A word on Light Frigates

The idea of a "two tier fleet" is often proposed as a solution to the Royal Navy's current shortage of surface escorts. Building a larger number of light frigates instead of some of the "tier 1" force of high end surface combatants. In the view of the author this approach is dangerously flawed. Not only are these types of ships profoundly unsuited to the RN's needs, but their introduction would put Britain's already stretched military credibility at risk; as well as the lives of a large number of sailors.

It is very easy to forget that the RN has been down this road before; and has seen the dead end that it leads to. The Falklands War cruelly exposed the severe deficiencies of low end surface combatants. A large part of the problem is that on the surface these ships appear little different from their more expensive high end counterparts. To a politician one grey hull with a gun on the front looks little different from another. However, their outward appearance of power hides the lack of real capability. Type 21, the RN's last light frigate, looked like a modern warship; bristling with guns and missiles. The only problem was that its Sea Cat missiles, intended for self defence against aircraft, were obsolete as soon as the ships were launched. Without the complex radars and computer systems necessary to manage a modern anti aircraft missile system, like Sea Wolf fitted to the Type 22s, Type 21 was essentially defenceless in the face of old aircraft dropping unguided bombs. Their missiles were so useless that the Type 21s entered "bomb alley" with crew lining the upper decks to fire small arms and 20mm Oerlikon cannons at their attackers. That's why of the seven Type 21 frigates that sailed to the South Atlantic in 1982 only three returned undamaged, and two did not return at all. If the Argentine ground crews has fuzed their bombs correctly, more would almost certainly be sat at the bottom of San Carlos Water. Even the large capable "high end" warships often struggled to defend themselves in 1982, but at least their modern armament gave them a fighting chance. As for the surviving Type 21s, they spent the rest of their careers patrolling the benign waters of the West Indies. The navy learned a hard lesson about light frigates in 1982. In response the Type 23, originally intended as a minimum towed array ship, was extensively redesigned and became a high end general purpose frigate.

This is why the government's recent talk of a "lighter general purpose frigate" to follow on after the 8 high end Type 26s arouses concerns in the mind of the author. There is a lot of room for maneuver here, it's perfectly possible to produce a credible warship smaller than the 7,000 tonne Type 26 (which, as I laid out here, is more akin to a cruiser anyway) but a design in which self defence capability is compromised in order to achieve a low unit cost would be a dangerous waste of money. If a light patrol ship is required for constabulary tasks and presence then a large OPV will suffice, it'll be cheaper and clearly not intended for combat. If, on the other hand, you're interested in warfighting then anything that can't defend itself against a range of likely threats is worse than useless and liable to get a lot of good people killed.

Roadmap to Victory: Defeating the Islamic State

The factors which make Islamic State relatively straightforward to contain geographically are the same ones which make it nearly impossible to drive them from the lands they currently occupy. The group relies upon the often irreconcilable divisions between their enemies in order to survive, these divisions allow them to face each of their enemies  on the ground in turn. I would suggest that the nightmare scenario for ISIS commanders, many of whom are experienced military men, is a war on multiple fronts. IS puts little stock in static defence, probably based on the assumption that to spread it's forces thinly along its borders would invite disaster. They realise that, in the words of Frederick the Great, "he who defends everything, defends nothing". It also tells us that the likelihood is that their army isn't nearly as large as some commentators suggest, they do not have experienced troops to spare for defensive action. Instead their strategy is to lightly defend their external borders. Using very small numbers of troops, suicide bombers and booby traps to harass and slow down their enemies. Importantly they do not attempt to blunt their attacks by fighting significant defensive actions. Again, they are probably right to do so. They likely judge that defending territory, even urban areas, in the face of Coalition air power is ill advised at best and suicidal at worst. Any fight where ISIS forces become pinned in place by enemy ground troops for more than a few days will likely result in disproportionate losses for the Islamic State, as the full weight of Coalition air power is brought to bear. We saw this happen when IS conducted protracted offensive action around Kobane. The experience of heavy losses in that battle: ~2000 fighters killed, an unknown number injured and 18 tanks destroyed, likely shaped their current mode of conducting operations. Their commanders understand that pushing against enemy strength, along a single axis, in order to seize an objective won't work. Instead they attack where their enemies are weakest. Short sharp offensives that take (or retake) ground at a low cost in the lives to their base of experienced fighters. By always holding the initiative, and an element of surprise, they continue to dictate the terms of the ground war; even when their enemies are on the offensive.

