Education of seapower transcends a change of government
Warships IFR Magazine Article September 2024.
In the September 2024 edition of Warships International Fleet Review, (on sale in e-version and print in the UK & abroad after 16 August 2024) The editor remarks:
SEAPOWER AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO DEFENDING THE UK TRANSCENDS A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
With a new government in the United Kingdom, Dr James WE Smith, elaborates on some others he has previously discussed in the magazine. Now he addressed the need to educate politicians fresh to positions of power about how to achieve a decisive defence review rather than just fiddle at the edges and achieve nothing. He suggests hard questions need to be asked about the direction taken in recent decades.
This builds on the theme that seablindness cannot be defeated but can be tamed, but education about defence to civilians is crucial if a national strategy is ever going to work or be implemented.
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SEAPOWER AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO DEFENDING THE UK TRANSCENDS A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
The relationship between an island nation and the sea is not negotiable; they are bound together and always have been. Therefore, British seapower and the role of the Royal Navy transcends a change in the British Government. That is why, in the 1500s, the Crown set out to develop a bespoke naval service in which responsibility for it - and education about why a unique maritime national defence strategy was the only option for the nation - went beyond acts of Parliament.
It was understood that not only was a navy the last and first line of defence for the nation, but it offered the best use of money to achieve the broadest range of options for defence, security and foreign policy within the constraints of a nation with few natural and financial resources.
British governments have been convinced that these salient facts are optional. At every political turning point in recent decades, commentary and debate on defence appears riddled with hapless jargon, shopping lists of equipment and aimless, fantasy-fuelled ideas on the shape and scope of the Armed Forces, sometimes dreaming of creating big armies and vast air forces. It is as if policymakers were entirely rudderless and have no experience to draw upon to guide them in deciding the best balance of air, sea and land capabilities for Britain.
This is the illusion of choice when there isn’t one: for Britain to turn its back on the seapower is the direct path to national doom. It is akin to playing with fire; eventually, your luck will run out, and you will get burned. Yet it is a gamble taken by successive UK Governments since the rise of nuclear weapons and across the post-first Cold War era.
In the wake of the Cold War UK governments bet against the odds that the world was on a trajectory to lasting peace and the so called ‘peace dividend’ could be reaped. This was, of course, nonsense.
It ignored the lessons of history. In 1919, the path to WW2 was already set; after the use of atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, the world was soon back in the business of war and conflict.
The 21st Century has already proven itself another bloody century.
In 2024, threats to global peace and security include piracy, the illegal invasion of countries, regional skirmishes and long-held disagreements that have all festered and boiled over, from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.
For centuries, there was an understanding in British government that amid the ebb and flow of world events, there needed to be a careful and wise investment in national strategy with maritime at its core. A bespoke navy of unique quality and with an intellectual edge would, in tandem with a professional mobile army, be at the core of national Defence.
The proof was there: Britain had weathered even the toughest challenges through centuries to become a prosperous nation free from intimidation and invasion.
But understanding of this was thrown away after 1964 with the creation of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), excessive Treasury control and with defence policy designed to fit within the narrow confines of the political cycle and ideology.
Subsequently, this has seen different approaches to Defence and Foreign Policy, chopping and changing to reflect whims rather any significant change of circumstance. This is something utterly antithetical to having a working national Defence strategy.
The numerous and ever-increasing frequency of American style ‘defence reviews’ supports the notion that there is less certainty in the direction of the world. In reality, conclusions drawn from previous reviews, and attendant changes (including organisational) within endless reviews are a sign of chaos. Past reviews should be seen for what they often were - paper tigers.
By comparison, a strategy based on experience can easily handle these changes. Lousy planning cannot. The aims that false prophets set out in official documents and at the dispatch box in Parliament are about short-term tick-box exercises rather than achieving effectiveness and efficiency. UK Defence policy has been made to depend on a change of government or Cabinet rather than long-term planning and strategy, something that should be protected from easy interference. To overcome this problem there is education. That educating Whitehall is the first task for Defence, shows that deep awareness of Defence matters is scant in political circles and this is teamed with a lack of awareness of how dangerous the world is.
