MACs and Jeep Carriers: A Useful Lesson From History

"We must assume that the battle of the Atlantic has begun... Extreme priority must be given to fitting out ships to catapult or otherwise launch fighter aircraft against bombers attacking our shipping. Proposals should be made within a week."

-Winston Churchill, March 6th 1941

At the height of the Second World War Britain, under immense pressure from Germany's U-Boat campaign, converted sixty one merchant vessels into auxiliary aircraft carrying ships. While thirty five were "CAM" ships (Catapult Aircraft Merchantman) equipped with a single last-ditch catapult launched Hurricane fighter, nineteen were fully-fledged flat topped "MAC" ships (Merchant Aircraft Carrier) capable of launching and recovering aircraft. Over the course of the War the Royal Navy also operated a total of forty four light "escort carriers". These ships were made necessary because of a number of factors but, fundamentally, they were built because the RN needed to close the "black gap" (the area in the mid-Atlantic beyond the range of land based anti-submarine aircraft where U-Boats concentrated their efforts). The presence of MACs and escort carriers helped to finally turn the tide in 1943 and ensured that Germany's 1944/45 commerce raiding campaigns would fail.

It's certainly worth asking why these ships were successful in their de-facto service with the Royal Navy, to the extent that it is claimed not a single merchant ship was lost from a convoy defended by a MAC. They certainly weren't very good aircraft carriers, even the largest couldn't operate more than four Fairey Swordfish biplanes and the aviation facilities were quite rudimentary. While escort carriers were certainly better than MACs as aviation ships, some were able to carry up to 24 aircraft and all had superior purpose-built aviation facilities, they achieved substantial tactical and operational effect for the same reason as the smaller civilian conversions. The reason for their success can be summed up in a single word: presence. While the air groups were small, especially when compared with the RN's fleet carriers, the MACs and escort carriers were comparatively cheap and available in large numbers. This meant that they could be used for convoy protection, as well as many other duties that the handful of hard-pressed large fleet carriers were too busy to perform. While around three quarters of the Royal Navy's escort carriers were built in the United States and loaned to Britain under the terms of the Lend Lease act, most were extensively modified by the RN, with all having their provisions for damage control improved and brought up to the RN's higher standards before entry into service.

So, what is the modern relevance of Britain's Second World War experience with MACs and escort carriers? Now we are, of course, no longer facing the threat of hordes of rudimentary diesel-electric submarines attempting to strangle our maritime communications. However, the fundamental lesson learned from that wartime experience was that inexpensive merchant-conversions, and aviation ships that exist below the capability of a fleet carrier, can enhance their larger cousins' availability by covering a wide range of low-end activities. In the Pacific the US Navy used its "Jeep" carriers (escort carriers) for a wide range of support and front-line activities, from transporting aircraft to launching strikes against Japanese forces in support of amphibious operations. While the ships themselves were generally unimpressive this was largely irrelevant, as their fighting power came from the aircraft they carried rather than the ships themselves. What we might now refer to as providing combat capability through "off-board systems".

Skip forward to the twenty first century and we find that aviation ships, below the level of a fleet carrier, continue to be valuable additions to many navies around the world. They come in a vast variety of shapes and sizes and, with modern helicopters, almost any large merchant ship can be converted into a somewhat capable aviation platform "on the cheap". RFA Argus, the UK's floating military hospital, was originally taken up from trade by the MoD in 1982 as the Contender Brezant before being purchased outright in 1984 and into an aviation training ship. She entered service in 1988. In this role she could carry and operate around six RN, Army Air Corps or RAF helicopters up to and including the largest rotary wing aircraft in UK service, the CH47 Chinook. Alternatively she could transport, although not operate, up to twelve Harrier-type VTOL aircraft. In a very real sense Argus, in her "aviation training" configuration, was the modern embodiment of the MAC ships of the Second World War. Her initial conversion proved extremely cost effective, costing only £45mn (~£120mn in 2016 prices). She also had the added benefit of only requiring a fifth the manpower of an Invincible class light carrier, just over half of which were actually Royal Navy personnel; with the rest being made up of RFA merchant sailors.

RFA Argus, the "modern MAC", has proved to be an incredibly valuable asset 
over nearly three decades of hard service.

Since her formal entry into service with the RFA in 1988 Argus has consistently been a busy ship. During the 1990-91 Gulf War she received her second major conversion, adding extensive medical facilities to enable her to act as the UK "Primary Casualty Receiving Ship" (or PCRS). She sailed or the Gulf with four Sea-King helicopters embarked, which aided in mine-clearance operations once she arrived in theater. In 1992 she deployed to the Adriatic, again with Sea Kings embarked, in support of the UK's contribution to the UN Protection Force in Yugoslavia. In 1997 she deployed to the West coast of Africa to evacuate UK nationals from the Congo. She was part of the UK's national amphibious task group that deployed to both Sierra Leone in 2000 and Iraq in 2003. She underwent a major life extension in 2009 before being deployed to the Mediterranean, ready to evacuate UK nationals from Libya in 2011. Later that year she was assigned to the counter-piracy effort in the Gulf of Aden. Her most recent activities have included support for UK overseas territories in the Caribbean and aiding in the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone.

It is notable that Argus, like the Second World War MAC, has filled the gap that exists below the space occupied by high-end aviation platforms designed for intensive war fighting. Indeed, the only time that Argus was trialed in such a role (she was used as a makeshift helicopter carrier during the international intervention in Yugoslavia) she did not perform well. However, as an auxiliary aviation support platform, used initially for training and later for a range of defence and security activities below the level of war, she has proved herself invaluable. Indeed, it's possible that the lessons learned from RFA Argus contributed to the development of the Bay class auxiliary landing ships, with their distinctive flat aviation decks aft of the main superstructure.

When her procurement, conversion and operational costs are tallied and compared to her service record it becomes quite clear that Argus has been, and continues to be, excellent value for money. She is the ultimate vindication of the relevance of the MAC concept for the 21st century. Considering this, it is concerning that the UK government has refused to specifically state whether she will be replaced with a similar platform after she leaves service in 2024. The loss of Argus without replacement in order to save money would, in the author's view, be a profoundly short-sighted decision. Considering how relatively cheap such a platform would be to purchase, convert and run, as well as the enduring utility of aviation platforms that can fill the sub-war fighting niche, the prudent choice would be to opt for a replacement with similar capabilities.

If RFA Argus has epitomised the enduring viability of the MAC concept for the RN in the twenty first century, then HMS Ocean has demonstrated that the fundamental guiding design principles of the WWII escort carrier still also hold relevance. Built for only £154mn in 1993 (£280mn in 2016) her construction costs were about the same as a Type 23 frigate, or less than a tenth the cost of a Queen Elizabeth class strike carrier. In order to achieve the low-cost she was built to reduced part-commercial standards and sacrificed other in other areas compared to a "full fat" fleet unit. She is limited by her inability to achieve high sprint and cruise speeds, has a relatively minimal self-defence armament and a noticeably shorter lifespan than ships built to full military standards. In exchange for these trade-offs the UK received a capital-size ship at a very low cost that was rapidly built and commissioned in four years.

While originally conceived of and built as a Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) to support Royal Marine amphibious operations she, like Argus, has proved useful for a wide variety of rotary-wing aviation tasks. From her support of the UK intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 and the RM invasion of the Al Faw peninsula during the 2003 Iraq War in her intended LPH role to acting as a makeshift "strike carrier" with Army Apache helicopters embarked during the 2011 Libya intervention. Since 2010 she has repeatedly led the UK high-readiness Response Force Task Group on its annual "COUGAR" deployment and acted as an auxiliary heliport, moored at Greenwich, during the 2012 London Olympics. As of June 2015 she is currently serving as the RN's flagship. It is expected that she will decommission in 2018, nominally replaced in the LPH role by HMS Prince of Wales.

HMS Ocean in the light strike role, with Army WAH-64 Apache attack helicopters
embarked.

Ocean, like Argus, the Second World War MAC and the escort carrier continues to demonstrate that "second rate" aviation ships are not only a viable concept, but continue to fill essential niches that large strike carriers do not sit comfortably in. Ultimately the use of a 70,000 ton supercarrier to conduct HADR operations with its aviation assets will, in most circumstances, be a waste of one of the RN's most potent war-fighting assets. Similarly, placing a Queen Elizabeth class close enough to shore to act in the LPH role places an extremely high value asset at heightened risk of attack. In both circumstances a simple and cheap aviation platform is a far more appealing prospect, leaving the "proper" carriers available to deploy at short notice to do what they're best at: deterring and defeating serious threats to national interests.

Over the last two decades Ocean and Argus have acted as an effective adjunct to the UK's front line carrier fleet, made up of two Invincible class light ASW/strike carriers for most of these ships lives, they have performed essential auxiliary and supporting roles that freed up the fixed-wing carriers for other, more important, duties. It is a great shame that Ocean will not be replaced with another cheap LPH, she has added great value to the Royal Navy over her relatively short life. However, there remains hope Argus may yet be replaced with a similar auxiliary aviation platform. Failure to do so would almost certainly heap additional burdens onto the strike carriers and waste some of their awesome capability. Just like our predecessors concluded during the Second World War, if we are to make the most of our fleet carriers we need to invest in the auxiliary aviation platforms necessary to support them, allowing them to go where they need to be; rather than tied up with duties for which they are poorly suited.

