of this kind that led to the achievement of historic objectives, told with images and words of the protagonists.
152 days (of which 101 at sea) of activity, 77 thousand nautical miles traveled in an area of unusual orbit for the units of the naval fleet, touching 18 ports of 14 different nations. The aircraft carrier Cavour was the fulcrum with the embarked air tactical component, alongside it for this first operational campaign, which took place from 1 June to 30 October, the multi-role frigate Alpine and (from 16 August) the multipurpose combat ship Raimondo Montecuccoli, which have interacted and cooperated with naval and air assets of France, Spain, Greece, Germany, Japan, the United States, Australia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Oman ensuring the defence of the fleet, sea control and, where necessary, exercising diplomatic pressure or power projection from the sea.
Today there are few countries in the world that are able to express such a capacity and to do so in a credible manner. Italy in particular is the only nation in the European Union that can express a carrier strike groups national with fifth-generation air assets (F-35B) and, together with the United States and England, with this capability within NATO.
