The Royal Navy's urgent priorities

A Senior Officer

The article two weeks ago on Britain's land forces and their relationship to the current deterrent strategy of NATO concentrated, naturally, on the problems posed by the balance of power in the Central Region of NATO. This concentration of military power has affected thinking both at the highest military and political levels. It is a fact that the armies of the two most economically powerful nations in NATO, the United States and Germany, are concentrated in the central region. Economic clout has weight in the political councils at NATO.

However, the threat to NATO posed by the Warsaw Pact in general and Russia in particular has undergone, over the past twenty years, a dramatic change, which appears unfortunately to have gone unheralded. It may even, to some extent, have been played down by politicians who are only too glad to join in the detente game. This military threat springs, primarily, from Russia. Ignoring for the moment any purely economic factors, it presents itself in three areas: the land threat, described in part in the article to which reference has been made; the strategic missile threat which, as its name implies, is the Russian nuclear umbrella; and finally the naval threat. That posed by the Red Army has not significantly changed for the past twenty years, although, obviously, there have been qualitative and quantitative improvements and, today, it is relatively stronger than the NATO land forces opposing it than it was in 1950. But this relative increase in strength pales into insignificance beside the enormous increase of Soviet naval strength. The Red Navy has, since the second world war, undergone a dramatic change: Russia has always been a land power. Today, It is a super sea power faced only on equal terms by the United States Navy, but even the USN only has a significant advantage over the Russians in one aspect of sea power, that of her aircraft

carrier fleet. And this at a time when, due to

political decisions taken by the last Labour government in the 'sixties, the Royal Navy is pulling out of the aircraft carrier business (only the Ark Royal remains), while the Russians have begun to build carriers.

The Russian submarine fleet is the most formidable in the world, numbering ninetyfive nuclear powered and just over 310 conventionally powered submarines. Let there be no mistake about this. The primary role of the ocean-going submarine is offensive. Whatever the intentions of the Russians actually are, whatever they may say their intentions are, the capability for worldwide offensive action by the Russian Navy has been, and still is being, increased year by year. This fleet is efficient, and its ocean-going capability is very different from the ineffective force destroyed by the Japanese in 1904. Philosophically too it has moved away from the defensive-minded attitude of the last war. The Red Navy is now operating, in peace, an offensively orientated strategy and Russia is prepared to face the US with sea power to further her political aims. Never again will she put herself in the position of having to back down before US naval power as she did at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. This was amply demonstrated during the last Arab-Israeli war, when the Russian Mediterranean fleet was increased to ninety ships. This was the highest number of Soviet Navy ships ever deployed in the Mediterranean at one time and doubled the normal size of her Mediterranean squadron. This change of role, and the reasons behind it, have been spelt out in a series of articles by Admiral Gorshkov, Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, written in 1972. He clearly considers that a powerful and effective navy is a requisite of greatness. ("All of the modern great powers are maritime states . . Maritime states having great economic capabilities have widely used their naval forces in peacetime to put pressure on their enemies . . . .") The important aspect of naval power is that a very high level of military pressure can be exerted without resort to war.

The soldier, when visibly committed, may be, to some extent, a hostage — the British soldier in Germany for instance. Land-based air power can only exert pressure limited in space and time. But that exerted by a navy can last for as long as the political leadership requires, and at the chosen level. This pressure, if used correctly, can involve the use of force without recourse to war, as was demonstrated by the North Koreans when the USS Pueblo was shot at, boarded and escorted into a Korean harbour: the Americans had no answer short of a major act of war, to which they were not prepared to go. The British operation in Kuwait in 1961 was another prime example of the successful strategic use of sea and land power.

How, therefore, is this massive Soviet naval threat to be answered specifically by the United Kingdom, within the context of the NATO alliance?

The area of responsibility in which military operations might take place, excluding the North American continent, covers the Atlantic; the North Sea incruding Iceland and the area to the north of Norway; Western Europe; the Mediterranean and Turkey. Of the three major NATO Commands which cover this vast area, two, AtIantic and Channel, are wholly naval commands; and the third, the Allied Command Europe, has a considerable amount of sea in its area of responsibility. It is well that we realise just how much. The only major subordinate command within SACEUR's responsibility which is not dominated by the sea is the Central Region, basically Germany. The Northern Region (AFNORTH) has Norway surrounded to the North, West and South by sea, while Denmark has sea on three out of four sides. In the Southern Region (AFSOUTH), the sea is such a dominating factor that it is commanded by an American admiral. Here the three NATO countries geographically involved, Greece, Italy and Turkey, are each surrounded on three sides by sea.

Although a member of a defensive alliance, we must remember that our prime concern is the security of the United Kingdom. Within a limited budget we cannot expect to do everything that we might, militarily, like to do. We must therefore go ruthlessly for those tasks which are fundamental to our own survival as the first priority and, only when satisfied that those are met, should we consider what effort can be contributed to other aspects of the overall defence of NATO. We must specialise, remembering that this can produce greater economic efficiency, which in itself will increase the defensive power of NATO.

As in the two world wars, our survival depends upon keeping the Atlantic lifeline open. This then must be our top priority. We must re-create a navy which is capable of inflicting unacceptable losses on the Russian fleet, if it should seek to close the Atlantic to our shipping.