While the group is committed to a strategy of continued offensive action, which keeps their enemies off balance and prevents them from gathering the forces for a decisive thrust into the Islamic State itself, it has not been able to repeat it's initial rapid advances. This is almost certainly because they are constrained, like all the other warring factions, by their inability to operate effectively outside areas populated by their own ethno-religious group. It's probable that one reason for their initial gains in Iraq was Islamic State's ability to exploit the human landscape in Sunni majority areas far more effectively than their opponents in the Shia dominated Iraqi army. This factor makes them far easier to contain territorially, because the same factor which enabled them to expand so quickly into the Sunni parts of Iraq now works against them when they try to advance into Shia or Kurdish majority areas. Containing the group in Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria has drawbacks though. In order to maintain the appearance of continuous offensive success they have begun parallel strategies of terror attacks on the West and the establishment of franchises outside their main territory.

There are several important things we can infer from their behaviour, which will be essential in formulating a strategy to defeat them militarily.

1. Contrary to their own narrative they are acutely aware that they cannot sustain heavy casualties. This has led them to avoid protracted offensive action and to all but abandon the defensive as a viable option.

2. Their veteran field army is vital to their strategy, as it enables them to conduct effective offensive action. This prevents their enemies from concentrating enough force along a few axies of attack to seriously threaten their territory.

3. Their inability to make headway in non Sunni areas, south towards majority Shia Baghdad and North into Kurdish territory, is a product of the same forces which prevent Kurdish or Shia dominated Iraqi forces from making headway in the opposite direction. All the forces present in Iraq lack the ability to project their military power into areas controlled by different religious and ethnic groups, ISIS included.

4. ISIS rely on the divisions throughout the region and beyond it for their survival against conventional military intervention with ground forces. ISIS leaders likely know that the US will continue to veto Turkish intervention on the basis that it will likely be directed as much against their Kurdish allies as against IS. Many of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia seem content to watch as Assad's Iranian ally is drawn ever deeper into the Syrian quagmire. Of course it goes without saying that Assad and the Free Syrian Army will continue to battle one another far more intensely than ISIS.

5. Containing IS is likely pushing the group to adopt a new strategy, which includes acts of international terrorism and spreading franchise groups, in order to maintain the appearance of effective offensive action.

The ISIS field army is at the core of their strategy of continuous offensive action.

With these deductions in mind, what would an effective strategy for defeating ISIS look like? Any such action would have to start with the premise of destroying, or so badly damaging, their field army that they cease to be capable of conducting meaningful offensive or counter offensive action. This is far easier said than done, Western troops would not be able to achieve this. The leadership of IS will undoubtedly have prepared contingencies for the introduction of conventional forces by a major military power. Their reaction would probably be to immediately disperse their forces and adopt a purely guerilla strategy of protracted resistance. This is unappealing because it makes the wholesale destruction of their trained manpower base a near impossibility over any acceptable time span. In order to be drawn into a conventional battle IS commanders must believe that they stand a reasonable chance of success. This means the main ground component will have to be drawn from at least one, but likely more, of the factions currently fighting on the ground.

The fight to destroy IS' army cannot be a defensive action on the part of their enemies, so long as IS hold the initiative they remain free to break off costly offensive action and refocus their efforts elsewhere. Their army needs to be drawn into a battle they patently do not wish to fight, a protracted static defensive action, where coalition air power can be fully brought to bear against them. IS will not be forced to commit to such an action easily. It would probably require a land force threatening one of their major centers of power, Raqqa or Mosul, in order to force them to commit to a static defensive action in a single location. Their leaders will almost certainly understand the difficulty of assaulting a city filled with determined defenders and calculate that they stand a reasonable chance of success. In an action against dug in ISIS forces holding a major city, coalition members must set aside many of their reservations about conducting strikes in urban areas. Civilians will die and IS may seek to keep as many of them in place as possible, to limit the effectiveness of air power by exploiting the squeamishness of Western populations when it comes to unintended collateral damage. Embedding forward air controllers with trustworthy local forces such as the Peshmerga would be one way to reduce civilian casualties and increase the effectiveness of coalition air strikes.

We must seek to turn one of these cities and it's surrounding areas into a "Stalingrad" for ISIS, pushing them to the point where they commit totally to a symbolic battle  in which their army can be irreparably damaged; by inflicting severe losses on their base of experienced fighters. If IS refuse to deviate from their existing strategy, instead opting to avoid defensive action altogether, then they will lose control of one of their major power centers effectively without a fight. That would be a major propaganda coup for their enemies and deprive them of a substantial portion of their economic base and manpower pool. Putting ISIS between a rock and a hard place in this manner can be no bad thing, but I would expect there to be a good chance of them standing and fighting in place. To avoid such a battle would utterly shatter their aura of invincibility.

Of the two options Raqqa is by far the less attractive target. Situated deep within ISIS held territory in Syria, it would probably require a united Syrian force to successfully threaten it and then force IS into a defensive battle. Seeing as there is no real prospect of such a force existing in the near future, Raqqa must be discounted as currently unfeasible. That leaves us with only one real option: Mosul.

Mosul, surrounded on three sides in the Northeast by Kurdish forces.