Trident, Vanguard and Successor: A Guide to the British Deterrent

As the date of the main gate decision on "Trident" edges ever closer the debate on the UK's nuclear deterrent has intensified. Heated arguments have flown back and forth between those who see renewal as necessary and those who disagree strongly with it on ethical, financial and practical grounds. While it's a positive sign that the debate has been conducted in the public sphere, to a much greater extent than most defence issues, there remains a great deal of misinformation and confusion surrounding the specifics and the terminology of "Trident" renewal. Unfortunately, while there are a few exceptions, the reporting of defence issues by the major public outlets is often patchy, biased and sometimes downright inaccurate. In this piece I hope to address the specifics of the system colloquially known as "Trident" and provide the facts (along with some context) on renewal, along with some of my own views on the key issues and misconceptions that surround the nuclear deterrent. Rather than engaging in the moral arguments surrounding nuclear weapons this piece is purely designed to address the technical issues, as well as some of the less than accurate public and media perceptions of the deterrent.

The Vanguard Class:

Britain's nuclear weapons are currently carried aboard the four submarines of the Vanguard class, operated by the Royal Navy. The entered service between 1993 and 1996 and are the largest submarines operated by the UK. At just under 16,000 tons submerged they're roughly twice the size of the Astute class nuclear powered attack boats and three times the size of the older Trafalgar class submarines. Each boat has a compliment of ~135 Officers and Ratings, but has twice that number assigned to it, forming two full ships companies referred to as the "port" and "starboard" crews. This ensures that the deterrent boat will never be prevented from sailing due to illness or injury amongst critical members of the team needed to run the boat, as there are always spares available. While one crew is deployed the other will either be on leave or in training. In order to provide "Continuous At Sea Deterrence" or CASD the four submarines rotate, with one armed and deployed in an undisclosed location, one in training and preparing to deploy, one undergoing short term repairs and one in deep refit. In this way there has always been one nuclear-armed British submarine at sea at all times since patrols began in April 1969. Following on from their predecessors the Vanguard class operate from HM Naval Base Clyde, sometimes referred to as Faslane.

The Vanguard Class are officially referred to as SSBNs (which stands for Ship, Submersible, Ballistic, Nuclear) meaning that they are not only powered by a nuclear reactor but also carry nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The class are powered by the Rolls Royce PWR2 nuclear reactor, enabling the submarines to remain underwater for months on end, limited only by food supplies for the crew. Each Vanguard class submarine can carry up to sixteen Trident II D5 ballistic missiles. However, due to the UK's participation in multilateral arms reduction since the end of the Cold War they're now believed to routinely sail with only eight. The Vanguard class also carry conventional torpedoes for self-defence against other submarines and surface ships. Construction of the four Vanguard class submarines cost the UK around £15 billion, just over £1 billion a year spread over twelve years from the keel of the first boat being laid in 1986 to the completion of the fourth and final boat in 1998. Although the boats have an expected lifespan of twenty five years, a substantial life-extension programme will enable them to serve an additional ten to ensure a seamless transition from the Vanguard class to the "Successor" submarine class.

Key Issues and Misconceptions:

-Although the mainstay of Britain's nuclear deterrent has been provided by "Continuous At Sea Deterrence" for almost a half century now, some believe the operation of the four deterrent submarines imposes a serious burden on the Royal Navy. Of the roughly 4,000 Officers and Ratings of the submarine service around a quarter or more are likely assigned to the deterrent submarines. In addition a frigate, attack submarines and submarine hunting aircraft are needed to protect the deterrent boat as it enters and leaves the Royal Navy's base on the Clyde.

-Some commentators have described the CASD system as a leftover from the Cold War, unsuited to a world where Terrorism and cyber warfare will become the real threats in future. However, with an increasingly aggressive Russia modernising its own nuclear forces, others would suggest that the system still remains relevant to today's problems as well as providing insurance against unexpected future threats. While both arguments have some merit, it is interesting to note that all other nuclear powers either possess, are renewing or are pursuing a submarine-based deterrent. The broad perception abroad seems to be that submarine-launched ballistic missiles are both relevant and a credible means of deterrence.

-While it has been claimed that the boats might be vulnerable to some form of cyber attack it is doubtful that this is actually the case. The deterrent submarines operate a closed computer system, so any would-be attacker would have to actually get on-board and introduce such a computer virus manually. The development of software that could attack the submarine's vital systems would also require in-depth knowledge of the system in the first place, something that a hostile state or terrorist group would find all but impossible to acquire. Even then, as with most RN vessels, the submarine will have manual and analogue back-up systems should the computerised primaries fail. All told it would be almost impossible to conduct a successful cyber attack on the existing nuclear deterrent submarines.

-In the last few years there have also been a spate of articles expressing concern about the safety of the submarines, citing hundreds of accidents as well as tens of fires, equipment failures and "nuclear incidents" on board as evidence of a profoundly unsafe system. However, taken at face value and without any context these figures can be extremely misleading. For example: while it's true that fires occasionally occur on all Royal Navy warships, almost all are extinguished within seconds of breaking out. Even in the event of a serious fire, the Royal Navy rightly maintains some of the highest standards in the world when it comes to firefighting and damage control (having thoroughly learned the lessons of the Falklands War). As for "nuclear incidents", none of the twelve "Category B" events that have occurred since 2009 threatened the release of nuclear material into the environment or atmosphere. Nor did they endanger workers or the public. As it stands, a Category B incident is defined as: "actual or high potential for a contained release [of radiation] within building or submarine or unplanned exposure to radiation". According to the Ministry of Defence, most of these incidents were minor.

-There is also a misconception amongst some less well informed observers that because all UK submarines are "nuclear" they all carry nuclear weapons. This is not the case, Britain currently operates two separate types of submarine: the four nuclear armed SSBNs of the Vanguard class and the seven nuclear powered but conventionally armed SSNs (Ship, Submersible, Nuclear) of the Astute and Trafalgar classes. While all UK submarines are powered by a nuclear reactor, only the four boats of the Vanguard class carry ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

The "Successor" Submarines:

The "Successor" submarine is intended as the replacement for the existing Vanguard class, with the first boat expected to enter service in 2028. The class is expected to have a service life of around thirty years, with the fourth boat likely to operate well into the 2060s. Unlike the Vanguard class the Successor will have four fewer ballistic missile tubes, a total of twelve rather than the Vanguards' sixteen. These tubes will be a shared design with the US Navy, who are looking to start replacing their Ohio Class ballistic missile submarines within a similar time frame. Each "Common Missile Compartment" will contain four launch tubes, Successor will have three such compartments, whereas the American SSBN-X (their next generation ballistic missile submarine) will have four or more. This will enable the UK and US to pursue a common replacement for the Trident II D5 missile when it goes out of service in the 2040s. As it stands the government's current intention is to maintain the number of missiles (eight) and warheads (forty) carried by the Vanguard submarines with the transition to Successor. In 2011 it was agreed that the Successor submarines would use the Rolls Royce PWR3 reactor, an "Anglicised" version of the US Navy's latest design. The new reactor is expected to be safer and cheaper to maintain over the boats' thirty year lifespan, when compared with the PWR2 that currently powers the Vanguard and Astute classes.

As it stands, little concrete information exists in the public sphere beyond relatively broad specifications and a few concept images (like the one shown above). However, from historical precedent and educated guesswork we can safely assume that the Successor boats will be significantly quieter than their predecessors, just as the Astute class are markedly quieter than the Trafalgar class that came before them. Like the Vanguard class they will also carry conventional torpedoes for self-defence. It seems unlikely that the relatively successful dual-crew system would not be carried over to the new deterrent submarines.

Key Issues and Misconceptions:

-A few people have also claimed that the ballistic missile submarine will soon be made obsolete by underwater drones, and other unmanned systems, that can listen for and detect submarines and unmanned aircraft that are currently being developed. They argue that the Successor class would be hopelessly vulnerable to such systems, as it would lose its ability to hide. These commentators forget that these technologies are far from new, during the Cold War NATO erected vast arrays of fixed hydrophones to detect Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic, and certainly not foolproof. With every generation submarine detection equipment has become more sensitive, yet the boats continue to get quieter in response. Each measure developed to detect the submarine is met with a countermeasure in response. Not only have the boats changed beyond all recognition since their primitive beginnings at the turn of the twentieth century, but so have the tactics employed to hide them. Examining the lessons of history it seems unlikely that a single innovation in anti-submarine warfare will, at a stroke, render the submarine obsolete.

