Hats off to the First Sea Lord

Today, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jonathan Band, had published an article in The Guardian on the ongoing need for a powerful naval fleet. This comes at a time when ‘sea-blindedness’ has risen both in Britain and across much of the rest of the European Union—paradoxically during a time when Europeans are more dependent on the sea than ever before. So Admiral Band is to be congratulated; rarely in a comment piece is strategic thinking expressed so elegantly, crisply and clearly. Here are a few snippets from the article:

Strategy is often misunderstood; it is about consequences and outcomes, the plan by which all the instruments of national power—diplomatic, intellectual military and economic—are to be employed in achieving identified goals in support of the national interest.

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Our focus on enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan should not blind us to the longer-term implications of the U.K.’s geostrategic reality. Our ability to deploy globally and use the seas in support of operations is key to the success of the armed forces in war and time of tension; whether it means dropping Royal Marines into Iraq from carriers in the Gulf, as we did in 2003, or using warships to evacuate U.K. nationals from Lebanon in 2006. The sea can be a barrier or a highway, depending on who controls it, so the Royal Navy can shape future events as well as determine them.

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But, even more fundamentally, the global sea lanes are the arteries along which the economy of this island nation flows. We are increasingly and heavily reliant on imported raw materials, goods, food and especially energy. We live in a “just enough, just in time economy”—if the sea lanes are denied to us, the supermarket shelves fall empty and the lights go out...At the same time, the scramble for resources and valuable raw materials is increasingly being played out at sea: the “cod wars” of the 1970s have given way to disputed maritime boundary claims as states vie to establish their access to the sea and the mineral and food wealth beneath it. In the Pacific and Indian oceans, states are expanding maritime forces and establishing strategically positioned naval bases to promote and protect their growing influence and wealth.

All good stuff! Then he goes in for the crescendo:

In the final analysis, a capable fleet is as much about deterring aggression and influencing friends as it is about delivering combat power at sea or from the sea. While we will always need to fight and win if necessary, when it comes to the future we shouldn’t overlook the value to this country of the wars we won’t have to fight as a result of using the Royal Navy strategically as an instrument of national power.

I couldn’t have put it better myself! Maritime power is a primarily a deterrent and a preventative instrument, which is used to project presence around the world. Naval power makes a community strong by extending its political and economic leverage, while simultaneously contributing to its social cohesion and cultural dynamism. All the great powers of antiquity—Athens, Rome, the Hanseatic League, Ming China, Spain, the Netherlands, and the French and British Empires, and the United States—have been at their strongest when their naval reach was at its greatest. This geopolitical fact will be no different for the twenty-first century’s great powers; indeed, any power risking its naval strength for its short term interests will soon cease to be a power at all.

• Please click here to read the rest of the First Sea Lord’s article.