Recent Kurdish operations have been focused on the corridor linking ISIS held territory in Eastern Syria to it's Iraqi stronghold in Mosul, with the town of Sinjar falling to a joint YPG/PKK and Peshmerga offensive aided by Yezidi militias earlier this month. In accordance with IS' current strategy, the area was not seriously contested, with estimates of around 700 fighters facing off against over 7,500 Kurdish troops. Even the Kurdish threat to and eventual capture of the logistically important Highway 47 did not force IS to commit it's main strength to the battle. As I've previously outlined I believe that IS will only commit itself to a defensive battle if one of their two major population centers are threatened.

The next question which requires addressing is do the Kurdish forces have the will and the capability to conduct such an operation? Clearly convincing the Kurds to engage their forces in a bloody urban battle of attrition, outside their own territory, will be a significant task. In this respect the West at least has it's track record of long standing friendship and co-operation to build upon. ISIS control of Mosul also presents a clear threat to Kurdish territory, acting as their primary base of operations in Northern Iraq. Kurdish leaders and commanders likely understand that sooner or later Mosul will have to be retaken, although their current hopes are probably that such a significant task could be left to the better equipped Iraqi Army to deal with at a later date. However, the now Shia dominated Iraqi Army has repeatedly displayed a profound unwillingness to advance into Sunni majority areas. It's front line is also ~180km further from Mosul than the Kurds, any advance towards Mosul on the part of the Iraqi Army would have to take a lot of time clearing the surrounding areas of resistance. This sort of action would also likely provoke a major attack from ISIS elsewhere, potentially in Anbar province, as they did earlier this year in order to preemptively blunt a similar northward offensive. An advance by the Iraqi Army would therefore be most likely to succeed if it were to fall after ISIS had committed their main strength to Mosul, removing the potential for a major offensive elsewhere. Convincing the Kurds to undertake a major offensive against Mosul would be difficult, but not impossible as part of a multi front offensive involving the Iraqi security forces.

More important than the Kurds willingness to conduct an offensive against Mosul is their military capacity to do so. If they lack the necessary military resources to undertake an operation of this scale and complexity then the plan is a non-starter.

Estimates on the military resources ISIS commands range from the CIA's conservative 2014 estimate of 31,000 fighters to the Kurds own claims of a force 200,000 strong. More recent reports from 2015 suggest that IS can call upon a force in the region of 40,000 fighters, although it is unclear what proportion of these are tied to garrison and rear echelon duties. Western troops usually require a ratio of 3-1 support to combat troops, but let us err on the side of caution and suggest that the ratio for ISIS is far lower. For the purpose of this exercise I will assume that a third of their troops would be unavailable or unsuitable for combat duties, meaning they can muster 2 combat troops for every fighter engaged in supporting activities. This gives them an estimated total strength of around 25,000 fighters. Their heavy equipment varies wildly in quality and age but IS is thought to have around 170 tanks, 150 armoured personnel carriers and a few hundred armoured cars. These numbers must come with the caveat that they are old, likely out of date, and certainly far higher than the strength they could actually deploy.

The estimated number of troops available to the Peshmerga varies wildly, ranging from 80,000 and 200,000. Accurate figures are difficult to come by but a conservative estimate would be that they command around 120,000 troops with a much greater proportion dedicated to rear echelon and garrison duties than IS. For the sake of argument let's say the Peshmerga can field one fighter for every two supporting troops.  This would produce a theoretical force of ~40,000 front line combat troops. The YPG and other allied militias could provide a few thousand more, but their equipment and is generally insufficient for much beyond the guerrilla or light infantry duties at which they admittedly excel.

While the raw numbers, although sketchy, suggest that the "Kurdish forces" do have a numerical advantage over IS; the numbers alone hide a range of issues that prevent the Kurds from putting such a force in the field. Firstly the political divisions within the Peshmerga are a major stumbling block, the 36 brigades are all independently controlled and many are aligned with the PUK, KDP and KRG factions. Although there have been efforts to unite these forces under a single unified command to fight IS, progress has so far been slow. Similarly, these politically divided brigades often struggle to cooperate with one another. Heavy equipment is another area where the Peshmerga has weaknesses. They actually do possess a sizable number of armoured vehicles and heavy artillery pieces, mostly ex - soviet, seized from the Ba'athist army's stockpile during the 2003 Iraq war. In total the Peshmerga have over 500 tanks and around 200 armoured personnel carriers. The lack of spare parts and ammunition, however, prevents most of it from being made available for front line use. Another problem is that, for the size of their forces, their logistical support structures are woefully inadequate. Conducting protracted offensive action will absolutely require a far more robust and effective logistics network backing it up.

