By David Morse, 17 February 2025
Later this year, the latest in a series of Strategic Defence Reviews (SDR) will be released in the UK. Over several reviews, the UK has tried to balance its "Global Britain" ambitions with the realities of defence costs and falling recruitment. This review has no less of a challenge. At the centre of the debate is the Royal Navy and particularly the Queen Elizabeth class carriers. Although nuclear deterrence and the associated submarines occupy 40% (and a growing proportion) of defence procurement, they are "ring fenced" (in UK jargon) and exempt from any reductions. This leaves the remainder of the fleet and its balance of capabilities in the firing line. This report from the University of Essex, which was submitted to the Review (https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:4576dc61-7357-4f00-a926-f206293bb388), paints a dark view of the present fleet design, capabilities and future and particularly challenges the utility of the carrier force.
Other submissions such as this input from RUSI (https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/new-approach-uk-strategic-defence-review-tests-success) advocate for a complete redesign of the UK military into an "integrated force"; question how much scope there is for change given the present procurement plans; and emphasize that Europe-focused cooperation should be front and centre, all the more complicated by the isolation brought about by Brexit.
A report by the UK National Audit Office demonstrates the enormous shortfall between ambition and financial reality. Noting that the funding gap is likely understated by a significant margin since the RN and the RAF have included all present and future projects in their estimates while "the Army and the Strategic Programmes Directorate, have developed affordable plans by accepting greater risks that their capabilities will not meet government’s objectives". This is a surprising and perhaps shocking admission that defence planning lacks a common planning definition or process.
All of this happens in the face of a UK determined to stand with Ukraine for 100 years. SDR 2025 promises to be an interesting read."
Image: HMS Queen Elizabeth sails with her strike group during WESTLANT 2019. Credit: UK MOD
One thought on “Britannia Rules the Waves?”
Before I begin I find it very interesting that the Exeter University paper uses no pictures of current or future Royal Navy assets, the only picture they use of a British asset is the torpedo compartment (bomb shop) of HMS Alliance which has been a museum since 1981, irony perhaps?
I digress:
First and foremost the UK is an island state with 90% of its trade coming in via sea as noted by the author, we have been a maritime state since the middle ages and should recognize that our past present and future has to be oriented this way.
Our European neighbors have the benefit of being continental meaning a lot of their trade routes can be switched to over land, indeed there are rail links to places like China that operate routinely right now so the need for shipping and being a maritime power is not as prevalent.
“UK’s naval forces cannot be relied upon to provide a convincing buffer against potential foes. History has shown that a powerful naval fleet has not deterred the UK’s adversaries from taking action”
Wholly and fundamentally misses the point in that the majority of our enemies feared the Royal Navy and indeed we entered an era where there was no challenge because our adversaries knew they would be decimated.
We can take a look at WWI when everyone thought there would be a major fleet engagement right off the bat but it took until 1916 for the one and only major engagement why? because the German Imperial navy genuinely feared and knew they would get mauled.
Fast forward to WWII both Doenitz & Reider knew they could not combat the Royal Navy (now much smaller) head on and thus avoided engagement.
Fast forward to 1981 Argentine Admiral Allara (speaking post 1982) stated on record “We couldn’t invade in 1981 because of the British submarines and at that time they had Aircraft carriers and landing ships we knew these were going to be scrapped so we waited” he also stated “We could not combat a nuclear submarine so if one was in the area we couldn’t invade”
How about 1991 where HMS Gloucester engaged a missile heading for USS Missouri?
Let’s keep going to 1995 and Bosnia most of the sorties and policing was done by the Royal Navy & RAF, further on let’s go to 2001 the Tomahawks fired by the British into Afghanistan came from submarines, in 2003 we had to use merchant assets as our RFA had started to be cut (I know I was there) meaning our logistical capability was showing signs of stress.
So I don’t think the original quote on this paper actually stands up to much, therefore when you read slightly onward and the author states “a claim as false today as it was in the 19th century” it is clearly someone who doesn’t understand what a navy actually does because it is so much more than I have listed out.
“Our sea lines of communication provide the food, fuel and raw materials on which we depend as an economy and a society, as well as providing our connectivity for the nation’s digital infrastructure. Ergo a navy is a prerequisite to national survival. Or so the 19th and 20th Century navalist logic runs.”
Clearly someone who has never studied the importance of logistics in warfare wrote this because that navalist logic remains to this day and it wasn’t limited to just the 19th and 20th centuries either, this whole logic goes back millennia. Indeed if you deny a city access to raw materials, its capability to fight & sustain itself diminishes over time, the ancients called it siege warfare.