The implications are quite clear. Our effort must go into producing an anti-submarine fleet with the right balance of weapon systems on long-range aircraft, helicopters and hunter-killer submarines. Our surface fleet must be modernised and equipped with sufficient guided weapons so that it can match the Russians. One interesting side effect of the demise of the strike carriers is that, at present, the Royal Navy is out-ranged, class for class, by every Russian surface ship equipped with surface-to-surface guided weapons, although in assessing the relative strength of two fleets, one does not match ship to ship but takes the overall strength as represented by the 'mix' within the fleets concerned. The trouble is that when faced some fifteen to twenty years ago with the then potential threat posed by

the surface-to-surface missile, the Roya Navy's answer was the carrier-based aircraft, which of course still out-ranges any anti-ship missile system. The decision to scrap the carriers has placed the Navy in a position today of weapon inferiority. This state of affairs has to be rectified as a matter of urgency.

Our second priority should be the security of the United Kingdom within its borders. This can only be a role for the Army. At present the bulk is stationed in Germany, the first time Britain has ever committed its Army permanently to continental Europe. This surely must be against our basic national interest, as well as weakening us in the role for which we are uniquely fitted; that of supporting the flanks of NATO. The requirement for a home-based disciplined force is selfevident in time of war. which will only occur if deterrence fails. What is not yet openly admitted by politicians is the need for such a force during, say, a period of deliberately engineered tension, when politically-motivated organisations may well attempt the overthrow of legal authority. If this seems too farfetched, we do well to remember it is this very thing that is happening in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, now. The Government might examine the Swiss model of home defence, in which virtually every able-bodied man has some form of territorially-based military service.

The.third priority requirement for the Navy, and the Army, is to provide a real capability of being able to reinforce, in strength, the northern and southern flanks of NATO. It is in these two areas that the Russian threat can best be applied in peacetime through her sea power. The will of NATO to defend the integrity of its members is therefore more likely to be tested here than in Central Europe. Because of the commitment of the Army to 'Germany, our capacity in this role is desperately weak. The most that is planned to

STpheCetator :June 8, 1" requires a further build-up of the exiati'; amphibious forces with the introductioni' light fleet carriers to provide the air PI component. A significant airlift caPahl facilities in the area of operations. effective, it must be self-sufficient and ia; not have to rely on reception areas„..8,, group. A good flag-waving exercise per but hardly an operation of deterrence or WI, However, in order that such a force callA be sent to Greece, for instance, is a bri,g,3 must also continue to be retained.

We have now dealt with two roles vo the Navy must be capable of fulfilling: maintenance of our sea lanes, specifically of the Atlantic, and the capability of m0Y and supporting an effective intervention f° to the flanks of NATO. In doing thisf world-wide strategic capability is also tamed. The final role is that of continuing to depl an effective strategic independent nil strike force. This needs a minimum of Polaris-type submarines. This force exists no; and is operational, although not with 0 required number of submarines. Fortunat the need for Britain to keep its own strate nuclear force is no longer a matter of seri debate between the two main parties, both which have been in power during the I, decade and the front benches are well of the realities of power, and its interplay ei foreign affairs. Where, then, are savings to be made? 1 ,r-h.1 cannot, realistically, be found in dropPlo commitments outside Europe. But they Vto be found in a massive restructuring 01,0 three services, if the general strategic Prwe ties that have been suggested are agr,e,i, Readers may have noticed that the role ' Royal Air Force has not been mentioned. `„ fact is that, once the strategic nuclear 0 was taken on by the Polaris force, the rais d'être of an air force, independent cg the ot two services, disappeared. Other than resido nuclear contingency plans, the role of all force is to support the operations of the oraf two services. The continued existence 0' r, independent air arm with its own comnlar, structure leads to the most extraordinao anomalies. The long-range maritime airitil force, whose sole function is to operate Im"Ae/ the context of the sea battle, is commari; not by the RN, but by the RAF. helicopters which carry the soldier in 03'4 are not operated by the Army but by the R'',,. There can be little doubt that, if a 011°00. study into restructuring our air arm is :he) dertaken on a joint service basis, then '1 organisation of the three services wriun: revert to that of former days. Admirals aili generals are well able to understand !pi peculiar properties of air power, and, ill peculiar of centralised control of the a'rb, the highest practical level need not

sacrificed in this re-structuring. or

If the Government began to think on v strategic lines suggested, there woulc1,1: considerable opposition in NATO. Hovveve%„: would be of interest to consider whence ti'ff opposition might come: probably only the nations totally committed to the Cenwr Region, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Ge) many should be quite capable of produciago fourth corps. At present the number of you„5 Germans who avoid national service conscientious grounds runs into tens 0: thousands. If the Germans are really 5eri,,191, about the threat in the Central Region, will have to deal with this state of affairs. 101 Dutch have already themselves suggested tPkg nations might specialise in specific roles. 'Pa is exactly what a return to the naval-batp defence strategy, which has served tr

country so well in the past, would do. d

We rely absolutely on freedom of the 5.eal and in the 1980s when our economy may ro$ depend upon our own oil from our own s7tti we must, in the end, be able to defend it WI 1 our own Navy.