Thin Pinstriped Line

The inspiration for this article came from a recent Guardian article which was talking about the role of the RN’s OPV fleet post Brexit, and which placed some fairly dismissive views on the role of HMS SEVERN during her lengthy west indies deployment. In turn this sparked a wider debate on Twitter about whether ‘forward basing’ was the answer for the RN in the West Indies. The Royal Navy has had a long history in the West Indies from buccaneers and naval battles of old through to a pretty much continuous presence for the last 200 years. Throughout the Cold War the RN commitment in the region was built around a naval presence headquartered in Bermuda (HMS MALABAR) and supported by a small number of frigates to support the UK colonial commitment to the area. Administered initially under the post of ‘Senior Naval Officer West Indies’ (SNOWI) which was disbanded in 1976, the RN presence reduced to a rotating escort, and HMS MALABAR (used for cold war duties, and which closed in the 1...

In the last week or so there have been two major Defence Reviews announced in France and Australia. Both nations are close partners of the UK and significant powers on the global stage, which means that these results are of direct interest to the UK.   The announcement of the French Defence Review, reported back on the future structure of the French military for the next 10 years. Essentially akin to the UK SDSR, the work was designed to address French budget challenges, and try to create a sustainable force which is affordable in the near future. The Think Defence website has helpfully collected a summary of all the reporting on the event ( HERE ) which are well worth reading.   In many ways the review highlights the challenging position France finds itself in at the start of the 21 st Century. Unlike the UK, the French have never had an ‘East of Suez’ moment, and arguably French policy for many years has been to continue projecting a low level amount of power a...

  So, a few weeks after an initial intervention involving just two RAF C17s, the UK has now found itself committing a significantly higher number of troops, equipment and capabilities into play in Mali and the wider West Africa region in support of French operations there. At home, the debate suddenly seems to have intensified over the size of the Defence budget, and how much national treasure needs to be spent on security. There have been many complex issues discussed, and in this piece, Humphrey wants to try and put out some wider thoughts about what the Mali intervention may mean. The first and foremost lesson is very simple – namely that the UK has quite clearly retained a superb ability to deploy military personnel on operations around the world, even in areas where there is no traditional UK support network at very short notice. The initial deployment of C17s showed the real value of 99 Squadron, while wider deployment of Sentinel, ISTAR assets and provision of a RO...

There was a brief flurry of announcements last week that the Royal Navy would be conducting a deployment into the Med with the Response Force Task Group (RFTG), to conduct exercises with a range of partner nations across the region (the official MOD press release can be found here - http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/September/27/120921-Cougar-Preview ). This is a not insignificant deployment – sending some 3500 personnel into the Med represents roughly 10% of the Naval Services manpower total strength. At the same time, it is also being done while the RN continues to fill its other key deployments, such as the Atlantic Patrol Task, and operations in the Gulf. While this blog has never tried to put itself across as a ‘fanboy’ site, it is worth noting that there are very, very few navies in the world capable of sustaining on a permanent basis the number of operational deployments and training deployments that the RN does. The news of COUGAR 12 matters...

The speech by the Secretary of State for Defence, Phillip Hammond, on the evolution of UK defence got a large amount of media attention this week. The entire transcript of the speech can be found over at the Think Defence website ( Link here) .   The speech was noteworthy for starting to expose the thinking underpinning the structural changes in the armed forces at present. As has been seen, the procurement budget has now been balanced, and the PR12 exercise completed. Theoretically the MOD procurement budget is now properly sorted and able to deliver everything still left in it. The next herculean task is to try to solve the problem of downsizing the military to meet the requirements of the future. SDSR Vision Although widely seen by many as a cuts exercise, one thing SDSR did well was to try to extract the UK from the long term defence ambition of building large armed forces optimised for entry on to foreign territory with a view to staying for a prolonged time. The lessons...

A decision has finally been reached on the F35 procurement, with Phillip Hammond formally announcing to the Commons that the STOVL version is to be purchased. This author has deliberately held off commenting previously on the F35 saga, preferring to wait for a formal announcement in the House before making his own assessment. It is now time to suggest that contrary to much of the media coverage, the decision reached was the correct one. Imagine the anger that would be in today’s papers had Phillip Hammond announced that there had been a 100% cost increase in the procurement of the catapults required to turn CVF into a conventional carrier. Doubtless commentators would have noted with incredulity that MOD had managed to bring about a £1 billion cost increase in just 18 months, and that it was near scandalous that they were continuing with this procurement at a point when the STOVL aircraft offered a far cheaper alternative. It is likely that people would demand lessons be l...

Francois Hollande’s election as the next President of France has gained worldwide attention.   Much has been made of his desire to introduce a different approach to French domestic politics, and also to try to change the nature of French relations with the Eurozone in order to build a better deal for France. What is less clear thus far, is his views on where France sits as a military power. Humphrey has long puzzled over what France actually is, and what its aspirations are, when it comes to deciding on its place in the military world. In many ways France and the UK are two good examples of the different approaches a post-colonial power can adopt as it seeks to come to terms with the loss of influence, and physical possession, and instead move to a more multi-polar world. Both nations are sovereign nuclear powers, both have military bases, and physical real estate on all continents on earth, and both have aspirations to act as powers with global interests and reach. Yet ...