We also saw in both world wars just how effective such a blockade could be the submarines sinking our merchant ships nearly crippled the UK rendering it nearly impossible to fight.
Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.
The paper goes on with this quote “the lack of impact of the naval force deployment on the Houthis in Yemen is a contemporary case in point.”
I disagree with this absurd statement, HMS Daring proved her worth taking down many drones and missiles as did HMS Diamond & HMS Lancaster. So far attacks have ceased therefore the mission was successful, but there is a critical point here and that is numbers and types of munitions carried by the assets.
Unlike the Burkes, our Tomahawks can only be fired from submarines. Had that been available then this whole thing may have been over sooner, the fact we also sent air force Typhoons down there from Cyprus rather than a carrier group just highlights that we have a lack of numbers.
Here again the author makes a fundamental misunderstanding of what a navy is for – “prioritises two things: deterrence and NATO”.
First and foremost the Royal Navy’s job is to protect our national borders from hostile state actors. Either alone or as part of NATO, our entire Navy is already optimized to work with NATO and our command structure is very well integrated into NATO COC.
Second on the list of priorities is the protection of our sea lines of communication & trade a job that the Royal navy has been doing for the last 478 years without pause.
“western navies– their strategy, their thinking, and the force design of their fighting fleets, have not reflected these decisive shifts in our understanding of the purpose of war and the practice of warfare.”
I disagree simply because we have evolved our munitions and capabilities to reflect on going threats. The implementation of lasers for example shows how developed some areas are whilst retaining some of the more finer points of warfare such as drones and small craft and optimizing onboard systems to detect track and engage.
Naval warfare is not as black and white as land or air warfare, whilst the latter two are pretty clear cut the navy simply has so many various roles in warfare many of which the other forces simply cannot undertake.
“And neither do those who persist in the argument that naval forces should be at the centre of UK defence strategy. As Talleyrand once said of the Bourbons, “they have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.”
We are an island state as I said earlier, fundamentally our life line is the sea; any island state will tell you from hundreds of years of experience, the maritime sphere matters.
If you cut the supply chain of raw materials and finished goods to the UK and you cut the undersea cables connecting them to the world, it wouldn’t be long until the UK could not continue to function (even in peace time). Therefore; the statement we have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing is quite frankly utter nonsense.
“UK has a fundamental, non-discretionary responsibility for policing the seas.”
As one of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, as per our signature to UNCLOS and other treaties, to put it bluntly we do have some responsibility as mandated by the UN in many areas.
“There is now little evidence that these most capital-intensive capabilities (warships, submarines, aircraft and support vessels) have more strategic value than other aspects of military power.”
Fundamentally many of the areas of interest we simply couldn’t get the assets in theater in numbers in time. If you don’t have the logistical capabilities with the force to protect them, you actually have no power whatsoever.
Simply focusing on the army and air force which both require in many parts support from naval forces in order to operate, leaves you basically stranded on an island with nothing else to do and no ability to go anywhere.
A naval force turning up of the coast of a state makes a massive statement and as seen in 1981 proved beyond doubt that could avert a war – it wasn’t until John Knott released his white paper did the Argentinians actually go for it because they believed we wouldn’t / couldn’t retaliate. Meaning naval power has a deterrence effect by just being in place and when you keep cutting it like we have been since 1990 the effect decreases.
“Arguments made over previous generations about the relative utility for the UK of navies versus armies have largely been debunked. Together with air power (and, latterly, cyber power and space power), these tools of war and statecraft are mutually reinforcing rather than exclusive, as many now accept.”
Not many armies fight at sea and indeed a lot of intelligence gathered that supports boots on the ground comes from submarines, also without the navy many of our HADR commitments simply cannot be met at all.
In 2011 cyclone Hyan hit the Philippines and Indonesia. I worked with the teams to provide the logistics to those countries and to HMS Illustrious who thankfully was in the area and became a vital asset not just for us but also the people. Had we not had her on station in that area at that time there certainly would have been many more deaths as critical aid, evacuation and equipment simply could not get in by any other means.
“Rather than reminisce about the exclusivity or ‘sovereignty’ that stand-alone options might in the past have been thought to provide”
Many of the Royal Navy operations are stand alone simply because the army & air force are unable to actually undertake in any way, shape or form many of the missions that the Royal Navy actually does do daily.
