Thin Pinstriped Line

  Over the last few weeks we have been reminded of the gentle power of both presence and permanence when it comes to naval power. For the Royal Navy, the deployment of two RIVER class OPVs to the Pacific Ocean on a 5 year deployment marks the return to a constant naval presence in the region last seen in the 1990s with the Hong Kong squadron. HMS SPEY and TAMAR have been deployed into this vast region full of tiny nations and big challenges to help represent British interests in the area. Historically a region where the UK has had relatively limited naval presence or influence, even at the height of RN power subcontracting the Imperial fleets presence to the Royal Australian and New Zealand Navies, this is an area of increasing importance for geopolitical reasons for the British government. HMS TAMAR on Ex Bersama Lima - Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright The commitment to an Indo-Pacific tilt in the 2021 Integrated Review, which helped show the UK looking beyond tra...

  In the ongoing tragedy that is the war in Ukraine, the invading Russian forces have suffered another significant loss. The cruiser ‘Moskva’, flagship of the Black Sea fleet, and one of the largest ships in the Russian Navy, has been sunk by the Ukrainians. This is, to put it mildly a significant and stunning tactical victory for Ukraine, and an abject humiliation for Russia. To lose the most capable and powerful vessel in your naval task force, and one of the most powerful surface combatants afloat is gobsmacking. It is hard to take in that a ship, namesake of a class that caused a major series of tactical headaches in NATO when they appeared as the Slava class in the 1980s has been so easily destroyed. This news matters on multiple levels, and will undoubtedly prove a significant point of reference when future accounts of the Ukrainian victory in the war against Russia are written in the, hopefully, not too distant future. The loss of a major surface vessel in combat opera...

  The war in Ukraine has raised many questions, and resulted in significant analysis of, the Russian Armed Forces and their potential capability. For over three quarters of a century, the Soviet, then Russian military has been the benchmark against which the UK and wider NATO has sought to match and outperform. It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Russian equipment has dominated NATO members thinking for decades. Cold war publications talk in breathless terms of Soviet military superiority and how the West is surely doomed. Others talk about how simple and effective Russian kit is, and how the West has overinvested in too complex equipment that will be outnumbered and destroyed, and therefore the West is surely doomed. Yet for all this, Russian performance here seems to suggest that perhaps the Russian Armed Forces are not necessarily the terrifying bogeyman some thought they could be. Is it time to ask the question ‘have we overestimated our potential foe, and if s...

  On 02 April 1982 Argentinean forces invaded the Falkland Islands, and following a brief but bloody battle, defeated the small Royal Marine garrison and took control of the islands. 73 days later they in turn surrendered to a British task force who liberated the islanders. 255 British and 694 Argentineans were killed along with 3 Falkland Islanders. We are now roughly as far from the Falklands War as the war was from the battle of Alamein, a reminder of the passage of time. Forty years later and the war feels as if it is passing into history, yet it deserves to be remembered properly. The lessons of the Falkland’s ring true to this day, and should not be forgotten. At its heart is the story of a despotic regime lying to its troops about the reception they would receive, anticipating an easy victory and finding themselves overwhelmed and militarily defeated by a power few thought would fight, and which received support externally to do so. There is a clear parallel here with th...