-There appears to also be a presumption that the Successor submarines are extremely expensive, as they form the biggest chunk of the expenditure necessary for the renewal of the UK's nuclear deterrent. There is also a perception that the programme costs have increased significantly since it was first announced in 2007. However, much of the apparent increase in the cost of replacement has been due to inflation. The 2006 defence white paper on the issue laid down an estimated price of £15-20bn for the whole nuclear renewal programme,most of which would be the cost of the new submarines. When adjusted for GDP inflation to match 2014 prices the "cost" rises to between £17.5 and 23.5bn for the whole programme. While the higher figure closely matches the "between £20 and 30bn" price-tag stated by the government, it may also have been stretched to encompass costs previously not included, such as through-life expenditures, decommissioning and safe disposal of the boats and their nuclear reactors. On top of this the Treasury has added a £10bn contingency fund, the purpose of which is somewhat opaque; but could conceivably be the government hedging against a second Scottish referendum (and the need to reconstruct facilities elsewhere) or simply prudent management to ensure the delivery of a critical defence equipment programme.

-There is also a view that the cost of the Successor submarines, the major expense involved in renewal of the nuclear deterrent, could easily be transferred to bolster the UK's conventional forces that have been run down over a long period of time. However, upon close examination of the issue the issue is far more complex than many realise. Firstly the shortfall in work for the nuclear submarine construction facilities at Barrow in Furness would have to be made up with a substantial order of more Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarines. Likely more than five boats costing £750 million each, so many more conventionally armed submarines would likely impose through-life costs and crew requirements similar to the nuclear deterrent boats that they would replace. It is likely that we would eventually end up having to build two classes of conventionally armed, but nuclear-powered, submarines in order to sustain the design and industrial base necessary to continue producing attack submarines. The cost of safely decommissioning the nuclear weapons facility at Coulport would also be very substantial and eat into any short-term savings made. Also to be considered is that, in the event of Trident cancellation, some or all of the money saved would inevitably be siphoned off by the Treasury and redirected into other areas of government (as many anti-nuclear figures argue should be the case) such as: health, education, welfare etc... It is by no means clear that cancelling the successor submarines would lead to a substantial re-investment in conventional forces and would almost inevitably impose significant second-order costs. While long-term savings would indeed be made, it would not be the panacea for either conventional defence, or other areas of government spending, that some make it out to be.

The Trident II D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile:

The UGM-133 Trident II, or Trident II D5, is a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) with a range of more than 7,500 miles and a payload of up to twelve nuclear-armed Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs). The missile first entered service with the US Navy in 1990 and later with the Royal Navy in 1993 when the first of the Vanguard class submarines entered service. Unlike conventional and cruise missiles the Trident II D5 leaves the earth's atmosphere for part of its trajectory, acting like a multi-stage rocket, before its warheads return to earth and strike their targets. The missile is principally guided by an on-board astro-inertial guidance system, that can be supplemented by GPS to increase its accuracy. From what is publicly available this system takes account of the submarine's relative position to its target and uses a fixed object (in this case a star) as a reference point to guide the missile onto its target. At present the UK leases 58 of these missiles from the United States, which are drawn from a common pool shared by the US Navy's Atlantic SSBN squadron. Unlike its predecessor, Polaris, the missiles are not serviced in the UK but at the Lockheed Martin plant in King's Bay Georgia along with the US Navy's missiles. 

Key Issues and Misconceptions:

-While the recent discussion on the subject of the British nuclear deterrent has been framed as the renewal, or replacement, of Trident; in fact the Trident II D5 missile is set to remain in-service with the Royal Navy and US Navy into the 2040s. It is one of the few components of the overall system that, while it will receive a substantial life extension, will not be replaced for many years to come.

-Often the most contentious arguments over the UK deterrent relate to its independence from the United States, specifically the degree of operational control that the Americans could exert over the British system. Firstly, it is necessary to clearly state that the US do not possess a "kill switch" that would render the UK's missiles inert or would prevent them from being fired. As the US Navy's own missiles are of the exact same design, drawn from the same pool as the UK's, such a safeguard (if it existed) would therefore also render a major component of their own deterrent useless. Nor does the US government possess the ability to remotely destroy the missiles once launched, such a system would open their own deterrent up to being disabled by a potential enemy, should they steal the means of "self-destructing" the missiles. The system is designed so that, short of being actively shot down, once released the missiles cannot be stopped. There is also the suggestion that the US could simply "turn off the GPS", even if it were as simple as those that claim this make out; disabling the GPS would simply make the missiles marginally less accurate. Their primary means of guidance, the astro-inertial star sight system, is designed to function without input from GPS. The retention of this older system is likely deliberate, as it prevents the US/UK deterrent from being disabled by an attack on the American GPS satellite network. While the US could withhold gravitational data and weather reports over the intended target area, this would simply degrade the accuracy of a British nuclear strike and would not be able to prevent it. For all intents and purposes the UK deterrent is Operationally Independent: meaning that the US have no means to stop the UK from conducting a nuclear strike, short of shooting down the British missiles.

-With respect to the independence of the system it is true that should the US decide to withhold access to its missile servicing facilities it could eventually render the UK's Trident II D5 missiles unusable. According to Parliamentary estimates his would likely take many months, if not a year or more, to achieve. However, given the UK's extremely close relationship with the United States and the existing unprecedented level of co-operation in the field of nuclear weapons and delivery systems the chance of this actually happening would best be described as extremely remote. At the least it would require a severe political break between the UK and US, significantly worse than that which occurred during the Suez Crisis. In the author's opinion, this remains extremely unlikely and the US will almost certainly remain a highly dependable partner in this field. This is not least because the joint submarine deterrent using the Trident missile strengthens the American nuclear guarantee of Europe significantly. Fundamentally it ensures that a potential enemy could not tell a British attack from an American one, this means that Britain could force a general nuclear exchange with the United States if the US were to renege on its commitment to the defence of Europe during a crisis. This inextricably ties the American strategic deterrent to the defence of Europe, something the US are very much aware of and value.

-There have been plenty of commentators keen to express the obsolescence of the Trident missile system, describing it as a "Cold War relic" designed to destroy Moscow and St Petersberg. While there is a grain of truth at the heart of this argument, it too is misleading. The British deterrent was, at the time of the Cold War designed around the so-called "Moscow criterion". In short this was the requirement that the British delivery system be able to penetrate the defences around the Soviet capital and conduct a successful nuclear strike against it. Initially this meant that the RAF's V-bomber force was equipped to break through Soviet air defences in order to reach their targets. However, as Soviet defences improved it became clear that air-launched weapons (even primitive cruise missiles like the RAF's Blue Steel) would not be sufficient. So the UK turned to submarine launched ballistic missiles: first Polaris, then an improved version of Polaris codenamed "Chevaline" and later Trident. These improvements all ensured the UK could respond to aggression with an assured response, capable of penetrating even the most sophisticated integrated air and missile defense system in the world. The "Moscow criterion" remains relevant because, if the UK can be sure of its ability to carry out a successful nuclear response against the most heavily defended target in the world, then it can be sure of a successful nuclear response anywhere else. This strengthens the deterrent power of the overall system, because crucially it remains highly credible in all circumstances.

The W76 Nuclear Warhead:

After the retirement of the RAF's remaining WE.117 air-dropped nuclear bombs in 1998 the W76 became the only warhead in service with the UK armed forces. It is believed to be an "Anglicised" copy of an American design, although the details of its internal components are mostly classified. What is known is that the warhead sits within the conical Mk. 4 re-entry vehicle (a mock-up of which is pictured above). With a declared maximum yield of 100 kilotons of TNT the W76 is around seven times more powerful than the Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. However, some sources indicate that the UK's possesses weapons with a variable yield, down to as low as 10 kilotons, in order to provide decision makers with a more flexible and proportionate nuclear response (if such a thing exists). Between one and twelve warheads can be carried by each Trident II D5 missile. It is believed that the 40 deployed warheads are spread unevenly amongst the eight missiles carried aboard the deterrent submarine. These are believed to be mixed with dummy warheads, decoys and penetration aids in order to ensure the success of a UK strike conducted against an area protected by a sophisticated missile-defence system.

The UK's warheads are designed and manufactured at the two Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) facilities at Aldermaston and Burghfield. There is a high degree of collaboration with the US' counterpart facilities at the Los Alamos site in New Mexico and the Sandia & Lawrence Livermore laboratories in California. The UK's weapons are also stored at the Royal Naval Armament Depot (RNAD) at Coulport, which is jointly run by a subsidiary of AWE and Lockheed Martin, where they are mated with the Trident II D5 missiles and loaded onto the deterrent submarines. Although the UK continues to refuse to release the exact details of its nuclear arsenal, it is believed to possess a total stockpile of 225 weapons, with around 160 of those being operational at any one time.

Key Issues and Misconceptions:

-Some have questioned the independence of the UK's deterrent on the grounds that the AWE uses a number of "off the shelf" components, procured from the United States, in Britain's nuclear weapons. According to a report submitted to Parliament these include: the firing mechanism, Neutron generator, gas reservoir and Mk. 4 re-entry vehicle. While it is true that Britain would find it difficult to immediately source replacements if the US chose to withhold these components, it would be well within the UK's capacity to manufacture them. As the AWE possesses the full designs for the W76 warhead, creating native versions of certain components wouldn't be prohibitively difficult; if the commitment was made to continue with the deterrent under such circumstances. However, as with the withholding of support for the UK's Trident II missiles, the likelihood of the US actually doing this remains extremely remote.