“An aircraft carrier off Libya in 2011 would not have made a difference to the current state of affairs in North Africa.” Whilst true it wouldn’t make a difference today, the fact is (and yes I took part in Operation Ellamy) back then we were utterly kicking ourselves because we did not have the air cover we felt we needed.
The fact France sent their carrier to take part speaks volumes into how much of a cluster the decision to scrap harrier was.
The French Rafales were more than able to maintain on station for extended periods whilst we had to fly from Italy refuel mid air twice and we could remain on station for less than 25 minutes compared to the Rafales which could loiter for over an hour.
We also had to negotiate using Italian bases (no easy conversation), not to mention the eye watering cost to the tax payer with everything that hard to go out to Italy and come back plus the fuel required to get to Libya and back. Overall having the carrier on station would have saved us a fortune.
“The UK’s amphibious capability (as currently conceived) would not have deterred Russia from invading Georgia (2008), nor from landing in the Crimea (2014), nor from acting in Syria (2014).” I do agree in principle here however, having an amphibious force is not really about deterrence, yes you’re showing that in one part we have the ability to deploy on your coast. The main point of having amphibious forces is the ability to rapidly deploy.
After all the Army went to war in the Falklands on ships not aircraft and were landed by landing craft; in Desert Storm the majority of equipment was taken for staging by sea not air the same in 2003, arguably in 2001 in Afghanistan we took a lot over land via Russia and by air.
But the author is missing the key point here and that is we’re not here to deter one state from invading another, that’s not what any of our armed forces are meant for so the point the author is making is well rather pointless.
To finish on this point this quote “And nor will it deter China from further actions in the South China Sea or from invading Taiwan”
is really out of whack. Simply put the fact is to invade Taiwan China will need to use a lot of sea logistics to get any meaningful amount of force into the island quickly. What’s stopping them doing it right now? the USN guarantees.
“The UK’s two aircraft carriers lie at the heart of this conundrum. As envisaged in the laudable Robertson Strategic Defence Review of 1998, a balanced Royal Navy fleet was to possess two aircraft carriers, 32 (later 30) surface combatants (destroyers or frigates), ten nuclear hunter-killer attack submarines, four Trident ballistic missile submarines, a recapitalised amphibious fleet to deploy 3 Commando Brigade, and the requisite enabling capabilities from a sophisticated minehunting and sustainment flotilla.
It was a very balanced force design that would have provided the UK with options to act – alone if necessary – in an expeditionary fashion, with the ability to deploy, sustain, influence and fight far from home waters, with a force of 5,000 light infantry (Royal Marines) supported by fast air (fighters, bombers and reconnaissance) and aviation (helicopters), land attack missiles, naval gunfire, networked communications, and strategic enablers, all protected by an integrated system of sensors, weapons and platforms that could repel even the most determined and sophisticated attack.”
While I have been ripping this report apart, I have to also give credit here in that the above would be balanced and integrated, but as I note later on successive governments starting with Tony Blair have ignored the advice of people who actually do know, and substantially repeatedly dropped the ball.
“the acquisition of the aircraft carriers taxed the MoD budget severely for more than two decades and required military and naval leaders to make cuts across to every other aspect of the naval force in order to make up the capital costs.”
Not entirely the carrier project was over budget. The fact is many other projects were also way over budget in both the army & air force, just take a look at the MRA4 Nimrod program or the current army Ajax program.
You also have to factor in the real hard hitting fact that since 1997 the defense budget has been shrinking in real terms so the cuts would have come regardless.
What is more, the carriers are actually a 50 year investment whereas the Army & Air force assets don’t tend to last as long.
“the UK would arguably be better served by a combination of more working nuclear attack submarines and another two army divisions than either carrier.” Here in part I’m in agreement in that the state of the submarines in recent times has been deplorable. However, if you don’t provide air cover for troops on the ground which is vital for an integrated force then those two division may as well not exist as any decent opposing force will wipe them out.
Even in land-locked Afghanistan both Royal Navy & USN carriers provided air cover for troops on the ground, indeed it was US fighters from USS Enterprise that were first into combat in that region.
“Aircraft carriers do have utility but only when they are appropriately equipped, maintained, protected and supported: the Royal Navy does not now possess the means todo any of these things, making the argument about the ‘sovereign’ capability they provide somewhat spurious.”
While the Royal navy has serious issues with numbers, the fact is we can still deploy a CSG equipped with 31 F35Bs (not 12 as the author suggested) what is more even if you have 2 carriers you don’t necessarily have to up the numbers of escorts point in case 1982 Falklands.
