I wrote recently
on the Blair government’s mocking and degrading the institutions of
British Knighthoods, honors, and ceremonies. It is also, it seems,
degrading another part of British national identity that is
considerably more substantial — the Royal Navy.
Plans have been revealed to “mothball,” as a prelude to probable
scrapping or sale, a total of almost half the Navy’s 44 remaining
major warships. Indeed this has already happened with 13, including
one of the three small aircraft-carriers. Senior officers have said
that these latest cuts will reduce the Royal Navy to nothing more
than a coast-guard.
The 13 warships now in reduced readiness would take 18 months to
make ready for active service. Another six destroyers and frigates
and at least two other ships appear to be about to join them.
The names these latest destroyers and frigates to be reduced —
Cumberland, Chatham, Cornwall,
Campbeltown, Southampton and Exeter —
are eloquent of the navy’s already withered state. In World War II
four of these names were carried by major cruisers. One of the new
names, Chatham, has not been a ship’s name previously because it
was the name of a famous base and dockyard closed in 1984.
With continuing cuts, the Royal Navy recently became smaller
than the French navy for the first time in centuries, though
France, not being an island, actually has much less need for a
navy.
WHEN THE BLAIR LABOUR GOVERNMENT came to power in 1997, the Royal
Navy had 23 frigates. It now has 17. It then had 12 destroyers, and
now has eight. It had the three Invincible-class aircraft-carriers
and now has two — the name-ship HMS Invincible is one of
those ships that has been reduced and may never go to sea again —
and it had 12 hunter-killer submarines and now has 10. Mine
counter-measures vessels and auxiliary fleet oil tankers may also
go.
These reductions are setting aside the ballistic-missile
submarines, which have a highly specialized and separate role,
quite distinct from most duties of a post-Cold War navy. However
the ballistic-missile submarine base in Scotland may also be under
threat if the Scottish National Assembly, created by the Blair
government, returns a Scottish Nationalist majority at its
elections later this year.
Things get worse for the Royal Navy on closer inspection: it now
has no Harrier fighter aircraft to fly off the remaining carriers.
Of its three remaining major bases, one may be closed shortly. It
has been suggested that the most likely target for closure is
Portsmouth, the most historic of Britain’s Naval ports, where
Nelson’s Victory is preserved. There are apparently plans afoot to
turn Portsmouth base and dockyards into a theme park. Probably
worst of all, according to the Daily Telegraph a leaked
document suggests there be no naval officer promotions for five
years. Apart from towing the remaining ships and crews out to sea
and sinking them, it is impossible to imagine a policy more
damaging to the Navy in the long-term. What able and ambitious
officer would remain in such an organization?
It is also possible that the few orders for new ships will be
cut, including two big aircraft-carriers which have been under
discussion since 1997 (I wrote at that time that the Navy was
referring to them as HMS Nebulous and HMS
Unlikely.)
Even if these two carriers do eventuate, it is hard to see how
they could operate with so few escorts, and how the highly trained
and skilled personnel necessary to operate them and their
air-groups will be found when the Navy has ceased to offer
attractive career-paths for able people.
Things are looking grim for the other services too, though the
problems of the Army and Royal Air Force need articles of their
own. It can hardly be said that this is happening in a peaceful
world environment where armed forces are not needed: more British
forces are deployed overseas than at any time in the last 50 years,
and there are many complaints that they are over-stretched, badly
equipped, and badly paid and housed.
The professional head of the Navy, Sir Jonathan Band, said
recently that more ships were needed because of threats of piracy
and terrorism. One senior serving officer was quoted as saying of
the latest proposed reductions: “What this means is that we are now
no better than a coastal defense force….The Dutch now have a
better Navy than Britain.”
It has been forecast that commitments to anti-drugs patrols and
hurricane relief support in the Caribbean will have to be dropped.
It was also recently said that the Navy had become too small and
weak to join in any proposed sanctions against North Korea.
Steve Bush, editor of the magazine Warship World, was
reported as saying: “After ten years of Labour government, the
Royal Navy is on its knees. Without immediate and proper funding, I
cannot see how it can recover.”
With the few remaining units of the fleet stretched around the
world from the Gulf to the Caribbean, and with treaty obligations
as far away as Malaysia and Singapore, Britain is reported to have
just two frigates, HM Ships Monmouth and
Montrose, available for duty in home waters, with the
Carrier Ark Royal due to re-enter service after a
refit.
IT APPEARS TO BE PART of a pattern of degrading British defense
forces that has been going on for a long time, and accelerated when
the Blair government came to power. It also seems part of the
fundamental incoherence and lack of joined-up thinking
characteristic of the Blair government that it has demanded more
and more of the armed services while starving them of equipment,
treating their personnel badly, and degrading many aspects of their
identity and traditions. As an example of the last, despite the
Royal Navy’s proud, ancient, and succinct motto, “Fear God. Honour
the King,” HMS Cumberland was recently obliged by diktats
of political correctness to install a special Satanist chapel to
accommodate the religious requirements of a Satanist crewman.
Skimping on combat equipment, including instances of
sub-standard and unreliable ammunition and a shortage of
flak-jackets, has already been blamed for many British deaths in
Iraq and Afghanistan. This has happened despite warnings by serving
soldiers, senior officers and others. A senior officer in an
Australian warship back from duty in the Gulf told me British
forces there appeared to be living on cheese or tuna sandwiches —
much to the disgust of U.S. troops guarding oil-rigs who were also
fed the same rations. The Times has recently reported
films that show British troops in Afghanistan, lacking helicopter
re-supply, being forced to forage for corn-cobs in fields in
pre-Napoleonic style.
At a different level, it seems further evidence of incoherent
thinking that the Blair government apparently believes that it can
trade on a special relationship with the U.S. with these shrunken,
dwarfish, armed forces, or be respected in Europe as a major power.
It all seems to bear out what certain critics have been saying from
Day One: the Blair government is largely composed of people — a
significant number of them were student radicals in the 1960s —
who actually don’t like Britain.
The latest cuts to the Navy are, apparently, to save the sum of
about U.S. $500 million a year. This is from the government that
spent about U.S. $2 billion on the useless and purposeless
Millennium Dome, in the country with the fourth biggest economy in
the world, which will be spending at least — at least! — U.S. $20
billion on the 2012 London Olympic Games, and the country which in
2005 spent about U.S. $170 million on Christmas presents for pet
animals and about U.S. $80 billion on gambling. Oh, not to mention
about U.S. $5 billion planned for new Ministry of Defense offices
in Whitehall.
