More Cuts May Come For The Royal Navy

Apparently when you hit rock bottom, you can always choose to drill deeper. We have observed the decline of the Royal Navy, and have realistically predicted the Royal Navy will decline from the current surface combatant fleet of 25 to a fleet of 20, based solely on the rate of construction and life cycle of the warships being built. We have also observed the alarms. These observations are usually downplayed as fear mongering and a politically driven agenda, which as Americans we see as rhetoric without substance, particularly as the backlash comes without supporting data contrary to our observations.

What is missing from the people who downplay the reduction of force in the Royal Navy is the acknowledgment that the Royal Navy is under constant threat of cuts by the political party in power. Every time a cut occurs, or a trend is outlined, very intelligent people simply downplay the cuts and proclaim them to be the last to occur. As numbers dwindle and alarms are sounded, they point to some distant future project yet to be funded as the counter, while existing plans and existing funding continues an annual decline.

The Telegraph, which we admit is biased but is also a consistent source of alarm in these troubling times for the Royal Navy, is reporting more potential cuts to the Royal Navy are in debate.

Plans to slash the defense budget by up to £15 billion over the next decade has caused a split in the Cabinet leading to the Ministry of De fence delaying the publication of its latest 10 year industrial strategy, due to be published next Thursday.

Overall spending on defense is due to rise from £34.1 billion next year to £36.9 billion in 2010, but Whitehall is said to be split over cuts which could include reducing the number of new Astute nuclear powered submarines being built at Barrow from eight to as few as four and canceling orders for the seventh and eighth Type 45 frigate at Portsmouth or diverting them from the Royal Navy by selling them to the Malaysian navy.

The revelation, in a report by spending watchdogs on the cost of Britain's 20 biggest weapon projects, put the likely cost overrun at £2.5 billion out of a total bill of £28 billion.

For a small report, there is a lot here.

It sounds brilliant that the 2009 budget of 34.1 billion will increase in 2010 to 36.9 billion, however it is deceptive. Previous cuts combined with national economic growth are more likely reasons for this moderate increase of 2.8 billion to which politicians will run around taking credit for, as all the adjustment really does is bring defense spending back in line with previous low baselines of percentage GDP for defense.

If we follow trends, we believe you can go ahead and write off the 4 submarines and 2 Type 45s, even if it doesn't happen this year. There is no trend line anywhere that pretends to support an argument the cuts will occur. In reality, what is most needed is political will to fund defense, but that would come at the expense of entitlement, something unlikely to happen until either a sweeping political change due to a citizen driven revolt, or people die due to the absence of a credible national defense.

The irony of coarse is that after the Type 45s are cut from 8 to 6, in a few years we will observe an article that praises politicians as champions for the domestic shipbuilding industry for delivering 8 hulls to the industry, with the extra two hulls being the air defense frigates built for Malaysia. Thus is the politics in Britain.