Kurdish T-55 tanks: available in numbers but lacking vital spare parts 

Several of the highlighted areas of weakness can be remedied with outside help. Russia's recent commitment to directly combating IS makes the task of sourcing spares and ammunition for much of the Peshmerga's heavy equipment a more straightforward exercise. If the Russians refuse to cooperate then all of the required parts and ammunition are still readily available on the international market, but accessible only to state buyers. The US Army has over 30,000 M939 utility trucks currently set for disposal, transferring a portion of these to the Kurdish forces would go a long way towards solving some of their logistical problems. Importantly both these solutions avoid arming the Kurds with modern equipment that would allow them to challenge Iraqi government forces at a later date, supplies of ammunition and spare parts could easily be cut off after the conflict, to limit their potential for armed secession.

The politicised nature of many of the Peshmerga brigades, and lack of a unified command structure, are far more intractable but not insurmountable problems. Significant but slow progress has been made towards a unified Peshmerga command structure, a series of defeats and blunders fighting IS has made it clear that a more unified effort will be necessary to successfully combat ISIS. I would advise that if the Kurdish regional government manages to implement a functional unified command structure then the West should equip them with the spare parts and ammunition they need to deploy their existing heavy equipment and take the fight to IS around Mosul. If it is made clear that supplies will only come once the Kurds implement a workable unified command it could give the initiative the impetus it needs to be put into place.

The Peshmerga would very likely have an overall and local numerical advantage over IS, especially considering that the Islamist group would be taking an enormous risk if it concentrated a very large portion of it's strength on the defence of Mosul. As Operation Free Sinjar has demonstrated, the Kurds do seem able to concentrate the large forces necessary to execute complex urban assault operations. A battle for control of Mosul would be on an entirely different scale however, without their heavy equipment and a unified command it would be an enormously risky and costly undertaking; even with the Iraqi Army moving up from the south. It does, however, remain the best possible chance for anti-IS forces to inflict irreparable attrition to their trained fighters and prestige.

In summary, IS is militarily easy to contain. The difficulty lies in dislodging them from the territory they hold because of their strategy of harassment rather than static defence and continuous offensive action directed against their enemies weakest points. Despite this, I believe their commanders are acutely aware that their strategy would collapse if they were to lose enough of the trained field army to prevent their offensive action from being successful. This cannot simply be achieved by blunting their offensives, leaving them free to withdraw at will and attack elsewhere. In order to inflict the necessary damage they must be forced into conducting a static defensive battle that they do not wish to fight. The only way of doing this, in the author's opinion, is by seriously threatening one of their two major centers of power: Mosul or Raqqa. As there are currently no forces on the ground capable of conducting an offensive towards Raqqa, Mosul is left as the only realistic option open to us. While the Iraqi army is the better equipped force, they will remain unable to concentrate the force to advance northwards with IS threatening their flank in Anbar province. It will therefore have to be the geographically closer Kurdish forces which initiate the battle and begin the process of drawing IS reserves into the city before the Iraqis can advance, certain that those reserves couldn't be employed for offensive action against their Western flank. In the meantime the West needs to help the Kurdish forces build the logistical support structures necessary for them to conduct protracted offensive. The West must also seriously encourage the establishment of a functional unified command, possibly using the delivery of spare parts and ammunition for their existing heavy weapons as an incentive to do so.

Defeating IS is a matter of making their current military strategy for Iraq and Syria unworkable. This can only be achieved by forcing them to fight a battle that will result in the fatal degradation of their fighting power. I believe an attack on Mosul, coordinated in the manner I have laid out, could achieve this without the need for large Western conventional forces.

Hunters of the Deep: the Modern Battleship

"Hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting"

-Admiral John "Jackie" Fisher

On the 21st of October 1960 the sleek black hull of HMS Dreadnought, Britain's first nuclear powered attack submarine, slipped into the water at Barrow in Furness. Like her immediate predecessor and namesake she brought a sweeping change in her wake. For the first time in the history of the British naval service the decisive arm of sea control, the "battlefleet", would operate beneath the waves rather than upon them. By the time that Dreadnought was commissioned, the Royal Navy had been operating submarines for sixty years. Despite this even the most modern diesel electric boats were, in 1963, primitive by comparison. The 2000 ton Porpoise class boats, built throughout the 1950s, could make a maximum of  17 knots while submerged. They also needed to frequently surface and run their diesel generators to recharge the batteries they used while submerged, and their limited fuel supply gives them relatively short legs. In comparison, the nuclear powered Dreadnought could cruise at 28 knots or more and remain submerged indefinitely; only constrained, in theory, by the supply of food needed for the crew. Even today the most modern non-nuclear submarines can only make ~20 knots while submerged. The nuclear powered attack submarine is the true capital ship of the 21st century, like the battleships that pre-dated them they are designed to sweep the seas clean of enemy warships, and confine hostile fleets to their bases for fear of destruction.

