Asking the Navy to do more and more with less and less
HMS Ocean - Image via Wikipedia
Just at the very moment that the decisions of the October 2010 “Strategic Defence Review” start to bite, the Royal Navy is being asked by government to do more than ever. With the crisis in Libya and the Middle East showing no signs of ending, RN warships are spread thin across the globe. A quick snapshot of the fleet shows the pace of operations. With such a tiny fleet, our naval ports are almost empty and there are few vessels able to provide reliefs should the Libya crisis continue or escalate.
RN ships involved in Operation Ellamy off Libya include HMS Ocean, HMS Albion, HMS Sutherland, HMS Liverpool, HMS Brocklesby and HMS Bangor and HMS Triumph. The RFA is playing an increasing role with RFA Fort Rosalie, RFA Wave Knight supporting them. RFA Argus, RFA Fort Victoria and RFA Cardigan Bay are ready off Yemen should UK citizens need to be evacuated. RN patrols in the Arabian Gulf continue (as they have since 1980) with HMS St Albans sailing this week to relieve HMS Iron Duke in addition to the 4 permanently deployed RN minehunters in the Gulf. HMS Richmond is involved in exercises in the Far East and HMS Edinburgh has sailed to relieve HMS York in the South Atlantic along with HMS Scott. RFA Wave Ruler is in the Caribbean ready to provide relief in case of hurricanes.
In the last few months the RN has paid off submarine HMS Trafalgar, aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, 4 frigates; HMS Cornwall, HMS Chatham, HMS Campbeltown, & Cumberland and 2 destroyers; HMS Manchester & HMS Gloucester, 3 auxiliaries; RFA Fort George, RFA Largs Bay & RFA Bayleaf. Of the few new vessels joining the fleet, the 3 new Type 45 destroyers are not ready to be deployed on operations and submarine HMS Astute’s epic sea trails have been dogged by bad luck. The only other ship to join the RN is HMS Protector – a Norwegian ice-breaker which should be a good replacement for HMS Endurance.
It would appear that the Navy is actually indispensable to this government (like all before) who are tasking it with more and more. This tempo can be maintained for a short time but is not sustainable as there is simply no back up. More pressure is being put on ageing ships for which no replacements are forthcoming and personnel are being worked harder, some even under threat of redundancy. It is shameful that the government will not reverse the defence cuts in the light of events, and is grinding our forces down with over-work and under investment.
Related articles
- Marines on UK Yemen exit standby (bbc.co.uk)
- Libya: HMS Brocklesby destroys mine in Masrati port (waronterrornews.typepad.com)
- Britain says military assets deployed near Yemen (telegraph.co.uk)
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There simply is not a threat to the home islands or waters of the UK from another state and is unlikely to be one for decades. So UK has reduced its expenditure but it still spends more either in cash terms or as a share of GDP than any of the other European NATO states, but not much more. The problem is the collective memory of the press and politicians is the British Empire standing alone initially against Hitler and ending the war as a near equal partner with the US.
Those days saw the Empire using Indian troops in Iraq, south Africans in Etheopia and Egypt with Australians and kiwis in Egypt, meanwhile a multinational Royal Navy ruled the waves.
However those days have gone.
In Afghanistan you can debate is it in UK intrest to be there, but it is not in UK intrest to contribute 10,000 men when France, Germany, Italy, Spain contribute around the same between the 4 of them. The army has run a campaign on the basis of using maximum force available to then claim they are needed to then say any cuts have to come from the Navy!!
In Libya no we do not have Ark Royal of Libya but even if it was available why should we, with an operation in the Med, the primary powers should be the NATO Med states with France, Spain, Italy all having carriers.
In terms of planning for the long term unlikely risk I.e Russia becomes a Military Dictatorship, and we want to increase expenditure quickly as others have said building ships takes a long time but why not keep laid off ships at standby for a prolonged period, same for aircraft.
