As part of a defense review in 2015, London vowed to stop cutbacks on the fleet. Reductions in 2010 sliced another 8 percent in real terms. Navy and Military Sealift Command, the Pentagon’s fleet of support ships, have roughly 400.)īritain’s fleet has declined amid steady defense budget cuts, from 4.1 percent of gross domestic product in 1988 to 2.6 percent in 2010. Today, the British navy doesn’t even have jet fighters.
On D-Day in 1944, it was able to send more than 900 British warships across the English Channel to escort the Allied troops who would liberate Europe from Nazi Germany.Īs recently as 1982, the Royal Navy could quickly muster no fewer than 115 ships - including two aircraft carriers carrying jet fighters, plus 23 destroyers and frigates - to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina. Remove what was once the world’s leading fleet, and you create a virtual security vacuum.ĭuring World War Two, the British fleet was still dominant. It takes navies to keep an eye on vast ocean regions. Navies that die from neglect leave a void that rogue states, terrorists and criminals can quickly fill. Patrolling international waters with sophisticated sensors and powerful, long-range weaponry, they can respond more quickly to crises and bring more firepower to bear than can air forces (which require nearby runways) and armies (which move slowly). Yet navies remain crucial to national defense. The British fleet’s collapse is an object lesson for cash-strapped governments struggling to balance competing budgetary needs in a seemingly ever more volatile world. The West is mobilizing to defeat Islamic State, deter an increasingly aggressive Russia and manage China’s meteoric rise as a world power. With morale plummeting, and its few remaining ships frequently malfunctioning at sea, the Royal Navy’s suffering might be terminal. Though London officials now vow to reverse the decline, it might be too late. It can barely patrol the United Kingdom’s own waters, much less project British influence abroad. Government budgeteers have repeatedly, and excessively, cut the numbers of its ships, planes and manpower. Today, however, the Royal Navy is a shadow of its former self. So any weakening of the Royal Navy also erodes Washington’s naval power. The two have fought together against most every foe. Traditionally, Britain’s Royal Navy has been the U.S. That’s a serious problem for allies like the United States. She also said, “I would think they would go to protect their own interests just for escorting purposes and not for policing.The Royal Navy's largest ever warship HMS "Queen Elizabeth" is floated out of its dock for the first time in Rosyth, Scotland, July 2014. “China is usually quite conservative about playing with the big guys or saying they’re going to match up with them,” said Jane Chan, an associate research fellow in the maritime security program at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The union’s operation, code-named Atalanta, joined other navies already patrolling there, including those from the United States, Russia and India. To help combat the sharp rise of increasingly brazen pirate attacks in the gulf, the European Union deployed its first-ever naval mission this month, a six-ship flotilla. “They may not seem out in front, but they work extremely hard in the back seat.” “The Chinese have been working diplomatically with the Yemeni government and coast guard, and their ambassador in Nairobi is very heavily involved,” Mr. While China has been “quite wary of putting maritime assets in the region and wary of doing anything out in the open,” Chinese diplomats have been active in antipiracy efforts, according to Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association. Last month, two Chinese ships were hijacked there: a fishing trawler and a cargo ship flying the Hong Kong flag and carrying wheat. About 60 percent of China’s imported oil comes from the Middle East, and much of that passes through the Gulf of Aden, along with huge shipments of raw materials from Africa.