This last point is especially important: the only time a nuclear submarine has ever acted against a surface ship in wartime it struck such a powerful blow to Argentine morale that the opposing fleet effectively confined itself to port for the rest of the conflict. Of course HMS Conqueror's famous attack on the Argentine cruiser Belgrano was hardly an even match, the Argentine navy had little experience with antisubmarine warfare and lacked the ability to effectively respond to Britain's fast nuclear powered submarines. What is far more telling though is the British experience of antisubmarine warfare in 1982. The Task force that sailed south was equipped with some of the most sophisticated ASW equipment available, designed to fight Soviet nuclear submarines in the Northeast Atlantic, and had no lack of experienced and well trained personnel. To put it bluntly the Royal Navy, even with modern equipment and training, failed to find and successfully engage the single semi-modern Argentine diesel electric submarine operating against the Task Force. It remains the case that the most effective weapon against a nuclear powered submarine is another submarine. Like the battleship before it the fast nuclear powered attack submarine is the supreme means of enforcing sea control, and denying the use of this space to the enemy.

HMS Conqueror returns from the 1982 Falklands war flying the
Jolly Rodger, signifying her successful attack on the Belgrano.

To see the true extent of the United State's capacity to control of the seas you need look no further than the following table of nuclear powered attack submarine operators, and their respective "battlefleets":

SSN & SSGN fleets by submerged tonnage:

USA- 63 boats, 492700 tons 

Russia- 23 boats, 297300 tons

UK- 6 boats, 36000 tons

China- 5 boats, 30500 tons

France- 6 boats, 15600 tons

India- 1 boat (leased), 12770 tons

At the height of it's power in the mid 1890s Britain maintained a "two power standard" which legally required the Royal Navy's battlefleet to be equal to the next two largest foreign fleets combined. The US Navy's submarine force currently stands more powerful, in numbers and tonnage of boats, than every other operator of nuclear attack submarines combined. It has a 3:1 advantage over it's only serious opponent, the Russian submarine force, which becomes close to 4:1 when it's European allies are factored in. It is this that ensures the US Navy is untouchable in almost any confrontation between fleets; and continues to reign supreme at sea, regardless of the deployment of ballistic missiles and advanced anti ship missiles designed to destroy aircraft carriers.

While the aircraft carrier may still be the ultimate symbol of naval power and prestige, the nuclear attack submarine is currently it's most potent expression. With the capability to destroy surface ships with limited difficulty, and in doing so seriously degrade enemy morale, they can effectively dominate the strategic space. SSNs may not be as glamorous as the battleships that preceded them, in most cases the submarine arm tends to remain out of the limelight. In the UK and USA they are commonly known as "the silent service". We should never forget that their low profile is a function of the secret nature of their work, rather than their unimportance.

In the 19th century Britain's "wooden walls", the battleships of Nelson's fleet, became ever more sophisticated walls of Iron and steam. Now those walls are invisible to most, lurking below the waves rather than riding atop them. Occasionally we glimpse the top of the sleek black pressure hull of a nuclear powered attack submarine, as a reminder that we are protected by the new hunters of the deep. 

Paris: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

At around 8:30 PM GMT yesterday, Friday the 13th of November 2015, explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium in Paris. An hour later a Cambodian restaurant in the centre of the city was attacked by gunmen and soon after that hundreds of people were taken hostage in the Bataclan theatre nearby. At around 10:30 French counter-terrorist police appear to have stormed the theatre, at this point the gunmen seem to have detonated explosive suicide vests. At 1:40 the police reported that they believed all the gunmen had been killed. At the moment the death toll stands at over 120, with reports of another hundred in critical condition and an unknown number of people injured. In some circles this is already being called "France's 9/11", the deadliest attack on French soil since the Second World War. What began yesterday and ended in the early hours of this morning now seems to be over.

Today the people of France, and the Western world grieves together, for the friends and loved ones killed in the attack. In the coming days some will inevitably level criticism at the French security services for failing to prevent the attack. For what its worth I would personally like to thank them for their efforts. All it takes is a single incident to slip through the net and the hundreds foiled in the past count for naught. Ultimately blame must always be laid at the feet of the perpetrators. ISIS have claimed the attack as a response to French military action against their squalid fascistic "state", and it's probably that French police will confirm this in time. Today is not about them though, today is about pausing to remember the victims and their loved ones.

What will happen tomorrow, and in the days ahead remains to be seen. What these attacks have made brutally clear is that we have been sleepwalking in our war against ISIS, an enemy that is as remorseless as any of the totalitarian regimes we have faced in the past. President Hollande has promised that France's response will be pitiless, that the attack was an act of war. When the dust clears and the celebrations in Raqqa end ISIS will realise that by attacking the West "all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

ISIS do not fear us because they do not understand us: they mistake our compassion for weakness, our slowness to anger for a lack of resolve. As wars past have repeatedly demonstrated, there is simply nothing as terrible as the Cold fury of a democracy roused to action. The West now grieves for the dead and prays for those that might still live.

As for ISIS and the people that perpetrated this crime: there's a storm coming, the likes of which you cannot imagine.

Superpower on a Shoestring: Britain's Place in the World

Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.

-Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, 1962

Those simple words spoken by the chief diplomat of a confident and rising power, about an economically moribund country in apparently inexorable retreat, continue to grind at a raw nerve in the British psyche. Since then more words have been written and spoken on the subject of "Britain's place in the world" than most people could ever reasonably be expected to digest. It should be noted that most other great powers are not constantly trapped in the same cycle of questioning and self-doubt that the UK is. This country has at times been described as a "hub", a "bridge" and a link between Europe and the United States. In short, a distinct entity deeply connected with both regions and yet still separate from them. It is likely the distinctive and unique nature of Britain's power that makes it so difficult for so many people to understand; and which generates this constant national discussion.

Of the seven current great powers: the United States, France, Russia, Germany, China, the United Kingdom and Japan, only two are maritime powers. And while the UK and Japan share many common strategic challenges, only the UK has the freedom of action to employ the full range of it's national power. For all the talk of its re-militarisation Japan is still severely limited in what it can do with regards to foreign policy. The remaining five are continental powers, whose global influence is limited, to greater or lesser degrees, by their need to police and defend extensive land borders. The ability to generate and maintain military power has therefore, historically, been an essential determinant of a continental power's ability to defend it's territory, position and international influence. Applying the same standards by which we measure the strength of continental powers to a maritime power such as Britain leads inexorably to the "small irrelevant island" view. In the global rankings Britain's population and military are remarkably small, while it remains a significant economic power. As it stands the UK has the fifth largest economy in the world, with some long term projections indicating that it may overtake Germany into fourth place by the middle of this century.

Clearly Britain has substantial economic power, but some will still argue that this power isn't useful unless it is converted into military means. This is patently not the case, the UK's place at the centre of the European finance and banking sector gives it leverage, influence and power whenever the economic weapon is wielded. Comprehensive sanctions and targeted asset freezes are often the modern equivalent of a blockade, with the ability to deal severe damage to a country's economic activity and national life. This has been shown to be true time and again, sanctions had the power to badly hurt regional powers like Iraq and Iran as well as a major power Russia in the wake of it's invasion of Crimea. Financial means are especially useful because, unlike the armed forces, they cost next to nothing when they are not being used; and are an effective way of inflicting damage to states without the risks inherent in military action.

The City of London, Europe's banking capital,
 and a formidable source of UK economic power

Despite what a number of newspaper columnists and commentators would have the general public believe, the UK clearly sits amongst the top tier of great powers. While Russia and China may both have far more men and women under arms; and an impressive array of military equipment, their reach and ability to sustain forces far from home is limited. Neither possess the network of strategically located bases and territories that the UK does; in this regard we are only really surpassed by the United States. The construction of a major new naval base in Bahrain is only the latest development in this regard. It's location would, in theory, allow the Royal Navy to project and sustain it's carrier and/or amphibious battle group almost anywhere in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Air bases in Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, Ascension, Qatar and Gibraltar mean that the RAF could rapidly establish a strong presence in the Atlantic or Mediterranean If deemed necessary. Neither Russia nor China possess the strategically placed sovreign territory necessary to effectively forward base their forces like the UK can. While the port of Tartus in Syria gives the Russian Navy a toehold in the Mediterranean, it has come at the cost of being dragged into that country's civil war. This is potentially a very high price for the use of what amounts to a small naval station, unable to service any of Russia's major warships.

An RAF Tornado flies out of the UK's military airbase on Cyprus. 

While the UK's range of military bases and overseas territories give it substantial military reach, the nation's ability to effectively employ force rests on a comprehensive network of bilateral and multilateral military alliances and partnerships. Of the six other great powers the UK is part of a defensive alliance with three, including the pre-eminent conventional military power: the United States, and is currently less close but still friendly with Japan; especially with regards to military training. It can't be stated enough that Britain's international security strategy, especially in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, relies upon building the capabilities of regional and local actors to a point where they can effectively provide their own security. While a network of alliances with the great powers helps secure the UK's international position at the highest levels, many of the partnerships with smaller powers are aimed at empowering them in order to address problems at the lower end of the conflict spectrum. Small military missions, training and consistent engagement can achieve what ten thousand British troops, fighting for over a decade at a great cost in blood and treasure, struggled to do in Afghanistan. As a maritime trading power stability, especially in areas near important waterways, is nearly always in Britain's national interest. It is undeniable that the UK's network of military alliances, friends and partners is an important means of maintaining and supporting stability in vital areas of the world.

Another area where Britain's great power status is clearly evident is it's diplomatic presence. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has either a high commission, embassy or diplomatic mission in almost every internationally recognised state. With the exception of a handful of West African and Central American countries and Syria. The UK has maintained it's embassies in North Korea and Iran, acting as an important intermediary in the latter case.

The UK maintains a comprehensive global diplomatic footprint.

