A European Union Carrier Strike Group

In our search to figure out just what the hell the Royal Navy is doing building the CVF while the rest of the fleet disappears, we believe we finally found a reason that at least makes some sense regarding the Grand Strategy at work here. Best interest of the British citizenship? Only if you believe losing sovereignty to the EU is in your best interest.

France will propose launching a European Union aircraft carrier group and a joint fleet of military transporters as part of efforts later this year to boost the EU military, French defence officials said...

France takes on the presidency of the EU in two weeks and President Nicolas Sarkozy has flagged that he sees bolstering Europe's defence capacity as a precondition for a return to NATO's military structures after a four-decade absence.

Aides close to Defence Minister Herve Morin said negotiations with Britain were well-advanced on creating a European naval group based around either a French or British aircraft carrier permanently on the sea.

Other nations could then contribute frigates, submarines or refuelling vessels as required, the aides said.

We tend to think the Royal Navy has been aware this idea was coming for awhile. If we are being serious, there really is no other way the British will be able to field task forces without outsourcing escort responsibilities of their major naval assets to other European nations, the numbers simply don't add up. Richard Beedall echoes our observations in his recent editorial from late May.

The Royal Navy had 35 escorts in service (aka commissioned frigates and destroyers) in 1998 and SDR promised a long term strength of 32. The Royal Navy currently has an actual strength of 24 and by 2018 it will have at best 19 escorts in service - 6 new Type 45 destroyers and 13 aging Type 23 frigates. By comparison, the RN averaged nearly 70 destroyers and frigates in service during the 1970's - many of these were smaller than their modern counterparts, but three small ships can be in two more places than one large ship.

A sheer lack of numbers now cripples the Royal Navy's. Four years ago (with 31 escorts left) the Royal Navy still made a valiant effort to patrol the worlds oceans with destroyers and frigates assigned to seven geographically widely dispersed "directed tasks". Those days have now gone. Indeed, in recent months it has become clear that Royal Navy is no longer able or even expected (that would justify the RN asking for additional funding) to perform once fundamental activities such as the protection of UK flagged merchant ships from piracy. In the future the top priority when allocating very scare operational escorts will inevitably be escorting the ready carrier and the amphibious task group, other deployments will have to be rationed to requirements deemed in extremis worthy of a short term surge effort.

Lets pretend that by 2020 the Royal Navy ends up with 2 CVFs and 2 LPDs, plus the possibility of Ocean or Ark Royal. That would be 19 surface combatants total for 5 high value targets. Assuming the very high 70% availability, the Royal Navy ends up with 13 total surface combatants to forward deploy with 3-4 of its high value naval assets. Would the Royal Navy forward deploy all 13 available warships in the fleet, or perhaps keep 3-4 near home waters. No matter how you look at it, unless maintenance in the Royal Navy is absolutely perfect all of the time, the Royal Navy will never have more than 10 surface combatants forward deployed with its high value units.

With this in mind, the Royal Navy will almost certainly require additional escorts from other nations. No wonder they have been in "well-advanced" negotiations on the subject, because surely the MoD realizes the fleet is simply too small to realistically operate more than 1 CVF at a time without help from other nations, unless of coarse they are going to send in the carriers to forward theaters without adequate protection.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Good thing British taxpayers are spending all that money on the CVF, the EU needs a carrier strike group for political purposes, and it is politically much easier to have the Brits pay for the carrier. It also makes it easier for the EU to control the CVFs utilization since its operation will be dependent upon escort from other EU nations. That narrative may not be accurate, but it sounds just as plausible as the MoD knowingly building the 2 CVFs at the expense of a naval surface combatant fleet capable of patrolling its sea lines of communication worldwide.