-There have also been questions raised, notably in Parliament, about the possibility of dangerous nuclear emissions from RNAD Coulport. According to data released by the Ministry of Defence emissions were well within the safety limits set by both the MoD and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) between 2009 and 2012. For comparison, in 2012 the Hunterston B civil nuclear power station discharged around 370 times the Tritium gas of RNAD Coulport, while still being within the safe limits set by SEPA. The emissions from the nuclear storage facility can be considered so small in comparison as to be negligible, posing no health risk to those living on or around the facility.

-Also of concern to some is the vulnerability of the UK's nuclear weapons to seizure by terrorists, especially considering that they're transported by road between AWE Aldermaston and RNAD Coulport. However, it must first be stated that successfully intercepting and seizing a warhead from one of these convoys would require a level of intelligence gathering and combat capacity beyond any militant group currently operating on the British Isles. Not only are the times and routes of these convoys national secrets of the highest order, revealed only to regional police forces hours before the convoy moves through their jurisdiction, but they are also extremely heavily guarded. Not only does each convoy have a range of civilian emergency teams to deal with any contingency, from safety experts to firefighters, but it is guarded by armed Ministry of Defence Police officers of the Special Escort Group, and likely also special forces personnel. Each convoy is continuously tracked by the police and is in constant radio communication with support forces should an incident occur. Successfully plotting an attack on one would be nearly impossible, something reserved more to the pages of a Tom Clancy novel than reality.

-Some may also worry that the weapons themselves are inherently unstable and dangerous, threatening to trigger a nuclear explosion at any moment should somebody make a mistake. This is categorically not the case, the bomb itself is built to do a very specific thing: evenly compress the core of nuclear material (likely highly enriched Plutonium in the case of the W76) until it reaches the critical point at which a chain reaction occurs and causes a "nuclear explosion" as we know it. In order to achieve this, the device uses explosives precisely placed around the core, and crucially: detonated at the same instant. On two occasions during the early years of the Cold War US aircraft armed with nuclear weapons crashed, unevenly detonating the explosives in their nuclear weapons. Instead of causing a nuclear explosion it merely shattered the core and spread toxic plutonium dust over a small area. Even in the worst-case scenario, a nuclear weapon exposed to the extreme shock of an air crash followed by an explosion, the weapons didn't explode. Unlike some conventional explosives nuclear material will not explode if dropped, burned or exposed to an uneven explosion. Thankfully nuclear weapons are almost impossible to inadvertently detonate.


There you have it, a reasonably examination of the technical details of the UK nuclear deterrent, addressing some of the issues raised in the recent debate and some of the popular misconceptions about the UK's nuclear forces. Hopefully by collecting a broad range of information in one place I can help contribute, in some small way, to improving a debate which is too often mired in inaccurate perceptions.

Thoughts on a Grand Strategy for Britain

"I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

-Viscount Palmerston, 1848

Of the 194 independent states currently in existence you would be hard pressed to find many that have more potential than the United Kingdom. As I explained here and here the British state has a raft of in-built advantages, from its globally engaged and powerful economy to the range of useful overseas territories, modern armed forces and an impressive diplomatic footprint. And yet, since the end of the Second World War, Britain has lurched from crisis to crisis with events and political short termism dictating national strategy. Since the 1956 Suez Crisis the relationship with the United States, never one of equals, has steadily come to replace British strategy abroad. At home the relationship with the European Union and it's predecessors has also curtailed national strategic decision making. For the best part of a century an uneasy hodgepodge of US and European grand strategy has effectively been British grand strategy. This has led to the steady atrophying of a unique political and military culture, that was decidedly un-American and un-European, with no real replacement. While much world-class strategic thought still goes on in the UK it is largely confined to Academic spheres, lacking integration with mainstream politics and public consciousness. What must be recognised to move forwards is that our current approach has been broadly unsuccessful and that what's needed is a distinct and British grand strategy, designed to use the UK's strengths to secure and advance its national interests in the long term.

To begin to formulate a grand strategy first a question must be asked and answered: "what will Britain's vital national interests in the coming century, and beyond, be?". I would argue some are obvious and eternal; the enduring territorial integrity of the British isles, the continued existence of the United Kingdom as a single political entity, economic prosperity, stability, the protection of British citizens wherever they may be and the sustainment of the Western liberal order. Simple, direct and broad in scope these are what I conceive Britain's long-term interests to be. To define UK interests too narrowly and specifically would ensure that the resulting analysis would eventually become dated and increasingly irrelevant. It also avoids falling into the trap of confusing values with interests. Although the sustainment of the Western liberal order is a vital national interest, it's expansion is not. Events in the last decade and a half have shown that trying to forcefully expand the borders of the Western order is usually futile and has unintended consequences. That said, states willingly wishing to join that club should be admitted with open arms; as Eastern Europe was after the collapse of Soviet Communism. For these reasons the interests that drive grand strategy must be broadly defined and enduring. If the ends sought are to be broadly defined and eternal, then the ways used to achieve them; the grand strategy, must take an equally broad approach to the UK's geo-strategic challenges.

In contrast with simple political or military strategy, which draw upon distinct resources to achieve specific goals in the short to medium term, grand strategy aims to combine all aspects of national power and influence in pursuit of its aims. When applying narrow forms of power, be they military, diplomatic, economic or otherwise, Britain often fails to live up to its potential. The United Kingdom does not have the most powerful global economy, the military might of a vast continental state, or the raw influence to be the essential diplomatic power broker. However, when taken together it's easy to see that Britain has nearly unrivaled national power across the whole spectrum. The British armed forces may not be the most powerful, but they have a range of impressive capabilities and can still "go to the crisis" with decisive force if needed. The UK wields impressive influence through it's global diplomatic presence, with seats in countless international organisations; not least of which is permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Although it's true that Britain can't compete with the vast resources of China and the United States for economic power, only a fool would call the UK economically weak. While the 2008 financial crisis hit key sectors of the economy hard Britain is currently amongst the fastest growing economies in Europe, a dynamic medium-sized economy with a strong tradition of the rule of law and the ability to efficiently mobilise its resources. If there is one aspect of national power in which Britain excels, yet continues to underutilise, it is cultural. While feelings on Britain's imperial period are decidedly mixed, the overriding legacies of Empire: the Anglosphere, the Commonwealth, English as the global language of commerce, the export of British common law and institutions as well as the "Westminster system" of government tend to be positive ones that (if used correctly) will continue to enhance UK power. If Britain wishes to protect and advance its national interests it must be done by wielding comprehensive, rather than narrow and specific, national power.

At it's most successful Britain applied economic, military, diplomatic
and cultural power effectively in pursuit of its interests.

Before beginning to look at an overarching national strategy it's necessary to examine what has prevented the UK from doing so over the last half century or so. The outcome of the 1956 Suez war, the "last gasp of the imperial lion", effectively shackled much of British foreign policy to that of the United States. Whether the Americans intended for that to be the outcome is up for debate, but the practical long-term consequence was an ever closer foreign policy union between the two great Anglosphere nations; a union that has increasingly become dominated by the senior partner. While the "Special Relationship" has not been one of true equals for a very long time, on it's own it doesn't explain the British dependence on America's foreign policy leadership.

For that we must look at to the period of decolonisation after the Second World War and the growth of an unhelpful Eurocentric view of the world. Although the decision for Britain to withdraw from its vast Empire after 1945 was certainly, in hindsight, the correct one; the imperial possessions that were being abandoned were too often confused with structures established to protect the UK's overseas interests. It is easy to forget that when Britain first acquired an Empire, its territories existed to provide a string of naval bases that supported maritime forces capable of defending and advancing British interests. The vast land empire, which emerged later as a product of the Industrial Revolution, overlaid the original structure and obscured its purpose. Bases, and the commitments they underpinned, in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and South China Sea were abandoned in the decolonisation drive. During this process the expectation was often that the United States would become Britain's proxy in the abandoned regions, who would defend British national interests at little to no cost to the UK. While the Americans certainly did enter these regions as the guarantor of stability, they came with their own economic and diplomatic agendas that often didn't match Britain's. It is too easy to forget that while the US is a diplomatic, military and cultural ally of the first order; it remains an economic competitor and undeniably self-interested in that regard.

The second factor that has contributed to the atrophy of British grand strategic thought is the increasingly Eurocentric approach to foreign policy, instigated by the Cold War and exacerbated by the period of relative decline in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. At that time there was a belief, strongly held by some, that in the future the United Kingdom could redefine itself as a mid-sized European power; rather than as a great power situated in Europe but with interests and concerns that spread far beyond the continent. This view contributed to the UK's steady collapse down to a continental defence posture, designed for the Cold War confrontation in Europe, that was ill-suited to the defence and advancement of it's interests elsewhere. A concerted effort was also made  to abandon much of Britain's presence outside Europe throughout that period, although the retreat from 'East of Suez' was the most prominent, Mediterranean and South Atlantic commitments were also drawn down. All of this, combined with a degree of fatalism amongst decision makers, often meant that the draw down from what were perceived as imperial commitments was pushed further and faster than it should have been. To some extent Britain's improved economic condition (and the boost given to national confidence by victory in the Falklands and the Gulf) curbed the worst of the declinist tendency amongst policymakers for a time. 

