Last week I had the pleasure of spending time meeting our Royal Navy personnel in the Gulf, and their American counterparts.
By Dr Liam FoxI cannot overstate what an amazing job our Navy is doing in that region of the world. Every senior American officer I met praised the British contribution to the maritime security operations in the Gulf as being essential for success. Vice Admiral Gortney, Commander of the US Fifth Fleet, told me that the Royal Navy's mine clearance capabilities are the best in the world. Of course, in the event of an attempted closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, our mine clearing ships will be absolutely vital.
To show its thanks this Government has conned the Royal Navy into taking cuts that it can barely cope with while still asking it to do more and more.
The path, which has led us to where our Navy is today, has been one of betrayal and contempt by the Government. Time and time again, since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, our Navy has been blackmailed into accepting cuts to its fleet to ensure the eventual addition of the two new carriers which are so desperately needed.
In the 1998 Strategic Defence Review our Navy agreed to cut its fleet of 12 attack submarines to 10 and its fleet of 35 destroyers and frigates to 32 – in return for the promise of the two carriers. A decade later we find our Navy with only 8 attack submarines (with a probable reduction to only 6 or 7) and an astonishingly low 22 destroyers and frigates. Yet maritime commitments have not decreased since 1998, but have risen at a time when our Navy has been slashed, mothballed, and in some cases, sold off.
I suspect that there must be a profound sense of betrayal that is now felt by our brave sailors and submariners. And who can blame them?
And we are now hearing rumours of further cuts and potential delays to the carrier programme. Make no mistake; any further cuts to our front line resources will have an impact on Britain's national security capability. We live in an uncertain and dangerous world. A world where our economic and security interests are so interlinked into a larger global interdependent network that we have an unavoidable shared set of interests with a multitude of actors in all parts of the globe. As a consequence, Britain's economic, trade, and security interests are not only found here at home, Gibraltar, or the Falklands, but around the globe from the Hormuz Strait to the Malacca Strait – and most everywhere in between. In this complex world, British interests have no boundaries.
Because of this we must have the ability to project power, influence, and if necessary, military force around the world – when a carrier group moves into the Gulf it sends a clear message to the region. This is more relevant now than at any time in our recent history. Yet we have a Government which has continued to make commitments it is unable to resource.
A perfect example of this is our involvement in the forthcoming EU-led maritime security mission off the Horn of Africa. In order to contribute a frigate to this mission we had to take a frigate planned for deployment to the South Atlantic and replace it with a Royal Fleet Auxiliary maintenance ship – a very important ship but hardly a ship of war! The Government must explain how this won't impact on the security of the Falklands. What on earth are we doing putting EU flag-waving ahead of our own security priorities? EU nations could have chosen to supplement the coalition force CTF 150 or the Nato mission in the region. It all smacks of politics more than piracy, and Labour have played into the hands of those who want more EU military capability, just as Tony Blair did at St Malo ten years ago.
The high seas are a dangerous place to operate. Pirates are capturing hundreds of millions of pounds sterling in loot off the coast of Africa, Iran has just finished a full naval exercise in the Gulf around the Strait of Hormuz, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has recently announced the construction of several aircraft carriers within the next two years which could eventually lead to a total of five or six aircraft carrier battle groups.
The fact that our navy is able to accomplish so much and be held in such high regard even after a decade of Labour neglect is testament to the professional ethos of every sailor, marine and submariner in the Royal Navy. To think that Britain can manage its current maritime responsibilities with anything less than it has now is not only unrealistic but a betrayal of our heritage and downright irresponsible in a dangerous age.
* Dr Liam Fox is the shadow defence secretary
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