A textbook example of small gun gunboat diplomacy - HMS TRENT in Guyana

The Royal Navy patrol ship HMS TRENT has arrived in Guyana for a routine port visit. The ship, which has recently arrived in the West Indies after sailing from Gibraltar has already called in at Barbados, and judging by her twitter feed also managed to enjoy a good Christmas at sea (hands to bathe in the Caribbean anyone?). She has now conducted a port visit that has made headlines due to the wider international situation. This has aroused both the ire of the Venezuelan Government and the ire of legions of ‘armchair admirals’ who continue their ongoing obsession with the fact that the Royal Navy has patrol ships that don’t carry the firepower of a Frigate, and that somehow  the ship is a ‘sitting duck’. In reality this is a situation which perfectly demonstrates both the proportionality of gunboat diplomacy and the importance of scaled escalation.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2021

Following a recent ‘referendum’ (of a highly questionable nature) the Venezuelan regime is now claiming a significant proportion of Guyana for its own territory. Ignoring that these claims have no basis in international law or that they conveniently seem to cover areas of the country that are potentially oil rich, this seems a flagrant attempt by one of the worlds more despotic governments to shift attention away from its catastrophic handling of the economy in recent years. Guyana, a former British colony and member of the Commonwealth, by contrast is a small and relatively poor state, with limited military forces and no credible way to defend its territory alone against determined attack.

Amid the sabre rattling by Venezuela, the UK has taken the decision to engage in a port visit to Guyana by HMS TRENT. While the visit is not formally to do with the dispute, it is remarkably useful timing to have it occur as a very visible symbol of British support. Naturally the Venezuelan regime has responded with anger to this news, condemning the visit outright.

Port visits are a very powerful diplomatic tool when used well. The decision to send a ship to visit a friendly port helps reiterate to others the ongoing links between two nations and the positive relationship that exists. In this case the visit enabled the UK to host the Commander of the Guyana Defence Forces for a demonstration of the ships capabilities, supported by the British High Commissioner, and doubtless led to discussions about future opportunities for further defence and security related collaboration. In addition it is the perfect chance to foster good working relationships and engage in bilateral training opportunities. The visit was the perfect chance for the Royal Navy to return to waters it has rarely visited in recent decades and help bolster bilateral relations.

The reason that TRENT was the right ship for the job is because of her size and capability. Send too big a ship on a port visit and it will look visually impressive, but be of limited relevance to the host nation – Guyana has a very small  coastguard, the flagship was the former RN RIVER class MCMV HMS ORWELL, but she is now reportedly unserviceable. If the RN sent a Type 45 to visit, the scale of the vessel and her capabilities would be far beyond anything the GDF operates, making joint training of limited value. By contrast, sending a smaller ship at the same rough level of capability as the Guyanan Coast Guard is far more valuable – training can be relevant and appropriate, for example joint manoeuvres or practising coast guard style drills. There is far more value in working at the same level than in leaving your hosts impressed but unable to take meaningful lessons from the experience. By working in partnership, you set the stage for future visits that will take the defence relationship to the next level.

Some social media commentators have suggested that the RN presence is pretty pitiful and that if the UK is doing gunboat diplomacy, it should send a message to Venezuela using ‘real warships’. This is utter nonsense. The whole point about defence engagement is that it is scaleable – by sending a vessel of a type that permanently operates in the region you’ve set the baseline for the relationship. It’s a reminder of interest and presence but implicit in it is the message that the UK is interested in, and cares about, Guyana. If you want to scale the presence up there are other options – for example increasing the frequency of port visits, conducting joint exercises, bringing in more exercises with the RAF and the British Army, seeing other partner nations also visit and so on. Over time, if Venezuela continues to threaten or move to more overtly aggressive responses, then the toolbox of responses can change – for example, sending a larger frigate / destroyer, or in extremis arranging for the deployment of a Carrier Strike Group to  send a strong signal of concern.

The trick is to get the balance right – if, for example, Whitehall decided to send the CSG now to steam for Guyana at best speed, it would look visually impressive, but has set a high bar for future support and leaves no escalation messaging. How would Venezuela know in future that the UK was increasingly concerned if each time they did something, a carrier popped up – or paradoxically, if your future engagement revolves around OPVS, does it signal lesser commitment as this time you’ve ‘not’ sent a carrier? Balancing this off is key – it makes no sense to go to the top of the escalation ladder from the outset, far better to be careful poker player and hold some cards back in your hand for future use.