It also goes almost without saying that Britain was a founding member of the United Nations and remains one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. With this position comes a constant UK voice at the highest levels of international decision making and a veto on issues of peace and war. Excepting the UN Britain is a member of a further eighty international organisations. A comprehensive list of which reads like a bizarre alphanumeric soup, but demonstrates the country has an impressive voice on the world stage in a vast array of areas.

These are just a few of the ways in which Britain makes its presence felt on the international stage. It has become a national cliché to state that the UK "punches above it's weight", this oft repeated statement suggests that the country's natural position is that of a much lesser power. This is patently not the case, for the ~300 years that the United Kingdom has existed as a state it has always been a great power. While it has always been cast in a different mould to its continental competitors, a maritime power able to use a raft of advantages and alliances to achieve it's goals, its great power status is indisputable. So what, to return to Dean Acheson's question, is Britain's place in the world? In the author's view it is to be a "superpower on a shoestring", leveraging its advantages in order to achieve national objectives without the massive resources that can be brought to bear by the largest continental powers.

In Remembrance

In a few days time crowds of people will gather in cities, towns and villages up and down the country to conduct the least political celebration of the least politicised armed forces in the world. All the recent bluster about certain politicians, public figures and celebrities choosing to wear the white poppy of pacifism instead of the traditional red spectacularly misses the point of the entire event. The red poppy is a show of respect for the British soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are sometimes asked to make great sacrifices for their country. Absent of politics and the justness of the wars they must fight the Sunday, and the poppy, are about remembering the dead and helping the wounded. There is no base militarism in that sentiment, no crass jingoism. The white poppy today is often a symbol of moral indulgence, worn by those who do not understand the words or are taken to believe the worst of their fellow man. This is because ultimately the poppy and the remembrance ceremony are not about us, our problems and debates on the morality of war. It is about them, those that we asked so much of, and those who we far too often forget.

I'll leave you, dear reader, with excerpts from a pair of poems I find especially poignant at this time of year; and the message that at the going down of the sun, and in the morning. We will remember them.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep,

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.

An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, 'ow's yer soul? "

But it's " Thin red line of 'eroes " when the drums begin to roll

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's " Thin red line of 'eroes, " when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be'ind,"

But it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

-Tommy, Rudyard Kipling

How will you make a difference

the old man did implore.

Our people are forsaken,

abandoned evermore.

Hearts immersed in darkness 

as sunshine turns to shade, 

how will you make a difference? 

How will you make a change? 

How do we make a difference 

sighed the soldier wearily. 

The battles, they continue – 

Flags ‘mast in memory. 

As time treks slowly onwards 

like the shifting of the sand 

how do we make a difference? 

What is the greater plan? 

How did you make a difference 

said the wise man in reply. 

What memory will grant to you 

some future, tranquil joy? 

When children’s smiles that shine for miles 

light up your passing day, 

you know you’ve made a difference 

before you went away. 

- A Difference, Robert Kiely

21st Century Cruisers, the future of the Royal Navy?

Pictured above is HMS Blake, one of three Tiger class cruisers laid down for the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War and completed in the early 1950s. She was the last warship in British service to be officially designated a cruiser. Equipped with quick-firing six and three inch guns, Sea Cat anti aircraft missiles and, later in her career, a large hangar for anti submarine helicopters; she remained a well-rounded surface combatant throughout her career, often in spite of her age. Why, you might ask, is a ship that was designed during WWII and decommissioned in 1979 at all relevant to the future of the Royal Navy?

Before the Second World War the RN was predominantly a "cruiser navy ", holding down a range of global deployments with its 15 heavy and 41 light cruisers. These ships had endurance and combat power at the core of their designs, each could operate alone for extended periods, effectively defend itself in most circumstances and demonstrate the interest or resolve of the government in a particular region. The ensuing World War and the Cold War radically changed the type of warships the RN needed. Instead of cruisers built for endurance and complex warfighting the navy built a profusion of smaller frigates and destroyers, mainly to guard convoys and fight submarines close to the UK and in the North Atlantic. To carry out these tasks the navy could make do with smaller, cheaper, ships with relatively shorter legs and far less ability to act independently in high threat environments. Trade-offs like these were made in order to ensure the navy got enough escorts to protect the convoys which would be vital to Britain's survival in the event of a war; and to hunt the Soviet ballistic missile submarines that threatened NATO. These were ships designed to act as part of a military system that would defeat the threat posed by hostile submarines. This system also included land based aircraft, anti submarine helicopters, aircraft and helicopter carriers and the enormous US/NATO SOSUS fixed sonar array. The Leander class is probably the most famous example of these sort of light frigates, operated by the RN into the early 1990s. When the immediate and pressing threat from submarines operating in the North Atlantic, be they German or Soviet, ceased to exist so the naval forces the UK had constructed to defeat them also fell by the wayside.These ships were, broadly speaking, a product of their time and a deviation from the much older structure that had served the RN well for centuries. This structure consisted of a core "battle fleet", made up of capital ships; mainly there to act as a deterrent, supported by powerful forward deployed cruisers that conducted most of the day to day activity.