Now, however, after a grueling decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan we are seeing a return to timid passivity in the face of some of the gravest crises since the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago. Such behavior is placing greater burdens on an already overburdened United States, still a vital and potent ally, as well as failing to support British national interests. There is also the uncomfortable fact that the United Kingdom is often led, handled and judged as if it were a smaller and less potent copy of the United States. An apparent ignorance of what must be done to maximise Britain's international power is particularly concerning. Too often have leaders missed the basic truth that a country with the will to be engaged and active on the international stage will always "punch above its weight", whereas those too timid to do so will usually remain on the sidelines. In the event of a crisis there is often much to lose and little to be gained by not being involved, or at least possessing the ability to become involved at short-notice. 

The willingness and ability to "go to the crisis" with decisive force has set the
UK apart from other countries over the centuries.

The lesson of the last sixty years is clear: while allies are often essential to the success of British engagement abroad they are a very poor substitute for sovereign capabilities and action. Therefore, before a grand strategy tailored to Britain's situation can be developed, there must be some degree of separation from the foreign policy goals of the United States and from the European continent. While policymakers will likely still find that UK and US interests often align closely, making co-operation highly desirable, a more independent and mercenary approach should be taken when interests conflict. As for the affairs of the European continent, they stand as more of an impediment to a global strategy for Britain than anything else. While stability in Europe is an important, likely essential, component for a successful global Britain, protracted continental commitments have almost always proved an expensive distraction. Only when it's vital national interests are at stake should the UK consider entering into binding continental commitments. "Business as usual" on the continent would be the exercise of influence through diplomatic and economic means, backed up by UK-based armed forces that could be deployed in the event of a serious crisis.

On the subject of Europe, the gravest threat is likely to remain an embittered, revanchist Russia. While Putin's conservative clique remain in power it seems likely that tensions will be high, as liberal Western values collide with Russia's deeply conservative world view on the fringes of Eastern Europe. The challenge for Britain is that Eastern Europe is fundamentally a theater where it's military influence will always be rather limited. "Blue water" maritime forces are not well suited to the enclosed waters of the Baltic, threatened as they are by Russian air power and missiles based in their enclave at Kaliningrad. It is fundamentally a continental theatre, where a maritime power such as Britain would find it impossible to contribute significant forces; certainly without compromising it's global limited-war power projection capabilities. As it stands, a power vacuum exists in Eastern Europe. Following the recent withdrawal of the last substantial American ground forces, the two heavy brigade combat teams, from Germany almost all of NATO's first class military capability is now situated to the West of Germany. Although the US has issued an abrupt volte face, returning some of the heavy equipment it withdrew in 2013, Europe is approaching a tipping point. The continuous presence of large American conventional forces can no longer be considered to be a certain prospect.Without enough high-readiness conventional forces positioned nearby, to balance Russia's ability to rapidly mobilise very large numbers of troops (demonstrated time and again by "snap" military drills and maneuvers), the situation will remain unstable and potentially quite dangerous.

The return of large-scale US forces to Germany in the long term is something that cannot be counted upon, as a growing confrontation with China in the Pacific continues to exert a powerful draw on overstretched American military resources. Instead, in order to secure the integrity of the NATO alliance (and by extension the Western liberal order in Eastern Europe) Germany must be rehabilitated as a continental great power, integrated into the defence of Eastern Europe. Although the burden of history weighs heavy the most effective means of balancing Russian power in the long-term is to have the other great power in the region, Germany, fully and actively committed to regional security through NATO. The logical question that follows this conclusion is "what does this have to do with the United Kingdom?", presuming Britain wouldn't be able to exert the influence to instigate such a significant policy change. While it's true that the decision would ultimately rest with the Germans, there is still much the UK could do to help move them in that direction. As one of the most influential members of NATO, with strong transatlantic links to the most influential member, much could be done within the alliance to set the direction and agenda of it's future commitments to Eastern Europe. In recent years Germany has also proved more willing to deploy its armed forces outside its borders, in an alliance context, than in the past. With the right incentives and multilateral direction, their participation in combat and reconstruction operations in Afghanistan could prove to be a watershed moment, the first step along a road leading to a more normal position in the international system. It's not impossible to conceive that this precedent could be used to begin the shift to a regionally deployable Bundeswehr, capable of balancing Russia along with predominantly Eastern European NATO allies.

Europe will not be able to count on the United States continuing to commit large,
expensive, military forces to it's defence, while its interests elsewhere are pressured.

Any attempt to use Germany to balance Russian power must also address the thorny issue of the former's energy dependence on the latter. While it is true that Germany imports some ~40% of its natural gas from the Russian Federation, there are several factors that make the use of the "energy weapon" against Germany a much more unattractive prospect than its use against other Eastern European states. First and foremost is the sheer quantity of Russian natural gas imported by Germany, about a quarter of what Gazprom exports to Europe. Shutting off supply to Germany for a long period of time would likely do serious damage to the Russian state owned energy sector, already struggling in the wake of the collapse in the price of oil. Nor could the energy weapon be used briefly to any great effect either, unlike the Eastern European countries subjected to a punitive gas shutoff in 2009 Germany has substantial storage capacity (equal to ~50% of their annual needs). As Germany is an especially unattractive target, hardened against the Russian "energy weapon", it should not stand as the overwhelming impediment to a more engaged German defence posture in Eastern Europe that it might be considered to be.

The reader might, rightly, ask why building a new structure to guarantee the security and stability of Central and Eastern Europe was the first issue addressed when discussing a British grand strategy. In order for the UK to focus it's efforts where it is best equipped to do so, outside the European continent, it needs a measure of freedom from continental commitments. While Britain will always have an important part to play in European defence, through NATO, it needs to be recognised that the UK is best able to contribute on the alliance's "maritime flanks" rather than a distant Eastern "central front". Failing to create new structures within NATO to guarantee the security of Eastern Europe, with Germany playing a key role, will continue to leave that region dangerously exposed to an illiberal Russia. In the long-term the United States will not continue to be the ultimate guarantor of European security forever. They will inevitably continue to be an invaluable ally, and a vital pillar of NATO, but we need to be prepared to take up much of the slack they will leave as their forces are drawn down to a size that allows them to balance their other global commitments.

While Britain will always be tied much more closely to the security of Europe by dint of its geographical proximity than the United States, it too must look to balance its commitment to the continent against a much broader demi-global role stretching from the Atlantic to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. In order for the UK to secure its interests beyond Europe it first needs a measure of stability in Europe. As history shows us, this will require working alongside and supporting continental allies, rather than attempting to replace them. As it stands Britain is a powerful country, with a broad range of advantages and tools at its disposal, constrained by a lack of independent strategic thought, over-reliance on others in the sphere of foreign policy and a volatile European situation. Before a coherent grand strategy can emerge these problems need to be tackled, not by abandoning old alliances and roles but by reinventing and reinvigorating them so that they better suit our current needs and those of our allies. It also needs to recognise that Britain's strengths lie in the maritime sphere, and that this is where we must focus our efforts if we are to successfully defend and advance our interests.

A Nation in Retreat: Britain's Continental Century

"Whereas any European power has to support a vast army first of all, we in this fortunate, happy island, relieved by our insular position of a double burden, may turn our undivided efforts and attention to the fleet. Why should we sacrifice a game in which we are sure to win to play a game in which we are bound to lose?"

-Winston Churchill

Britain's twentieth century was defined, for the first time in over five hundred years, by a monumental shift in national strategy. The maritime approach, upon which the country had built its wealth and power, was founded on the principle of limited coercive action delivered by mobile naval forces. In the twentieth century this was abandoned in favour of a less than limited continental military strategy that, with hindsight, proved to be disastrous. The forces created to fight two World Wars, deal with the increasing burdens from imperial defence and later the Cold War, managed decolonisation and the 'Global War on Terror' have severely limited the country's ability to project power in defence of its interests.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly where the change began, but it was likely after the Second Boer War. Britain has just emerged from a bloody three year long conflict against the Dutch Boer settlers of the Orange Free State and South African Republic. For the first time in many years Britain faced a colonial opponent that they did not technologically over match. While their near-absolute naval dominance meant that no great power dared to seriously intervene in the conflict, although a number flirted with the idea, it could not provide a solution to the challenge posed by the Boers. Instead an enormous, by British standards, Imperial land army of 500,000 troops was raised and used to effectively bludgeon the ~80,000 Boer fighters into submission. The cost was enormous: £210 million at the time, which equates to over £200 billion in today's money. More important than the financial cost though were the lessons drawn from the war by the British establishment, and applied in the Haldane reforms of 1906-1912.