TRENT conducting joint training off Africa - UK MOD © Crown copyright 2021

The Venezuelan response is telling of itself – to mobilise 6000 troops and scream condemnation for the routine visit of a sovereign warship to another country indicates a deeply insecure regime. If an OPV can generate this level of hysteria and paranoia, what could a destroyer or carrier do? The more these visits go on, the more that Venezuela will find itself having to react, calling up troops every time a foreign warship visits Guyana will both reduce the impact of the action, as other nations tire of hearing about it, and place strain on resources. If you also see US, French and Dutch visits (for example) then this will place huge pressure on the Venezuelan regime, leaving them with little to show for their anger.  To that end then, a RIVER class OPV is the perfect vessel for the job at hand – small, credible to the hosts and able to do the maritime constabulary and coastguard work that Guyana does, she is the ideal platform to build links to Guyana with. The fact that she carries a light armament is utterly irrelevant as no one except the most febrile minded of souls assumes that she will end up in a shooting war.

The UK naval presence in the West Indies has historically always been low key and lower priority than other tasks. Even at the zenith of British naval supremacy in 1914, there does not appear to have been any RN ships permanently based in the West Indies. After WW2 the presence was built around a small (usually two ships) detachment of frigates and destroyers used to patrol and provide disaster relief when required in the hurricane season. As the emphasis on counter narcotics grew, these ships were used to work in partnership with the US Coast Guard to carry out missions to interdict narcotics traffickers at sea. By the 1980s this commitment had reduced to a single escort, and by the 2010s had been replaced by the near permanent presence of a BAY class landing ship as an ideal platform to conduct disaster relief from.  Today the RN has a presence that is built around a permanently based RIVER class OPV rotating through with different hulls as well as seasonal deployments of a larger vessel as needed – for example this summer HMS DAUNTLESS was the guardship. An occasional visitor has also been HMS PROTECTOR en route to refit in Charleston USA. There has often been an RFA present too, with the WAVE class being particularly long-term visitors and experienced at supporting US Coast Guard operations. It is not uncommon therefore for 2 -3 RN and RFA vessels to be in the wider region and able to support if needed.

The UK has a consistent and capable presence in the region able to always protect our interests, and these are perfect waters for OPVs to be based. The small harbours may prevent larger vessels from visiting, while the scale of the OPV and her capability is ideally matched with local coastguards and police forces. There is no meaningful naval threat in the region that requires up arming ships. Yet if you listen to social media, you’d think the RN had somehow ‘failed’. Some of the posts suggest that it is an embarrassment that the UK can ‘only’ send an OPV, while others worry that the weaponry is too limited and that in the event of war she will be sunk. Others moan that the MOD has failed to give the ships the weapons they need to do the job. All of this is nonsense.

For starters, if you look at the naval presence in the region you’ll see that the RN is one of three foreign nations maintaining a permanent presence in the West Indies. The others being the Netherlands and French, who have a military presence designed to support their overseas territories. In both of these cases their presence is built around a core of a large OPV style vessel – the Dutch usually use a HOLLAND class OPV, a 3000-tonne platform with a 57mm gun and hangar, while the French use a FLOREAL class ‘surveillance frigate’ – essentially a 1990s era light frigate armed with a gun and hangar. In both cases these are ships intended for maritime constabulary work and not high intensity conflict.

HMS TRENT is a very similar vessel in terms of size and capability, the main difference being not having a hangar fitted, which reflects the UK’s operational priorities.  What this means is that the core UK presence in region is at the same level as our peer allies, all of whom are content that gun armed OPVs are ample for the regional security threats. If you look back at online forums for the last 15-20 years you’d see all manner of ‘experts’ suggesting that the RN didn’t need to use a scarce frigate in the West Indies, so why not send an OPV. That this has now been achieved should be music to these peoples ears, but instead the same people are moaning that the OPV isn’t enough to meet the threat and needs to be up gunned urgently. It is difficult to understand what would make some of these people happy – they seem to spend their entire lives moaning about the state of the RN and obsessing over why something isn’t ‘right’.  