Whilst I am in broad agreement re. the plight of the RN, it needs to be acknowledged that the current threats to UK security are indirect. I do not believe that there is a direct military threat to the UK, or likely to be in the forseeable future. The expansion of the Russian navy has been massively over-hyped, and actually represents a fairly modest return for such a large, resource-rich and strategically important nation. It is not a return to the navy of Soviet days, and attempts to portray it as such are misinformation.
Actually, global economic crisis and the disintegration of NATO (the US regards the organisation as increasingly irrelevant) are both potentially more serious than the diminished state of the RN (or indeed the other forces). Any significant or sustained increase in the UK defence budget is extremely unlikely, whatever we might wish to believe, and much better use will have made of existing resources if the decline is to be arrested.
You are right that at present there is no direct threat to the UK but things can change quickly and a warship can take 10+ years to design and build. The skills and fighting spirit of a navy can take even longer to build up so it is the height of complacency to think we can throw away the Royal Navy and revitalise it overnight if needed. Although state-on-state conflict is less likely at present, the need to be defend our interests or a least be a ‘force for good’ (as in Libya) seems to be more and more likely as global instability is on the rise.
I agree that sadly it is unlikely we will see a rise in the defence budget but the latest cuts are indefensible – the RN has been cut steadily since 1990 (even in the economic ‘good times’) It is a form of political cowardice not to fund defence.
It seems perfectly obvious that if the Royal Navy is not reinstated in the not too distant future we will cease to be a free country, as we are now utterly defenceless capitulation will be the only option against any well armed and trained enemy.
On top of this, let’s not forget that China and Russia are expanding their navies and are not the only ones. And I bet the Argentinians are watching this wanton dismemberment of the Royal Navy with great interest.
[...] With a significant portion of the Royal Navy deployed in the Mediterranean, the hasty decision to take HMS Ark Royal out of service looks even dumber now: [...]
I am a student of the Royal Navy and it’s past glory. Specifically, Nelson (of course), Jervis, Collingwood, etc., etc. The basic problem you have is this: Until you renounce the socialist welfare state and require people to support their own sorry butts, you’ll not have the money for anything else. We have the same problem here in the States.
A rather right-wing US view! I think it is completely possible to have adequate armed forces while still funding good social and healthcare provision. (This was the case in the late 1980s when defence spending was more than 3% of UK GDP). I would however broadly agree with the current govt that the NHS and social care needs reform as benefits have become a bloated and their budgets are out of control.
As one who served on HMS Ark Royal in the early 1970′s I am somewhat upset about the state of the Royal Navy now. I note that it is to be seen as ‘right wing’ if you suggest that perhaps the welfare state takes precedence over eveything, that we gift money in foreign aid to contries that do not need it, that we have a Health Service that has the money to deal with 1million people with drink problems (self-induced illness) and some 40,000 abortions (again paid for out of taxes). It is little wonder that some may question just where our priorities lie. As an island nation it woud seem sensible to have a Royal Navy fit for purpose – no longer seeking to impose its might on a worl-wide scale but in the ‘defence’ of Home waters, and the possibility that as an importer of so many goods, we used to make, that it might be useful to have a force capable of ensuring we can sustain our trade links. So, rather than having an expensive carrier fleet we should be considering an ‘escort’ vessel that served us well and deployed the Sea Harrier.Convoys may be a thing of the past (until Argentina decides to have another go at The Falklands) but we can have a Royal Navy that serves our closer interest much better, offers scope for industrial work and trades, and enables us to be independent of others as far as we are able. I have always been uneasy at placing too much reliance on NATO and the ‘help’ of others. To become reliant on a French aircraft carrier is the final insult to our hsitory as a sea faring nation and the Royal Navy. I was born a Dutchman, became a naturalised citizen, and am proud of this country’s hsitory. I feel utterly betrayed by our present Government in perpetuating the decline of our armed forces while we depend on all who serve in them. It’s so easy to engage in foreign adventures when those who seek to rule us have no experience of ,military life. If they had a true and deep understanding of the nation’s history they would not be depleting the very forces who have to implement their foreign policies.