HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Sutherland and HMS Iron Duke.
Photo: Royal Navy
By EMANUELE
SCIMIA DECEMBER 4, 2017 2:34 PM (UTC+8)
British warships will return to the Asia-Pacific region
in 2018, after a hiatus of four years. The announcement came last Tuesday
during conversations between British Defense Secretary Gavin
Williamson and his Australian counterpart, Marise Payne. London wants
a larger naval fleet to expand its global footprint, but it will have a hard
time achieving its goal.
HMS Sutherland, a Type 23
anti-submarine-warfare frigate, will visit Australia and conduct joint
exercises with the local navy in the new year. Its
deployment in Indo-Pacific waters had been anticipated by Williamson
on November 24 while addressing the ship’s crew. In his words, the frigate will
represent British interests “across the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific.” It
will be dispatched to work with allies and partners, including the United
States, Japan and South Korea, as tension on the Korean Peninsula threatens
regional stability.
In response to North Korean nuclear and missile
provocations, British Prime Minister Theresa
May announced in late August that HMS Argyll –
another Type 23 frigate – would be sent to Japan to take part in joint training
and drills. The warship will set sail for the Asian country in December 2018.
Earlier in the year, it will participate in military exercises with the navies
of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia under the Five Power Defense
Arrangements.
Expanding trade, protecting sea routes
Last August, British Foreign Secretary Boris
Johnson said the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers (HMS Queen
Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales) would be deployed in
the South China Sea upon entering service. He said they would be sent to the
area to promote a rules-based regional order.
In London’s plans, the Royal Navy’s largest ever vessels
will have to boost the country’s influence around the world. HMS Queen
Elizabeth will be formally commissioned on December 7, Britain’s minister
for defense procurement, Harriett
Baldwin, said on Saturday. The new aircraft carrier is expected to be fully
deployable by 2021.
The United Kingdom is negotiating its exit from the
European Union. As Brexit may have a negative impact on its economy, London
aims to hedge its bet by boosting trade relations with fast-growing economies
such as those in the Asia-Pacific area, where it has to regain ground lost
recently. British exports to Indo-Pacific countries stood at US$63.4 billion in
2016, but they had reached $78.3 billion the previous year, according to the
World Bank.
A new strategy in the offing
As 95% of British trade goes by sea, protecting maritime
routes is vital for Britain’s future. The resumption of Royal Navy’s operations
in the Indian and Pacific oceans is viewed through this lens by strategic
planners in London.
Admiral
Philip Jones, the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord, made this point during the
Maritime DSEI (Defense and Security Equipment International) Conference in
September. In talking about ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea
between China and other claimants in the region, he emphasized that naval
presence was needed to assert “freedom of navigation and the rule of law” in
those waters.
Jones went further and tried to outline Britain’s possible
naval strategy from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Rim. This is based on the
deployment of the nation’s prospective aircraft-carrier strike group in this
area in the 2020s. The Royal Navy could use the new joint logistics support
base at Duqm, Oman, as a “springboard” for missions across the Indian Ocean,
and could base its future Type 31e frigates in Singapore, where the UK has
berthing rights and recently established a defense staff office.
To support this logistic and operational framework, Britain
should continue to upgrade its military-to-military exchanges with regional
friends. Currently, the UK is committed to bolstering defense relations with
India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. And arms trade plays a significant
role in this effort. British leaders make no secret of the fact that Royal Navy
operations in the Indo-Pacific space are also intended to showcase the nation’s
cutting-edge naval technology, especially with regard to the anti-submarine
warfare.
Too few warships
The question is whether this geo-strategic construction
is backed up by sufficient and credible weaponry. At first glance, the answer
is no. “The newer warships are more powerful than those being retired, but this
is the smallest Royal Navy, in ship size, since the early Tudors,” argued Yale
historian Paul Kennedy, writing in British daily The Timesrecently.
Britain now has 13 frigates and six destroyers. In the
early 2000s the total number of these warships amounted to 32. Current numbers
will remain
unchanged until the 2030s, as the Royal Navy is simply working to replace
older surface vessels. The UK has to revive its gasping economy, and budget
constraints undermine the country’s naval modernization.
Even if the Royal Navy deploys just one of its two new
aircraft carriers at a time, its presence in the Indo-Pacific waters in the
form of a strike group will mobilize s large part of British deployable naval
forces. This risks weakening Britain’s military capabilities at home and in the
rest of Europe.
London commands two of of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s four standing maritime groups at a time when Russia is stepping
up its naval activism in the Baltic, the North Sea, the Mediterranean and the
Black Sea. Further, the Royal Navy is cooperating with the EU to prevent illegal
immigration into the European continent.
The reality is that Britain has too few frontline
warships to embark on a permanent deployment in the Asia-Pacific waters. And
given that British military presence there will inevitably irk China (the UK’s
primary trading partner in the region), it seems reasonable to think that Her
Majesty’s Government could be miscalculating Beijing’s reaction to its new
naval strategy as well.
Original post: atimes.com
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