The constant obsession some of these people have is that the ships should be up gunned to meet some unspecified threats. The problem with this is that it is impossible to reason with these people to explain that life is about more than just buying a gun or missile and bolting it onto a ship. Sites like ‘warships1’ are full of fantastical posts by dreamers about how if you ‘only’ spend a few million you can buy a bunch of guns or missiles and then refit them to a RIVER and every problem goes away apparently. Absolutely zero consideration is ever given to the logistical and practical realities of refitting a ship with new weapons – for example the impact on the design, changes inside the ship, how to integrate the various different sensors and systems, the impact on storing spare parts and consumables and its effect on other systems. The integration work required to ensure that the weapon works as required and the installation of a combat management system to successfully use the missiles as needed. This is before you even think about where the people are coming from to operate and maintain these systems, as despite the RN suffering a significant personnel crisis, it can apparently magic up a whole cadre of SQEPed officers and ratings to operate these weapons out of nowhere.

Meanwhile the same people seem obsessed with wanting to make an OPV a frigate without giving any thought to the very different design philosophies that these ship classes have. A frigate is designed to go to war and fight in a very high intensity conflict and survive, with an extensive array of weapons and sensors and sufficient crew to carry out damage control if hit. An OPV is a grey hull, but has a far more austere fit of sensors and weapons and isn’t designed or intended to go to war in a serious way – and before you assume this is Treasury and MOD parsimony at play, in fact just about every nation that operates frigates and OPV’s uses them in this way – cheap, expendable and not intended to be in the way when missiles start getting thrown about. They are the ‘third rate’ vessels of the Napoleonic navy in modern form – intended to fly a flag, do the 99% of maritime work that doesn’t involve fighting in a war and doing it cheaply and efficiently. The RIVER class are the latest in a long line of proud RN units designed to be simple and highly effective – they may not have much in weapons, but this is an irrelevance for they are perhaps the most high value defence engagement platforms in the RN today.

The danger of turning these ships into mini frigates is that you both increase their attractiveness as a target, without making them particularly survivable in the process, while also not really asking what they are meant to do in wartime. A lot of commentators seem to think that giving these ships an anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile capability is a good thing to improve their survivability. Yet in wartime, this would turn the platform into a higher priority target for the enemy, and if you have 8 anti-aircraft missiles, what happens when the 9^th jet arrives? This is the problem, giving a limited ability to stand and fight makes you more appealing to be taken out, and increases the likelihood of it happening.  By contrast equipping ships with a gun and supporting MGs gives enough ability to handle pirates or drugs traffickers if needed, without giving the PWO delusions of grandeur about being the next HMS GLOWWORM…

TRENT joint training - UK MOD © Crown copyright 2021

There is a curiously British need to feel angry or despondent about anything the UK does which is a success. In the case of the RIVER class visiting Guyana we’ve seen just about every box ticked in the ‘Armchair Admirals reasons to feel cross’ list. We’ve seen the ideal use of a low key platform armed with the right equipment turn up at the right time to have a real diplomatic effect. This is a great use of maritime forces for diplomatic goals, and it serves as a reminder of the value of having warships permanently based in the West Indies. We’ve used a ship that is of a similar level of capability to our allies in the region and we’ve done so peacefully and effectively. Naturally the online crowds see this as a failure from the embarrassment of ‘only’ sending an OPV to the fact that the crew are apparently sitting ducks in wartime (without for one moment asking whether it is remotely likely that the Venezuelan regime would risk going to war with the UK and Guyana by launching an air strike on an OPV).

Perhaps most importantly all of this has been going on while another RN vessel, HMS DIAMOND has been engaged in a far more active form of gunboat diplomacy in the Red Sea, helping escort merchant shipping and engaging drones. While she has gone to deliver this mission at very short notice, yet more RN vessels including frigates, submarines and aircraft carriers are at high readiness to deploy if needed on operations. The UK has sent gunboats in December while also signalling many more are ready to sail if needed. This is the hallmark of a globally facing navy, that it can scale up to deliver multiple operations globally while still having enough forces at home to regenerate and deploy the next set of ships as needed to continue to meet its missions.

One final thought is  about the future of gunboat diplomacy in a world where autonomous and/or uncrewed vessels will become ever more prevalent. One of the advantages of sending OPVs or MCMVs to visit ports is that they can have a very effective role to play in human engagement, be it building links to local organisations, helping charities or hosting a cocktail party to support British interests. This cannot be done with an uncrewed platform, which raises the question about how will modern navies do gunboat diplomacy in the future, in an age where they can send a gunboat, but lack the human touch to be able to carry out the engagement which makes these visits so successful. Does this mean as much effort needs to be made on support ships for enabling these visits, or building more cheap OPVs to carry out routine port visits in order to sustain a defence relationship that will otherwise struggle if there are no port visits to speak of?