HMS Euryalus, one of 26 Leander Class frigates built for the RN

By modern standards almost all of the cheap and numerous frigates and destroyers of the past, even the excellent Leanders, would be classed as lightly armed corvettes. The simple fact was that these cheap and numerous ships sacrificed a lot of capability in order to achieve the affordability necessary to build them in numbers. They were still recognisable as frigates built in the convoy escort mold. Similarly the Type 42 anti-aircraft warfare destroyers, in service from the mid-1970s, were also a design that compromised range and armament for numbers. At only 3500 tonnes the Batch 1 Type 42s were clearly a very light and economical design. When compared with their American counterparts, the 8000 tonne Spruance class, it's clear that these ships sacrificed range and armament for economy and numbers. Both the Leanders and the Type 42s are recognisable as frigates and destroyers, light warships designed to act in groups and alongside other warships, auxiliaries and aircraft to be effective in combat. The closest the RN came to "cruiser" designs during the Cold War were the eight County Class missile destroyers commissioned in the early 1960s and HMS Bristol, the sole survivor of the pre-1968 carrier escort programme. While these destroyer classes were cruiser-like in some aspects, they carried a far more comprehensive armament and had a greater range (in terms of fuel) than their contemporaries, they lacked the self-sustainment ability, protection, survivability and range of "true" cruisers. While Bristol was initially labelled a light cruiser by Jane's, the Royal Navy always saw her for what she was: an oversize missile destroyer with the similar limitations to the navy's other destroyers.

HMS Bristol, the closest the RN came to a new cruiser during the Cold War

With the later Type 22 and 23 frigates the RN moved to fewer, more individually capable, platforms. This change was partly necessitated by the introduction of a new generation of bigger towed array sonars which required larger ships to operate effectively. Despite their greatly improved self defence ability, achieved by fitting the Sea Wolf point defence missile system, these ships were still designed to be expendable escorts and lacked the endurance of cruisers. That said, these two classes signalled the start of the navy's shift from a fleet of numerous, small and cheap escorts to fewer, larger ships capable of independent operations in a high threat environment.

This brings us right up to the present day situation, with the RN currently operating nineteen high end surface escorts: six Type 45 destroyers and thirteen Type 23 frigates. It is expected that the first of a new class of escorts, the Type 26 "global combat ship ",  will be ordered in the upcoming SDSR. These ships, and the Type 45s before them, constitute a step-change in the navy's design approach to its surface combatants. Both classes are recognisably cruiser-like ships at around 8000 tonnes, with nearly double the endurance of their predecessors (giving them a similar range to WWII light cruisers). The smaller crews of these ships has improved their ability to act autonomously for extended periods, with far less support needed from auxiliary tankers and stores ships. They have the potential for an extensive armament suitable for power projection and can individually defend themselves and other ships from a variety of threats. This potential will be realised from the start with the Type 26, however, the Type 45s currently lack the Mk.41 strike-length VLS cells they were "fitted for but not with". That said, the RN has been working to integrate ballistic missile defence software with the Type 45s existing air defence radars, this suggests that the long-term intention may very well be to fit the 12 strike-length cells; in order to make use of the american SM-3 anti-ballistic missile and a next-generation anti ship missile (which will eventually replace the RN's aging Harpoon system). With access to the range of weaponry available for the Mk.41 launcher Type 45 has the potential to develop from a dedicated anti-aircraft platform into a more well rounded general purpose surface combatant, or it could be utilised as a more specialised AAW/ballistic missile defence platform.

The Type 26 frigate and Type 45 destroyer, RN cruisers for the 21st century.

Extrapolating current trends leads to a pretty clear vision for the RN's future surface escort fleet: large powerful ships capable of a very broad range of independent action. These ships will require fewer auxiliaries to support, relying instead on their ability to range much further from their bases in the UK and Bahrain. More of the existing auxiliary fleet will be needed to support the UK's new carrier group when it participates in high-intensity operations, this will likely be achieved by reducing the need to support the escort fleet to the extent we currently do. While the navy will almost certainly continue to describe it's major surface combatants as frigates and destroyers, the line between the two will only be the anti-submarine equipment carried by the "frigates" and the area air defence equipment of the "destroyers". Both classes will, in effect, be specialised cruisers; bearing little resemblance to their immediate or historical predecessors. The Royal Navy seems to be returning to it's historical structure, a forward-deployed "cruising navy" supported by a potent UK-based "battle fleet" consisting of Carriers and nuclear powered attack submarines. While HMS Blake may have been the last ship the RN operated that was officially designated a cruiser, the navy currently has six distinctly cruiser-like ships, and plans to build thirteen more. The future of the navy lies in two classes of what are, in effect, 21st century cruisers.