Thin Pinstriped Line

  There has been a lot of coverage of the news that the Chinese Navy has recently conducted the first jet trials on their new aircraft carrier (Liaoning), with a total of 5 arrested landings (so-called touch and go) being carried out on trials. This is clearly an impressive development, and shows that China has now proven itself capable of something that only the Navies of Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Thailand, the UK and US have previously done – namely land a jet at sea. Does this mean though that the maritime balance of power in Asia has altered, and that the Chinese are suddenly a more potent force? Look at some of the hype on the internet and you’ll see portents of doom, with people declaring that these landings somehow make the Chinese Navy immensely capable and that the USN and RN and all other navies are somehow irrelevant. A more balanced view is that actually this is a tiny step on a very long ...

News broke recently that the USS NIMITZ, one of 11 USN super carriers, has had her deployment to the Persian Gulf delayed by several months due to engineering problems. This delay will reduce the availability of carriers in the Gulf to just one active vessel for much of 2013. This news, while in itself not exactly unexpected – after all NIMITZ is nearly forty years old now, and it is inevitable that vessels that age develop machinery challenges – does perhaps illustrate a wider concern about just how thinly stretched the USN is now, and how this is likely to get more challenging. On paper from next week the USN will operate 10 aircraft carriers, all NIMITZ class, after the USS ENTERPRISE is decommissioned. In reality those 10 vessels are going to be thinly stretched across the globe. Right now, of the 10 hulls, Nimitz is undergoing repairs, three are forward deployed (two are in the Gulf, one is in Japan) and another is available for tasking in the US. One (Abraham Lincoln) ...

It’s been a busy few days for the author, and time to sit, think and then write has been in short supply. One of the challenges of writing a blog is to be able to have the space to think through the issue, and identify one’s own views on a subject prior to writing about it. Although the author hasn’t had much of a chance to do this recently, it perhaps is a useful way of highlighting a new website which warrants much wider attention. During the Cold War the Civil Service found itself being asked to ‘think the unthinkable’ and provide advice to Ministers and consider planning for the continuity of the State during the transition to war, through to the point where nuclear weapons were released, and then finally how to pick up the pieces again in the aftermath of the conflict. This is perhaps the most serious and difficult task asked of any civil servant – how does one consider the acts which may well lead to the deaths of millions, and then consider how to continue Government ...

  The main defence story of the day is the reported comments of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) General Sir David Richards, who reportedly delivered a frank assessment on the challenges facing the military at Oxford University, which according to some internet sources was part of the ‘Changing Nature of War’ module. What has seemingly caused media attention are three issues, although sadly Humphrey has yet to track down a full transcript of what the General actually said. Firstly, there has been some attention raised on the suggestion that CDS has had to advise politicians that defence cuts mean they have to reign in their ambition. Frankly this seems to be a non-story. The role of all CDS, or equivalents in history, is surely to provide impartial advice to politicians about the ability of the military to deliver effect. It is almost inevitable that every CDS (or their service forebears prior to the 1960s) in recent history will have had to have had some equivalent c...

In a deliberately provocative article on Sat 10 November ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9667102/Max-Hastings-Farewell-to-our-warrior-nation.html ) , Sir Max Hastings used a column in the Telegraph to argue that the UK is no longer a warrior nation. The gist of his argument was that defence cuts will lead to an unwillingness by political leaders to use force in future, and that our glories belong to the past, and not the future. The author strongly disagrees with this very fatuous statement. At its most simple, the UK is a warrior nation. For centuries the ability to willingly inflict violence upon others who threaten our existence and way of life has been a hallmark of the UK national character. The means by which we have done this have changed out of all recognition; allegations that the military is now smaller than the end of the Napoleonic wars can easily be countered by the realisation   that the modern military is infinitely more capable than a Napole...

  Freshly returned from his holidays, Humphrey has been catching up on the news and defence related matters which cropped up during his absence. Clearly a lot of interesting developments have occurred in recent weeks, and there is much to comment on and consider. As a brief start to taking stock of developments, the author was particularly interested in the strange saga of the Argentine Navy and the US ‘Vulture Fund’ known as NML Capital. The strange story goes back to Argentine economic woes of the last decade, and the use of military vessels as collateral for loans. When Argentina stopped paying up, and defaulted on its debts, the suddenly a whole raft of Argentine assets, including naval vessels, have become legitimate targets in the eyes of NML Capital to try and recover their debt (estimated at some £230m). In recent years the Argentinean government has been struggling to try and prevent loss of assets in this manner. Reportedly President Kirchner does not fly abr...