“Questions should also be asked about the current state of the UK amphibious forces. In terms of capital cost, this formation could well be the most expensive conventional capability that the UK possesses. The Royal Marines no longer envisage deploying or fighting as a brigade sized structure (what some strategic analysts consider is required between now and 2040), preferring instead to consider themselves as a collection of small fighting elements while still maintaining the ships and skills necessary to reconstitute over time for different tasks. Currently (2024) structured as a force suitable for the national security challenges for the 2010s, this brigade has dwindling utility to NATO and neither is it capable of acting independently in any form of contested amphibious battlespace.”
The amphibious ship actually formed part of the HADR mission as well as the amphibious capability, the UK is one of the two partners in the European side of NATO amphibious forces (the other being the Dutch).
The whole premise of the UK joint amphibious force was to support Norway, something the author here fails to mention.
With the following I am in agreement with the author “That is not to say that the British naval force structure is doing nothing. It is being ‘sweated’ in a manner that is simply not sustainable. Yet it is also underperforming. This should be attributed not to the sailors but to myriad factors and micro-decisions made by successive chiefs and ministers about how the force is sustained, maintained and employed.”
A lot of our issues surrounding recruitment stem from outsourcing it. This has proved to be almost fatal with recruits being held in limbo for 18-24 months only to be told to reapply. Compounding this issue is the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand with regards to what they see as A1 fitness, indeed many people who are A1 fit yet don’t meet the height v weight curve are often rejected even though they are physically capable and would pass BFT with flying colours.
The key to any force is the moral of the people, they want to know they have job security and decent benefits. Sadly since 1997 they have literally been treated like poop.
Then you have the compounding cuts over successive governments with the most critical happening under Tony Blair from 2000-2008 where we lost a total of 31 vessels between the RN & RFA, then you had the integration of the RAF taking over fast jets from the Fleet Air Arm which, looking back was a mistake of cataclysmic proportions.
Why? simple when SDSR2010 came about the RAF was told to choose between keeping the land-based Tornado or sea & land-based Harrier, they chose the former meaning our Invincible class had no fixed wing aircraft which ultimately lead to the scrapping of HMS Ark Royal and eventually HMS Illustrious.
Our amphibious fleet didn’t fare to well either, we lost one Bay class to Australia and one LPD would be laid up for rotational purposes so the only real dedicated flat top we had from 2014 onwards was HMS Ocean and she wasn’t exactly the most capable platform.
The destroyer fleet was almost wiped out as well we had 12 type 42’s and they were to be replaced 1 for 1 with type 45 however that plan was cut to 8 then to 6 leaving us with only 2 that were on ops at any one time using the 1/3 rule. These too were hammered because they were designed to also accept 16 cell MK41 VLS so the civil service coined the phrase “fitted for but not with.” They also had no ASuW protection so they were basically hollowed out.
Our frigates during this time were also decimated with the four Type 22 batch 3 ships being laid up and scrapped and 3 Type 23’s being sold to Chile. and our batch one Rivers being phased out as well.
The submarine force also took a battering too with plans to reduce CASD boats down to 3 (thankfully wiser counsel prevailed) but we would also loose the Swiftsure’s and HMS Trafalgar taking our SSN fleet from 10 to 7 and currently we are at 5 boats.
The current Royal Navy is meant for expeditionary strike warfare, however we now have no real amphibious capability and I know what many of you are thinking but you still have 3 Bay class, well yes we do however even if we combined all 3 Bays they still would not be as capable as a single Albion.
We currently have no real dedicated solid stores ships, we have the elderly RFA Fort Victoria & RFA Argus sort of filling the gap (if we can find a crew for the former). The Tide class are great ships however there are 4 of them and they can’t be everywhere at once. The Waves will likely be sold off either to another navy or scrap meaning we will have to rely on civilian merchant tankers for consolidation work.
The current force if everything is lined up right should be able to put our 1 CV 1SSN 2 DDG 3FFG and that would be about it for a strike group and that’s not a lot.
I have always advocated that we need a minimum of 8-10 DDGs 12SSNs 16 FFGs with 2 carriers not because I like the numbers but, because if you need to ready a strike group off the bat you have assets available to go immediately. Right now it would be very difficult to do to even get the above picture squared away.
Overall we have issues, that’s clear and I agree we do need to re-balance the fleet but we must put the carrier at the front of the re-balancing and escorts that will be able to cope with the multitude of threats that a carrier group is likely to face, we should also be mindful of the numbers we intend to deploy and the crewing requirements – after all a lot of the issues we have today stem from failed recruitment practices.