It combines to push Defence down the priority list. This is allied with a belief that maintaining a strong Royal Navy and cultivating a maritime-based national strategy are optional, somewhat niche, even old-fashioned.
Then there is the misdirection that NATO is everything, rather than just being part of a broader whole and that British seapower should be consigned to one geographic area (such as the Atlantic, meaning that Indo-Pacific, for example, can be left to other nations and their navies).
It has all combined to represent a dumbing down in government with regard to Defence. Yet, it’s not hard to understand that world affairs impact an island nation, which in turn requires global presence. Instead we get the dangerous delusion that Britain needs to be a major land power with the Army and RAF in prime position in national Defence strategy.
Every new UK Govt and Parliament is promptly sold this lie by extreme prophets of land or air power, who reducedefence to a childishly simple equation of technological utopias, assets, numbers and financial spreadsheets. For all the promises of unified Defence, squabbling over roles and budgets has arguably become far worse than when the Admiralty existed.
WHAT should be on the mind of any new government and Parliament first and foremost is what provides the broadest array of options, whether it be for Defence, diplomacy, economic protection or global engagement.
What maximises limited national power while also addressing current and possible future threats? The answer is the same as it’s always been: seapower and maritime strategy.
There will be those who will dismiss this, but history is not on their side. Their arguments might be sounder in states like those of continental Europe or in the United States, but island nations need navies and a national defence strategy based on maritime principles.
The Royal Navy – its high quality training and people above all - have successfully defended Britain for centuries,enabling the nation to achieve its goals. It has not been achieved via any brutish, dumb strength or the deployment of the Army and RAF but all service participation in a maritime posture. That enduring reality needs to inform the education of a new Cabinet in government and MPs generally, let alone the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary. Politicians often come from backgrounds with little knowledge of Defence, and even what they do know can be distorted.
It underlines why they have military counsel with the Service Chiefs and need long-term permanent civilian advisors. This worked better before unified defence than under the MoD as today, civil servants are often no longer institutional guardians of knowledge.
And there is no need to overcomplicate the message. Professional debates should remain in professional circles while the big decisions are rightfully reserved for Cabinet with scrutiny from Parliament. What politicians do need to know is quite simple. That is, Major Strategy of the nation reflects non-negotiable realities in defending the island nation like protecting shipping. Minor Strategy of the nation comprises of matters of day-to-day business where conflict and war must be addressed. The mandate for Defence is a duty of all governments, regardless of who forms them; it is not a matter of picking and choosing. The issue of border security and global affairs will be something that the new government may take different approaches to, but it isn’t going away, let alone for the public or Parliament.
Navies are long-term instruments and assets of the State.
British seapower is a surgical blade, not a blunt tool, with many different facets to its use beyond power projection. That is why, if probably managed, it offers great efficiency and effectiveness as a better value proposition to the taxpayer for a range of tasks in peacetime or otherwise.
Defence must weather political turmoil and today – as we are here aiming to keep things simple - the Royal Navy urgently needs more ships and submarines. This drives the need to recruit quality personnel, which in turn requires making a compelling and competing alternative offer to that of civilian careers. The Navy also needs better logistical and engineering support at sea and improved infrastructure ashore to support it. For those closely following the state of the Royal Navy in recent times, a low point appears to have been reached where the wallpaper has been plastered over too many crumbling walls and there are eroded foundations. Maybe it’s time to ask harsh questions of UK Defence as a whole? Answers will be readily forthcoming if minds are open to a broader view on UK Defence.
Fiddling around the edges will not suffice. For decades, that approach has simply not delivered. Reform is needed across Defence with big questions long ignored in need of answers. Like how many armed forces Britain should have?What Britain must do and cannot do needs answering. That which it cannot realistically achieve – such as major continental commitment of an Army in time of war – must surely be abandoned in favour of the maritime arena where it can support allies and have decisive influence.
