The New 1st Land Lord? The Challenges Ahead for General Jenkins

 

General Sir Gwyn Jenkins has taken over as the professional head of the Royal Navy, the first Royal Marine to occupy the role of “First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff”. This is a move which is to be warmly welcomed, although the General will have many challenges ahead of him during his tenure.

While most have welcomed the move, there has been some mild hysteria on social media at the idea of a General heading the Royal Navy – what madness is this? The argument seems to be that apparently because Royal Marines haven’t commanded ships, they are somehow not able to lead the Royal Navy. Such an argument is fatuous nonsense.

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The RN is a surprisingly tribal organisation of roughly 30,000 people, with its regular personnel broadly divided into four fighting arms – the Surface Fleet, the Submarine Service, the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Marines. The surface fleet is the closest to being a ‘generalist’ branch, although in its own way it is intensely tribal with different branches, organisations and structures. The Submariners and the FAA are unsurprisingly a bit of a closed shop, due to their missions, role and locations – it is not quite a ‘private navy’, but it would be rare for many personnel to serve at both Faslane supporting submarines and then to Culdrose or Yeovilton supporting aircraft.  It is better to think of these fighting arms as smaller versions of the RN, each with its own culture, ethos and experience, and very different ways of bringing the fight to the enemy.

There have been First Sea Lords from the Surface Fleet, Submarine Service and FAA – no one has questioned the ability of an admiral who may have spent large parts of their career within a tribal part of the Service to lead all of it appropriately. Yet some seem to think that the General is somehow unable to do this due to his Royal Marines past. This makes very little sense – surely if this were true, how could any 1SL lead the Royal Marines effectively given they have, to the authors knowledge, never held a green beret?

The role of the 1^st Sea Lord is not to stride the bridge in battle and fight wars against the enemy. He (and hopefully soon She) is the professional head of a complex organisation, employing tens of thousands of service personnel, reservists, civil servants and contractors on every continent. There are Royal Navy personnel based around the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and from the depths of the ocean to the skies far above. This role is about leadership, delivering the Government of the days desired defence policy outcomes, setting strategic direction for the Service and ensuring that it can deliver on its responsibilities.

The role of 1SL is part CEO, part diplomat, part public engagement and orator, and part politician. They need to be able to set a vision but accept their ability to deliver it is limited due to the time taken for naval procurement – while HMS VENTURER was rolled out of the yard today (27 May) some 10 years after the Type 31 was conceived, there have been no less than five permanent 1SL incumbents in this time. The post holder is also ultimately responsible for the delivery of operations, including the Deterrent, to the Prime Minister, and in providing advice to No10 on naval military matters.

Nowhere in this job description does it require the post holder to be a military planner capable of standing in an operations room trying to use the enigma decrypts to plot convoy movements. The RN has a series of highly qualified professional senior officers who can provide this battle staff, and who know how to fight in the maritime domain. Complaining that General Jenkins won’t be able to do this is akin to complaining that an Admiral has no idea how to launch a combined arms ground attack at night on enemy positions…

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In fact in General Jenkins the RN is getting someone uniquely qualified for the role. He has spent many years working both at the sharpest end of the front line in the murky world of Special Forces, and then latterly in Whitehall. He has worked extensively across the No10 and Cabinet Office apparatus, gaining a deep understanding of the threats facing the UK, the means to respond to them and the tools available to the State to deliver this. He is by far the most Whitehall savvy operator that the RN has ever had in this role – with far more exposure not just to the Machiavellian politics of Main Building, but the wider world of the Civil Service and how the system really works.

For the Royal Navy this matters because having the General in post during the coming Spending Review, Defence Review and follow on work is akin to bringing a GPMG to a knife fight. He will have a much deeper understanding of Whitehall, its priorities and how the RN (and arguably wider Defence) can align itself to them in a way that benefits and protects the Service for the long haul than many. The RN will benefit from his deep experience in this space.