The changes to the British army that were effected could not have come at a worse time. They stipulated the need for a large six division strong regular intervention force, to be deployed to the continent in the event of a major war. This would be backed up by the even larger fourteen division strong Territorial force, who would provide follow on forces and replace losses amongst the regular formations. While the reforms also included welcome changes, such as the professionalisation of the Officer Corps and the development of an Imperial General Staff, they effectively committed Britain to the deployment of a large land army in the event of a major European war. Just two years later Britain was plunged into just such a war. The structure worked exactly as planned in 1914, the 100,000 strong British Expeditionary Force (BEF) mobilised swiftly and deployed to the continent without loss, protected by a Royal Navy that was still overwhelmingly superior to its opposition. Once ashore, however, events did not unfold as some had expected. The intense fire of a modern industrial war burned through the original BEF, the "old contemptibles", in the opening campaign of 1914. 1915 swallowed the fourteen Territorial divisions, and the regular BEF built by Haldane had effectively ceased to exist by the end of the Second Battle of Ypres.

What made the First World War different though wasn't that Britain's small army was chewed up by its larger continental foes, but what came next. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchiner, in 1914 implemented a plan to build an enormous volunteer "New Army" of sixty divisions: some two million men strong. When the volunteers dried up the government turned, for the first time, to mass conscription to fill the ranks of the army. The First World War was the moment when the UK went from flirting with the idea of continental land power, as a solution to certain tactical problems, to actually basing it's national strategy around it. Nobody will know if the First World War could have been won with a radically different British strategy, using it's peerless strength at sea to greater effect. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars seem to suggest that an expansionist militaristic European power, trapped in Europe and blockaded by a naval power, would sooner or later overreach and collapse in the face of its enemies. Such a war would not have been quick or easy, but might have avoided much of the sacrifice of the Western Front, and the many hundreds of thousands of British and Empire lives lost there. It is also debatable that had Britain's political leaders been clearer in their diplomacy, and more willing to actively deter Imperial Germany with the Royal Navy, the war may have been avoided altogether.

It is needless to say that the war proved a profound shock to a country whose last real experience of continental power ended with the conclusion of the Hundred Years War in 1453, and the steady loss thereafter of the last major pieces of the continental empire built by the Plantagenet dynasty. The sheer trauma of the First World War embedded itself into Britain's society, comprehensively destroying the pervasive national confidence of the nineteenth century. The Britain of 1919 was a shadow of its former self, while still an impressive Imperial titan, the system was becoming increasingly hollow at the centre. The UK had borrowed enormous sums of money during the war to loan to it's allies: France and Russia. When Tzar Nicholas II, and later the pro-western provisional government of Alexander Kerensky, were overthrown in 1917 by Bolshevik Communists any hope that Britain would see its money back from the loans it had given the Russian government evaporated. Britain's war debts were enormous, standing at ~175% of GDP in 1920. However, it was the interest on that debt that did the real damage. In 1914 the interest on the UK's national debt stood at just over 2% of GDP; by 1920 it was 6%, between 1924 and 1934 it hovered around 9% before steadily declining until 1939. For a full decade a tenth of the UK's GDP was being used up just servicing it's debts from the First World War. Understandably, such ruinous levels of debt imposed severe burdens on the British government, leading them to pursue arms reduction as a means of controlling national expenditure.

What was worse than the war debt though, was the damage inflicted upon the British population. Three quarters of a million men from the British isles were killed in the conflict, around 2% of the 1914 population, with a further 1.7 million wounded. 17% of serving officers were killed during the war, inflicting severe damage to the upper and middle classes they were commonly drawn from. Unlike in the Napoleonic wars Britain sacrificed a generation of its future leaders in the First World War. Many of whom would have contributed to the post-war economic recovery

The Washington Naval Treaties of 1922 and 1936 surely stand as a testament to the decline in Britain's power, forced on them by the long term costs of the First World War. The "two power standard", which stipulated that the Royal Navy be equal in strength to the fleets of the next two great powers combined, was relinquished for simple parity with the second naval power: the United States. Britain likely avoided a costly naval race, and worsening relations with the Americans, but sacrificed a century of supremacy at sea with the stroke of a pen. What's worse, the dearth in naval shipbuilding caused a significant contraction in Britain's naval construction capacity. While civilian yards could still be contracted to mass produce simple designs in wartime, bottlenecks in the fabrication of armour plate, large naval guns and complex equipment severely limited Britain's ability to re-equip the navy in the late inter-war years.

British planners tried to grapple with the problems of imperial defence between the world wars, protecting an Empire knitted together by maritime communications. Underinvestment and the Washington treaties ensured that the navy would go to war on 1939 with an assortment of inadequate equipment, much of which dated back to the First World War. In the meantime the Axis powers systematically ignored and avoided the limits imposed upon them. The failure to modernise the Royal Navy had the clearest consequences for British possessions in the Far East. A vast new naval base was built at Singapore between the wars, but with no fleet to make use of it. It was planned that units would be moved from the Atlantic in the event of a war (with Japan), but when that war came in 1941 the navy was already totally tied down in the West fighting Germany's U-Boats and surface raiders and the Italian navy in the Mediterranean. The token force sent to Singapore, in a futile last minute attempt to deter the Japanese, was sunk in short order by aircraft off the coast of Malaya soon after the outbreak of hostilities. Without an overwhelmingly powerful naval deterrent Britain's overseas possessions were easy targets for its rivals.

The Battlecruiser Repulse and the Battleship Prince of Wales,

under attack by Japanese aircraft, 10th December 1941.

While the maritime component, upon which Britain's power rested, was allowed to deteriorate plans for the next war with Germany were developed. Shockingly, the strategy for the second war was an almost direct re-run of the first. A protracted period of static fighting in France and Belgium, by Anglo-French armies, while the allies mobilised the resources to carry the war into Germany. The disastrous French campaign of 1940, and the evacuation at Dunkirk, put paid to British participation on the "central front" against the Wehrmacht in Europe until 1944. The Second World War thus, in reality, played out far less like the first and far more like the long struggle against Napoleon over a century earlier. The Royal Navy systematically seized control of the North Sea and Mediterranean, slowly defeating the Kriegsmarine's commerce raiding strategy, and denying the European Axis powers the ability to reach outside of the continent. Mussolini's ill considered North African adventure played out like Napoleon's. With Britain in control of the sea, Axis forces cut off from their logistics networks and their armies starved of supplies it was only a matter of time before they were forced to surrender.

As with Napoleon in 1812, in 1941 Hitler had nowhere else to go Except East into Russia. There his armies were systematically bled by bitter resistance and a hostile climate, before being smashed to pieces in a series of vast counter-offensives, that took Soviet armies to the gates of Berlin. Just as Russian armies had marched into Paris over a century earlier. Britain's contribution was not at all inconsequential, at a modest cost in lives the German state was denied use of the sea, the Soviets were bolstered in their fight against the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe was mauled over Britain, then defeated over Germany. Ironically the abject failure of Britain's continental strategy in 1940 allowed for a shift back to a more successful maritime strategy. Despite chronic under-investment before the war the Royal Navy proved it's fearsome reputation was not undeserved, and fought with all the skill and determination of its Napoleonic ancestor. As for the British army: from North Africa to Italy and France it was situated wherever the 'soft underbelly' of the Wehrmacht happened to be, fighting alongside continental allies it forced the Axis to divert vital resources away from the decisive theatre: the Eastern Front.

If the First World War was a Pyrrhic victory for Britain, the second was a catastrophe. While the country could be counted amongst the victors it was certainly not a winner. A third of its economic assets had been sacrificed  in the first war, and half of what remained in the second. The continental approach failed to bring victory in 1940, the Fall of France forced Britain to undertake an enormously expensive crash rearmament programme which required the large-scale conversion of civilian industry. This, along with other factors, would contribute to the steady decline of Britain as a competitive industrial power in the post-war world. By 1945 the country was enormously overstretched and financially exhausted. All the advantages that Britain had used to build her position in the world: maritime supremacy, strategic mobility and the precise application of force to achieve limited aims, had been sacrificed in pursuit of the continental armed forces presumed necessary to defend the homeland and the Empire. If the Second World War was, in significant part, fought to preserve Britain's position at the centre of an Imperial system, then the continental military strategy proved a spectacular failure.

In the post-war world the commitment to continental power continued unabated, despite its abject failure to advance British interests in two world wars. Britain retained its vast wartime conscript army long after the conclusion of the Second World War, in order to deal with new pressures from the European theatre of the emerging Cold War and decolonisation. By 1945 large land forces had become a permanent fixture in British defence planning, which imposed serious demands on an increasingly squeezed defence budget. Policing and relinquishing the vast land empire Britain had accrued over the course of the nineteenth century has also begun to take it's toll. Managed decolonisation proved to be a far more costly and manpower intensive business than the original conquests that had created the empire. At the height of the Malayan Emergency 40,000 commonwealth troops, the vast majority of whom were British, were tied down fighting the Communist insurgency there. A further 24,000 British soldiers and police tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Jewish insurgency in Palestine, until their withdrawal in 1947. Ten thousand regulars were required to combat the Mao Mao rebellion in Kenya, and thirty thousand were deployed to the colony of Aden at the peak of the conflict there. The list goes on but policing the empire, even when the process of decolonisation was well under way, became a major drain on Britain's military resources.

