On the 13 October last year a container ship from China docked at Felixstowe after a voyage from the Pacific that took twenty days, through the Arctic Ocean and North Sea. The same voyage via Gibraltar and the Suez Canal takes twice as long and passes through the troubled waters of the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. At this moment that’s a war zone between Trump, Israel and the Iranian Mullah’s. The latter are shooting at their neighbours and the region is not safe for peaceful ship and aircraft movements.
Already half the planet’s economy is produced around the Pacific Rim. The melting ice allows British ships and cargoes over an increasing part of the year to reach the Far East much faster and by sailing through friendly waters – Denmark and Greenland, Canada and the USA. Although the Bering Strait is narrow it’s still about double the width of the Dover Strait. Plus there are two islands – one Russian, one American – conveniently situated at mid strait. No better time than now to open the polar sea lanes, given Trump’s war against the Mullah’s. Moreover, our future is always global and the Commonwealth’s fifty-six members – all voluntary – have a combined population of 2.7 billions, sixty-percent with an average age of twenty-nine years.
Opening the Arctic sea routes has a dramatic impact on our defence posture. Where previously they formed a frozen barrier, the Polar seas become a gateway and northern pathway to the Pacific and Far East. To exploit this new freedom the Royal Navy needs to double its size in every class of warship and submarine just to outnumber Russia’s northern fleet. Add another third and we can send a task force somewhere else by either route at the same time. In other words the size of navy that dealt with Confrontation over Malaysia for three years from 1966 – 1969 while fulfilling all its NATO duties.
Not quite Sunk but lapping at the Gunnels.
At this moment the RN cannot cover properly the Iceland-Greenland Gap because too many of a dangerously small fleet of destroyers, frigates and submarines sit in dry docks under-going maintenance. There just aren’t enough hulls. Both Labour and Conservatives are to blame, starting with Tony Blair halving the original order for twelve Type 45 destroyers. Today we are in the middle of an emergency forecast long ago.
Let’s turn a disaster into an opportunity. The Royal Navy with BAES have an imaginative future fleet on the drawing board. We should bring forward their 2030s plan to build Type 83 destroyers plus the supporting Type 91 arsenal ships and Type 26 Frigates. The Indian Navy has a similar design to the Type 83 and they plan to build twelve. So should we, fifteen hulls even better. A single Type 82 destroyer, HMS Bristol, went to the Falklands. She cost £1 billion in the 1960s – the rest were cancelled along with a super carrier. More than £600 millions of her price was for the research and development. Had more ships been ordered the price for a Type 82 would have been halved. The same goes for arsenal ships, drone carriers and frigates. China has ten Type 055 destroyers at sea with another six in the building yards.
The Type 83 is designed around the Future Air Dominance System (FADS) which allows the destroyer to take over air defence of a task force or fleet against the kind of multiple missile attacks taking place now in the Near East. We also should speed up research into High Powered Microwave and Lasers where salvos are on the ship’s electric bill rather than spend millions for missiles. To bring our fleet up to Cold War strength I would build another pair of aircraft carriers and a dozen more Astute class submarines.
This is a huge task with a huge bill. This country has no choice. – if we want our grandchildren to live in a free, safe and wealthy country. we must restore the power to stand on our own feet. At this moment Britain has almost 70 million people at serious risk of death from bombs, missiles, germs and starvation; plus a daily invasion of unwelcome people from entirely different, lawless cultures.
Kier Starmer sleeps at the wheel. I suspect the Cabinet Office Current Intelligence Committees examined the risk of rocket and drone attacks on our Cyprus Sovereign Base Areas every week for months. Yet no action was taken. When I served on the island during the 1960s there was trouble between Greece and Turkey over the island and the Six Day War between Israel and nearly all its neighbours. To defend Cyprus and RAF Akrotiri with its four squadrons of nuclear bombers plus a transport squadron there were SAMs as well as a squadron of Mach 2 fighters.
In more recent times only one prime minister has left his country with the core of a powerful global navy – Gordon Brown, who made sure the aircraft carrier programme went ahead. What we need now is someone who can mastermind a massive warship building programme and a recruiting drive. Combine these with a tax regime that encourages British ship ownership and thereby shipbuilding. New shipyards and new sailors demand top management able to keep many balls in the air at the same time. We need to concentrate not on Europe and the USA for overseas trade but the rest of the planet.