More widely the Generals arrival will help set the scene for the wider transformation of the Royal Navy. A common theme that serving friends of the author bring up is that the RN is now undergoing an epoch defining transformation, away from being a sea going service that operates and fights from the sea, to one that is far more of a land based maritime force that relies on the land to operate and fight from the sea. The move to autonomous / optionally crewed vessels will require a massive culture shift, as missions previously carried out by ships, will increasingly be conducted via land-based HQ’s overseeing patrols, analysing data and using a plethora of uncrewed assets to conduct missions and fight.

The RN of the future will be as much a land based maritime strike force as it will be a sea going fighting force – the next 5- 10 years will be a crucial part of this transformation. Having a General in charge may help some of the vital culture shift, where what is needed is not necessarily a warfare officer without a bridge, or a gunner without a gun, but logistics officers, HGV drivers, people able to move ISO containers and set up FOBS and then sustain and defend them. The future navy will require highly trained technical analysts, autonomous experts and people able to fight a virtual battle in the morning, and then stag on at night. This is not going to be like the navy of yesteryear. Having a General in charge will help the shift in culture and mentality required to make this transition.

More widely there are both opportunities and challenges ahead – assuming a three – four-year appointment, the General should oversee the introduction and FOC of both Type 26 and 31, the move to the next phase of uncrewed Mine Hunting, the completion of the ASTUTE build programme and moves to bring the FSS and MRSS forward. There is an exciting opportunity ahead for him, but he will need to lead carefully, as there are also land mines aplenty.

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For starters, the fleet is currently in an increasingly desperate state of material sustainability. The Type 23 force is elderly and operating well past its original design limits – at some point a decision will have to be taken on how many of the remaining hulls are still safe for use at sea. This may result in more payoffs to keep the survivors operational for longer. The regeneration of the Type 45 continues, and these vessels play a major role in the fleet, and are now ‘blooded’ as they approach early middle age. It is fair to say that the Type 31 and Type 26 cannot arrive soon enough for the RN, which desperately needs them in service to replace now long dead T23s.

The Submarine Service is regenerating, following a difficult year, but the challenges of 6 month plus SSBN patrols continue. Unless urgent action is taken to bring this down, and return to the more normal patrol routine, the force will start to lose submariners who cannot do yet another 6 month patrol removed from all human contact. The assurance of CASD is central to the RN identity, which publicly has never broken the patrol cycle in nearly 60 years. But, without urgent change, there is a real risk that CASD may be broken.

Finally there is a need to offer a positive vision to the Royal Marines themselves. Speak to some former bootnecks and there is an occasional sense that they have been a forgotten part of the RN for years – not wanted, not needed and sacrificed to make other more glamorous ship stuff happen. This is neither fair nor true, but it points to a period, particularly in the 2000s and 2010s when ‘Royal’ was used as a light infantry unit in TELIC and HERRICK and stepped far away from the concept of landing by sea. The RN too has massively disinvested in amphibious shipping, preferring to pay off the LPH, LPD and draw down LSD(A) capability in the realisation that there simply is no credible scenario for amphibious shipping in this way.

What needs to be done now though is sell the Corps a vision of how it will play an integral role in the future Navy. The Future Commando Force concept of a highly skilled force of exceptional maritime infantry, able to conduct raids, carry out highly specialist tasks, conduct SF missions and be ‘hoofing’ is highly compelling – but it requires funding, and ships. The first changes are already afoot, with reports that the Navy is planning to acquire a new series of commando insertion craft,  while the Multi Role Strike Ship, which if funded will be the future platform for Royal – a globally deployed strike force capable of supporting specialist missions when required. Add this to the resurgence of Norway and Arctic defence as a key mission, and the future for Royal looks bright – and even more compelling with one of their own at the top.

General Jenkins has a challenging few years ahead of him, he will need to see through the SDR, hold his nerve over likely to be highly painful defence cuts later this year and see through the case for investment in the Royal Navy for the next generation of vessels including MRSS and the Type 83. He must do this against a financially constrained environment, and a globally unsettled world where the threats are many and various.

It is traditional to wish the incumbent luck, but, as noted, given that his mission will be to secure the future of the Service as a whole on its transition to a more land based force, perhaps it would be a good move to signal a change in title and call himself not “First Sea Lord” but “First Land Lord” instead?