British troops deployed to Malaya, to combat the Communist insurgency
and move the country towards decolonisation and democratic rule.

Aside from colonial policing, the other continental commitment that stretched Britain's resources in the post-war world was the occupation of Germany and later the commitment to NATO. The British Army of the Rhine, and it's reinforcing forces, had nearly half the 316,000 soldiers in the army of 1960 assigned to it; with around 50,000 continuously forward deployed to Germany. Britain's commitment to the defence of Germany would steadily become an unhealthy fixation, a single narrow role was being conceived for the armed forces. As further economic pressures exerted themselves, the unchanging NATO commitment became a millstone around the country's neck. The needs of the Western alliance were always placed above the creation of mobile and flexible forces well suited to the defence of Britain's national interests outside of Europe. The weaknesses in Britain's maritime forces were already plain to see in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez war. Inadequacies in carrier air power, airbases ashore and sealift available at short notice would ensure that, by the time the preparatory bombing had been completed, the Anglo-French intervention force had lost the political initiative. The belated ground invasion that followed was cut short well before it achieved its objective: presenting the world with the fait accompli of an Anglo-French controlled canal zone. In the years that followed a declining defence budget, inter-service politics and the demands of a Eurocentric continental strategy would ensure that most of these deficiencies would never be properly addressed.

The withdrawal from East of Suez just over a decade later was as much about the prioritisation of the European theatre of operations as it was about the stated aim of cutting the cost of overseas bases. Proposals by the Royal Navy in the late 1950s suggested that the commitment could have been met by naval forces operating from a single large base (likely in Australia). Although this was ruled out on cost grounds, the navy's proposed "double stance" single-base concept would have required six large aircraft carriers, the more modest three carrier "single stance" Joint Services Seaborne Force (JSSF) proposal, operating from bases in Singapore and Bahrain, was both achievable and affordable. The JSSF concept envisaged a mobile and flexible medium-sized maritime intervention force to deliver the East of Suez commitment. Although parts of the idea, like the modernisation of Britain's amphibious shipping, were realised the overarching concept was steadily killed off by attacks by the other services in the second half of the 1960s. Notably the RAF's victory in the 1965-66 battle over the replacement of the conventional carriers, and the temporary success of their alternative "island strategy" before Britain's East of Suez role was officially abandoned altogether in 1968.

Operation Vantage, the UK response to the 1961 Kuwait crisis, proved just how effective flexible seaborne rapid reaction forces could be at nipping crises in the bud, before they could develop. It was a classic maritime response to a threat to British regional interests: a short, sharp, demonstration of force designed to achieve a limited objective, followed by withdrawal and the poising of forces offshore to cement the success of the initial action. However, the decision to withdraw from East of Suez bases, notably in Aden, Bahrain and Singapore, was as much about post-imperial retrenchment (and the idea that Britain's "new place in the world" was as a European power) as it was about the cost of maintaining those expensive facilities in the wake of the 1968 sterling crisis. Once again the choice to focus on a continental structure and role for the armed forces failed to support the UK's position as a global power, capable of projecting force in support of its interests. Instead of smaller but highly mobile maritime forces projected from a single large base East of Suez, the UK ended up with expensive and relatively immobile forces tied to a number of bases scattered across the region. In short: an increasingly unsustainable drain on resources with no European cold war role. Said maritime force could have been withdrawn to Europe in the event of a crisis, whereas comparatively immobile troops and land-based aircraft would have been considerably more difficult to redeploy at short notice.

HMS Victorious, as part of Operation Vantage, deterred a potential Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait in 1961.

With the end of National Service (conscription) in 1960 the stream of cheap manpower used to support Britain's array of overseas bases steadily began to dry up. As the process of decolonisation continued apace the army would shrink by half in less than twenty years, as the cost of manpower and equipment steadily rose throughout the 1960s and 70s. Even while spending a substantial proportion of it's national income on defence (between 1960 and 1980 it hovered around 5-6% of GDP) the country could not afford both a robust continental army and a globally deployable power projection navy. Throughout this period the government essentially "fudged" the issue by maintaining existing maritime forces left over from the rearmament programmes for the Second World War and Korea, but not replacing essential equipment like the conventional aircraft carriers (cut in 1966) when they reached the end of their lives. The government, and the new ministry of defence, initially attempted to cut a "middle way" between the continental and maritime spheres, that appeased the interests of all three services, which spectacularly unraveled in the late 1960s; as Britain abandoned its presence East of Suez, and left the defence of its interests there to the United States.

The incoherence of this policy was soon laid bare, after less than a decade away from the region the Royal Navy returned to the Arabian Gulf, to protect Britain's interests there and safeguard civilian shipping. In the long term the main consequences of "withdrawal" were the significant weakening Britain's regional influence, a major loss of military credibility and the abandonment of a handful of mostly useless bases (and two extremely useful ones in Bahrain and Singapore). Commitments to Southeast Asian stability (expressed after 1971 in the UK's membership of the Five Powers Defence Arrangements) could not be easily abandoned, nor could the UK extract itself from the commitments that derived from its dependence on Gulf oil.

Less than ten years after "withdrawal" the Royal Navy was back
East of Suez.

Slightly more than a decade after the last British troops were withdrawn from East of Suez, in which time defence policy had become focused on the continental confrontation with the Soviet Union in the European theater and the worsening situation in Northern Ireland, the unexpected happened. During the 1982 Falklands crisis, and the war that ensued, the fundamental assumptions upon which UK defence planning had rested for a decade came apart at the seams. The infamous 1981 defence white paper, overseen by then defence secretary John Nott, envisioned a severely limited role for the UK's maritime expeditionary forces. While the Royal Marines were to be retained, the two Fearless class amphibious ships were to be retired without replacement in 1982 and 1984. One of the three Invincible class light anti-submarine carriers would also be sold, as would the much older Centaur class carrier HMS Hermes. The review clearly prioritised Britain's continental commitment to NATO, with the Army and RAF both accepting a cut in manpower in exchange for new Challenger tanks, the retention of the F-4 Phantom, the introduction of the Tornado ADV fighter and the purchase of a fleet of new AV8B Harrier IIs. Fortunately for the United Kingdom, the Falklands crisis broke before the white paper's programme of changes could be fully implemented. The resulting conflict saw a British tri-service task force, similar in concept (if not in scale) to the JSSF envisaged in the early 1960s, sail half way around the world and recapture the islands from heavily entrenched Argentine forces. In 1982 maritime forces proved flexible, responsive and mobile enough to "go to the crisis" with sufficient force to decisively impact events on the ground.

It is also necessary to point out that the Falklands crisis, and the subsequent war, did not appear as a bolt from the blue. Argentina's intentions, and the need for a robust maritime force to deter attacks on Britain's scattered overseas territories, had been relatively obvious since their 1976 occupation of Southern Thule. It has been suggested by some that Operation Journeyman, the dispatch of a small naval task force the next year; in response to the occupation, may have deterred an earlier Argentine move to invade the Falklands proper. The position of the ministry of defence, their myopic focus on the European theatre and the Cold War, ensured the maritime power projection would be severely neglected. This happened to such an extent that it almost caused a military defeat, that would have had catastrophic effects on Britain's international standing. Even with the few legacy pieces of equipment like the amphibious ships and HMS Hermes the operation to retake the islands was, in the words of the ground force commander Major General Jeremy Moore, "a damn close run thing". It is a sobering thought that if the war had happened just two years later none of the legacy equipment, that proved critical to Britain's success, would have been available. The likelihood is that the operation probably wouldn't have even been attempted.

The two amphibious landing ships Fearless and Intrepid were vital to
Britain's military expedition to the Falklands. Both were slated for
disposal in 1982 and 1984 respectively.

While it is fair to say that the war in the South Atlantic saved elements of the UK's maritime force projection capability, it didn't initiate a significant change in national strategy. The overriding focus remained on the European continent, NATO and the Cold War. Unfortunately for defence planners all of this came crashing down, along with the Berlin Wall, in 1989. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not bring about "the end of history" as some optimistic commentators suggested at the time. Instead it ushered in a decade of instability in the former Communist bloc and further afield. The 1990s were not the "easy" decade for the West that they are now painted as. While the Cold War had furnished Europe and the United States with large and capable armed forces, they were often used to manage threats they had not been designed for. The decade was defined by ongoing and brutal conflicts in the Gulf and Balkans, both tied to the collapse of the Cold War world order. While the 1990-91 Gulf War would appear, on its face, to be a successful continental-style war that the British played a significant part in, in fact it was anything but. It is not difficult to see that the UK contribution of just under 54,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen pales in comparison to the ~700,000 deployed by the United States. The war was overwhelmingly an American show, with coalition forces mainly there to add legitimacy to UN-backed US action. In light of this Britain's contribution can be seen as militarily useful, but by no means essential, and, more than anything else, politically advantageous for the United States. Worse for the United Kingdom though were the glaring deficiencies in the Cold War continental army that the war exposed. In order to achieve "maximum deterrent value" the BAOR's combat service, support and logistics elements had been neglected in order to generate larger combat arms. What this meant in practice was that much of the British army's heavy combat equipment in Germany was unserviceable and very difficult to deploy. Government investigations into the conduct of the Gulf war revealed that BAOR's Challenger I availability in 1990 was only 23%, with the rest being under repair or out of service. While the British Army could rely on an established logistics system in the NATO area, to support its forward-deployed forces in Germany, no such system existed for long-range expeditionary operations. British forces famously had to ransack almost their entire BAOR stockpile in order to scrounge together the equipment and ammunition to put a single Division in the field in 1990. Even then, without the backing of the US logistics network it is doubtful that they could have been sustained in high intensity combat for very long.

