There is generally a certain satisfaction in being able to say,
“I told you so!” On January
18 and February
23 I published articles on the ruin of Britain’s defense
capabilities, just as the Arab turmoil demonstrated once again that
the world appears to be moving into a new phase of dangerous
instability.
A few days ago a British frigate, HMS Cumberland,
put into Benghazi to evacuate several hundred British, American,
and other civilians threatened by the fighting there. One American
interviewed expressed his relief at seeing the White Ensign
flying.
Cumberland, a powerful, modern and
relatively new ship, happened to be in the area because it was on
its way back to Britain to be scrapped, part of the present
government’s mad scheme to reduce the Navy to just 12 frigates and
12 destroyers, along with comparable cuts to the Army and the Royal
Air Force.
Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, has been swanning
around Cairo, and achieving no one knows exactly what, though
certainly he now has plenty of surplus weaponry to offer whoever
takes power there.
Now comes the truly incredible part: while on his jaunt,
Cameron left the running of the country — during a serious
international crisis — to deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who
actually (I kid you not!) forgot he was meant to be in
charge of Britain and departed on a skiing holiday in Switzerland.
When reminded of the fact, he pointed out that he was able to keep
in touch with London by Blackberry should he be
required.
All this hammers home the point I have recently been
trying to make: Britain is being run by incompetents who do not
even pretend to take the first responsibility of any government —
the Defense of the Realm — seriously. The U.S. has its problems
but I have little doubt that in the U.S. such behavior would lead
to immediate impeachment proceedings. And this abdication of
national self-respect has taken place under a coalition government
with a Conservative majority. The Daily Mail is admittedly
a right-wing paper with a strong line in indignant stories about
what’s-Britain-coming-to, but even it
doesn’t use the work “treachery” lightly.
HMS Cumberland is already for two reasons an
image of the sad decline of the Royal Navy and of Britain’s defense
forces in general. The previous ship to bear the name was a heavy
cruiser, and before that it was borne over the centuries by several
capital ships. Britain today does not have a single cruiser of any
description and its last serving capital ship, HMS Ark
Royal, is also due for disposal (The last capital ship in
commission is Nelson’s Victory, which if things keep going
as they are, may be required to put to sea again. Fortunately
several of its sails as well as its cannons have been preserved
along with the hull.)
The present Cumberland also made the headlines
when, in obedience to the diktats of political
correctness, a Satanist chapel was installed to accommodate the
proclivities of a Satanist crewmember. No, I am not making this up
— it is not exactly a cheerful thought that in the new,
non-discriminatory Royal Navy a Satanist might get his finger on a
certain red button. (By way of contrast, I toured one of the last
British cruisers, HMS Tiger, some years ago. The sentence
in polished brass letters on the ceremonial rum-cask: FEAR GOD;
HONOUR THE QUEEN, stuck in my mind.) The phrase “What would Nelson
have said?” has been used in so many headlines to stories about
Naval cuts and other scandals that it has become a cliché, but in
this particular case it seems a reasonable question.
Senior officers have said British forces would struggle to
mount even a small-scale military intervention as the cupboard for
resources is bare.
They have also warned that there is little chance of even
being able to mount rescue operations similar to that which
Cumberland undertook in the future. Service chiefs have
also warned the Prime Minister that destroying the Harrier jet
force and scrapping Ark Royal would put personnel at
considerable risk. The Army has just one battalion on standby for
emergency operations and this is said to lack the correct equipment
for training.
As well as other losses the Navy’s amphibious landing
force will be cut in half by the mothballing of the landing ship
Bulwark and other craft.
One senior officer was
quoted as saying: “We certainly could not do an operation like
Sierra Leone again because we have no fast jets. Even to achieve
and sustain a foothold ashore would be difficult.” Another senior
Navy officer said, “The locker is not just empty it’s completely
threadbare.”
H. G. Wells suggested for his epitaph: “I told you so, you
bloody fools!”