And this should be a Commonwealth project on the same lines as the AUKUS submarine programme. If the latter becomes the AUK programme, that’s fine with me. I don’t know how he feels about the idea but Gordon Brown or George Robertson are the kind of people needed for such a massive task. Rishi Sunak is another. The job needs someone used to handling vast amounts of money with love and care! Someone who picks their own team then delivers on time. And when the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are head in the clouds ditherers and talkers, the job needs someone with more status than any of them. I favour a committee of former Prime Ministers, Defence and Intelligence Chiefs. After all, we are living through a national emergency, frankly a national disgrace. Rebuilding our navy is the crucial task. Air defences are next. The Army needs a complete rethink. The last thing our defence needs is a new version of the British Army of the Rhine [BAOR].
We should warn that we’ll do what’s best for our global alliances, not the USA or the EU. During Trump’s latest press conferences his own mouth reveals the lack of detailed planning, lack of foresight indeed common sense, worse the absence of any strategy. Only now are our joint team planning how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. As an ally he’s a nightmare. Britain and the other four eyes allies should be ready and capable of operating outside NATO’s command and logistic systems. We should rebuild our naval strength, air defences, heavy air lift and strategic logistics. Let those who live on the Continent raise the soldiers. Our job is to weaken Putin’s army by luring formations from the Central Front.
Putin has not helped his chums in Syria and Venezuela and provided little help for Iran’s fanatic clerics. He is bogged down in Ukraine and likely to be there for some time. I would say that we have five to ten years to restore the Royal Navy to its former strength – so long as we start building now.
Drones will help enormously right now. Keep in mind that our drones best be better than their drones. We must learn from the Ukrainians, already there are joint ventures and training teams in the Gulf and the Royal Navy has a handful of brand new drones for mine sweeping. Portugal is building a drone-carrier, so are the South Koreans and so should we. Mostly the navy needs more hulls that can launch drones into the air and below the surface. Destroyers, frigates and nuclear submarines should carry fleets of drones to clear their paths. Mine sweeping probably is more efficient when done with drones. Each year Starmer and his human rights lawyer chums spend enough money to double the destroyer fleet – on hotels for asylum seekers. The increase in the welfare budget was £16 billions, enough money for five aircraft carriers or more than double the Astute submarine fleet.
Obviously building up the defences of the whole Arctic region, not just Greenland, makes absolute sense but this can be done through civilised discussion rather than threats to invade NATO allies. We have no quarrel with the American people. We have more than our ration with Trump. His latest threat to impose punitive tariffs on the rest of NATO (RNATO) crossed a red line. Add to this his demand that Europe looks after its own defence from next year. That he’ll stop selling us weapons for Ukraine unless we join his muddled war with Iran. Then add that he’s going run away from Iran leaving the same gangsters in charge and with terrorism as their obvious weapon and his allies fighting the sea war..
Personally, this abysmal record confirms for me that any security guarantee from Trump’s version of the White House is not worth a candle. Forget NATO’s Article Five when dealing with Trump and his claque of overgrown teenagers.
Fear that America would become a bystander has worried the Germans since their 2018 defence paper was leaked to the magazine Der Spiegel. I maintain as I did in 2018 that will not happen, Trump is a political dinosaur. He will be replaced by someone younger with a rational brain. Ukraine peace talks simply go round in circles because Putin wants NATO disbanded. One has to allow that Trump might suffer serious health troubles, his behaviour is erratic to put it mildly. Kushner appears there for the family business and Witkoff out of his depth. From now onward we should regard Trump’s White House as Putin’s embassy. We need much closer liaison with Canada and the Scandinavians. We should despatch expert teams to work out how best to defend and exploit Greenland so the locals benefit instead of the Trump business.
The Royal Navy and indeed the Merchant Navy should learn to use the Polar Route to the Pacific. A new global partnership should bring together our Commonwealth allies with Japan and South Korea. We should tell Trump that he and Putin can haggle until they become bored. Putin cannot make peace. He’d be dismembered if he did, by the returning veterans and the relatives of all those killed and maimed in his pointless wars.