In the years after the Falklands war the army examined and dismissed the Brigade level logistics structure, used by the Royal Marines to great success in 1982. Their contention was that it would impose the burden of providing additional supporting forces upon the BAOR. As the Gulf War showed, even if a direct copy of the Marines' approach was inappropriate, the Army's logistics were inadequate for the large expeditionary operations they found themselves conducting. By the end of the Cold War Britain had the worst of both worlds, a hollow and immobile continental army and a severely neglected power projection navy. The 1990 "options for change" review, instead of charting a new path for Britain's armed forces that would better suit the new geo-strategic environment, simply cut evenly across all three services to produce a "peace dividend". The army and RAF were not withdrawn from Germany, their mission complete, but instead lingered there as the reduced "British Forces Germany".

The logistics system designed to support the BAOR fighting in Germany
proved inadequate when those forces needed to be projected far from
their continental European bases.

The 1994 "front line first" review brought more mixed results. The ongoing conflict in the Balkans highlighted the need for robust intervention forces, and the amphibious sealift to move them. This helped persuade the government at the time to place orders for a dedicated helicopter carrier (which would eventually become HMS Ocean) and two new ships to replace the ageing Fearless class amphibious landing ships. However, at the same time deep cuts fell on the network of logistics and support structures. 17 depots were closed, and all three services suffered further manpower reductions.

Britain's contribution to peacekeeping and peacemaking in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s stands as a good example of how small but mobile forces, capable of achieving limited goals, can effectively secure broad national interests. The Royal Navy spent the five years from 1991-1996 playing a leading role in first monitoring and later maritime interception operations in the Adriatic, enforcing the UN arms embargo on the conflict area. Despite there being around 400,000 people under arms in Bosnia alone between 1992 and 1995 the British contingent of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), numbering only 8,000 troops at it's height in August 1995, was able to achieve significant results using limited coercive force and acting in close concert with diplomatic efforts. By attaining a succession of limited aims the international peacekeeping force was able to improve the situation on the ground with local peace deals, which steadily built momentum for an internationally enforced general ceasefire. At its absolute height, as part of the 80,000 strong international Implementation Force (IFOR) deployed in 1995 to enforce the peace, the UK contingent increased to just under 12,000 troops until IFOR was disbanded and replaced with the smaller Stabilisation Force (SFOR) at the end of 1996. Britain's contribution to the latter was just over 5,000 troops. While the war in Bosnia bore little similarity to Britain's past maritime operations on the TV screens of the public, in reality it carried all the hallmarks of an effective maritime intervention. The use of limited coercive force to achieve limited aims, the use of a naval blockade to starve the warring parties of military equipment, the use of military force as part of a carefully considered political strategy and larger-scale action conducted alongside continental allies.

A British Challenger tank deployed to Bosnia as part of the international
Implementation Force.

Many of the lessons of fighting in Bosnia, and expeditionary warfare in general, formed the basis of significant structural changes to the armed forces laid out in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. The creation of "Joint Rapid Reaction Forces". It specified the need for increased deployability and a focus on expeditionary duties for the army, with the planned addition of the logistic elements necessary to support two medium sized deployments simultaneously. The foundations were also laid for the eventual replacement of the Invincible class carriers with two new larger ships, what later became the CVF programme, and has now resulted in the two 70,000 ton ships of the Queen Elizabeth class. The SDR also laid the groundwork for the excellent Bay class auxiliary amphibious ships. The trade-off for the Royal Navy were small decreases in the number of escorts, submarines and a reduction in the planned fleet of minehunters; from 35, 12 and 25 to 32, 10 and 22 respectively. The number of Merlin anti-submarine helicopters was also curtailed at 44, with upgraded Lynx helicopters making up some of the shortfall.

Amidst all the technical detail of the 1998 review one thing was clear, it was the first sign of an major realignment of British defence strategy. Although a substantial portion of the army still resided in Germany the SDR laid out a shift towards forces tailored for mobility and limited maritime intervention. The army's airborne forces were merged to create a new formation, 16 Air Assault Brigade, that would be held at high readiness along with the Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade. The interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone in 1999 and 2000 proved that the new structure did indeed offer greater mobility and flexibility for intervention operations conducted at short notice. Maritime force projection, limited aims and operating alongside allies where necessary once again proved to be a winning combination for the UK.

And then 9/11 happened.

While it is easy to write at length on the less than stellar outcomes of the "Global War on Terror", launched by President George W. Bush in the wake of Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, I shall focus instead on the effects that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had on the British armed forces. While the initial interventions in both countries swiftly achieved their aims, the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power, the British armed forces were steadily drawn into a pair of open ended "enduring stabilisation operations"/counter-insurgency wars with expansive aims; for which they were poorly prepared and inadequately equipped. Without an increase in the defence budget to fund these wars assets, programmes and capabilities not directly linked to supporting ongoing operations were neglected, cut or reduced. The Royal Navy suffered particularly harsh reductions, with the number of escorts reduced from thirty-two hulls in 2001 to nineteen in 2014 and the number of nuclear attack submarines falling from twelve to six. Important amphibious and utility shipping was also lost in 2010 with the sale of RFA Largs Bay to Australia and the mothballing of one of the Albion class LPDs. There was also the much publicised retirement of the carrier Ark Royal and the Harrier jump jet, effectively "gapping" UK carrier strike capability for a decade. For those that would argue the reductions were a result of the 2007/8 financial crisis, rather than a result of fighting two extremely expensive wars, seven of the thirteen escorts lost from 2001-2014 were retired without replacement before 2007, as were three of the five nuclear attack submarines. The retirement of Ark Royal in 2010 was a logical step, as the Harrier aircraft that made up her air group were heavily committed to the war Afghanistan and had been unavailable for serious carrier deployment for several years.

Sadly, for all the progress towards the more limited, mobile and maritime defence structure outlined in the 1998 review much of Britain's naval capacity was beggared on the altar of attempting to sustain an unsustainable tempo of operations. The army's withdrawal from Iraq in 2008, and subsequent "doubling down" on the Afghan mission, came because they were completely unprepared to conduct two large stabilisation operations simultaneously. Even solely focusing on Afghanistan the army weren't able to deploy enough troops to Helmand province to achieve the objectives they were set. It would eventually require the introduction of thousands of US Marines alongside the British contingent to begin to wrest areas away from the Taliban insurgents. While a culture of optimism, the famous "can-do" attitude of the British armed forces, prevailed at the top; a more sober analysis of the situation showed that these operations were unsustainable, unlikely to achieve the lofty aims set with the resources available and were doing serious damage to the UK's ability to conduct limited power projection operations.

The British Army never had the manpower or resources to sustain two large
enduring stabilisation operations.

Almost without exception the overriding lesson of the last hundred years, from the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, is that Britain's adoption of a continental strategy failed to support the country's position in the world. Two bloody and ruinously expensive World Wars were followed by decades of colonial policing, retreat from parts of the world vital to UK national interests, an increasingly burdensome Cold War commitment to the defence of West Germany and finally two expensive and damaging counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to learn the lessons of our history, and of the last century, to see that this is; as Churchill put it "a game in which we are bound to lose". It is not difficult to recognise that the UK has the potential to generate extremely effective armed forces tailored to conduct limited maritime expeditionary warfare. It is plain to see that generating continental forces that are expensive enough to undermine the UK's power projection capabilities, but not large enough to effectively fight continental wars or defend Britain's national interests, is a foolish waste of resources.

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have been bruising experiences for the United Kingdom, seriously denting the prestige of the army and the confidence politicians have in the military's ability to provide solutions to complex problems. It would appear that now is the perfect time to once again espouse the benefits of a more limited and cautious maritime strategy for Britain. Thankfully the core strength of the Royal navy, while depleted, is far from broken. With new power projection equipment, not least the Queen Elizaebth class aircraft carriers, due to enter service soon; those at the top may begin to see what they've been missing for the last three and a half decades.

Those that advocate the strength of maritime strategy for the UK shouldn't get too carried away, the argument is far from won and there will be those that vehemently disagree. Although the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review appears to shift the focus back to a more maritime, limited and expeditionary focus it remains to be seen if it really has heralded a real shift in Britain's national strategy or if, like the 1998 review, it will promise much change but in practice deliver more continental military entanglements. Until we know for sure where this new direction will take us we should always look to our recent history, and ask the question: "Why should we sacrifice a game in which we are sure to win to play a game in which we are bound to lose?"