Storm In A Teacup, Or Rn Vs. Iran

[DB]

Anyway. This passes for analysis.

 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-navy-goes-all-trump-against-iran/

[DB]

I think that this was entirely expected.

 

https://mobile.navaltoday.com/2019/08/26/royal-navy-destroyer-heading-to-hormuz-instead-of-asia-pacific/

 

It assures one FFG and one DDG when Montrose and Diamond rotate out. (Kent replaces Montrose temporarily, the latter is "permanently" based in the Gulf.)

 

Defender is post refit. I believe that addresses the high temperature environment issue, but I'm not entirely certain of this.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Sounds like we need a bigger navy if we are going to keep 2 on station at all times.

[Colin]

It's amazing how much you need in equipment and crew to keep one on station, 2 = about 6 hulls required and likley 5 complete crews.

[Chris Werb]

Sounds like we need a bigger navy if we are going to keep 2 on station at all times.

Keeping two on station there will severely inhibit our ability to act elsewhere. The thing is, it's really hard to come up with scenarios where we would ever need to, hence the Iranians are arguably providing a much needed boost for our beleaguered MIC.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well I look at it like this.

 

Really hard to justify a large fleet to fight Spain and the French. Then we have Trafalgar.

 

Difficult to justify a large fleet to fight Germany. Which we do, twice.

 

Hard to justify a large fleet in case the unlikely event we have a war with Japan. Which we do.

 

Impossible to justify a large fleet to defend the Falklands when we need to defend Western Europe.

 

 

 

The lesson im taking from the past 200 years of history is, we invariably fight wars on sea, and they usually are not the ones we envisaged. The only common lesson is that the more ships than you need ends up turning out to be less ships than you want, and thats always been true whether it was the British fleet at Trafalgar which was outnumbered by those pesky Spanish and French, or the one that lifted my Grandfather off Dunkirk beach.

 

 

It would be nice for one if we learned the lessons, but we seem as a nation to be so fucking arrogant these days we seem to be beyond remembering lessons.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[Chris Werb]

Stuart, I'm fully capable of reading history books and learning lessons, thanks.

 

You make some specific examples:

 

Trafalgar: This was a completely different geopolitical situation with utterly different technology than exists now.

 

Germany WW1: We had and enemy, on our doorstep, building a relatively large sea denial fleet. It was obviously justified to build a large surface fleet, including major combatants to counter it. We also has world wide commitments that required one. We were horribly unprepared for the submarine threat, however.

 

Germany, italy and Japan WW2: See above.

 

Japan: Do you mean China? We have pretty much covered the latter to death. You have failed to come up with any circumstance in which we we would need to use, or could viably use, a major surface fleet against China.

 

Falklands: If Argentina ever gets its shit together, they can start purchasing stealthy cruise missiles for a handful of combat aircraft. At that point it is all over for our ability to defend the Falklands, or for it to remain a viable place to live. Retaking them would just see the same scenario repeated. It's time we gave each inhabitant £1M and the right to relocate to the UK and handed the islands to Argentina.

 

To me, the Royal Navy's huge advantage over any credible conventional opponent is SSNs. I would like to see more spent on better patrol vessels at one end of the spectrum and much more on SSN/SSGN at the other. If you are worried about China, they have no counter to this and are unlikely to for the foreseeable future. In the event of things kicking off with Russia, a couple of SSN on station can bottle up what remains their Northern fleet. If we had more they could contribute to ASW efforts in mid Atlantic, although I doubt effective defence of even that trade route is viable thanks to detection issues.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Chris, I dont mean to imply you arent capable of reading history books. But Its one more example of something I learned on Jury service. Two different people are capable of hearing and looking at precisely the same evidence, and have entirely different perspectives on what it means.

 

No, I meant Japan. We didnt get our act together fighting the Japanese till 1944, when we had broke the back of the German Fleet. We were supposed to have a 3 ocean navy, and we had 2 and a bit. It showed.

 

I will say that if anyone hasnt come out of the Gulf Tanker affair and think we dont need any more ships, they perhaps want to go back to the messaging Iran is sending. We either are determined to protect 'our' ships at sea, or we have absolutely no right registering them.

[Chris Werb]

I think we need to rely a lot less on hydrocarbons from the Gulf and hydrocarbons in general. Protecting oil and LNG shipments from the Iranians does not require us to have a lot more ships. You know as well as I do that building enough conventional warships to escort all the ships in transit would tax Chinese building capacity, let alone ours. Even doubling the size of the RN wouldn't help significantly, and it's not going to happen. What is needed is a robust response from the hyper wealthy and heavily tooled up nations in the region. They need to sell their oil much more than we need to buy it. Let them police their end of the supply chain for a change.

[Colin]

plus a post breixt deal to buy gas and oil from Canada longterm would be good for both countries.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think we need to rely a lot less on hydrocarbons from the Gulf and hydrocarbons in general. Protecting oil and LNG shipments from the Iranians does not require us to have a lot more ships. You know as well as I do that building enough conventional warships to escort all the ships in transit would tax Chinese building capacity, let alone ours. Even doubling the size of the RN wouldn't help significantly, and it's not going to happen. What is needed is a robust response from the hyper wealthy and heavily tooled up nations in the region. They need to sell their oil much more than we need to buy it. Let them police their end of the supply chain for a change.

 

Chris, it doesnt matter where we get our Hydrocarbons from. We are willing to register ships that sail whereever they may. Either we should be willing to protect them in harms way, or we should refuse to register anymore and tell everyone to go to Panamanian registrations so its somebody elses problem.

 

Yes, I entirely agree with the principle of having nothing to do with the gulf and let them all kill each other. Inevitably due to the global nature of things we will be involved if only because our nationals or our ships will be sunk. Free trade doesn't thrive on principles.

[Chris Werb]

 

I think we need to rely a lot less on hydrocarbons from the Gulf and hydrocarbons in general. Protecting oil and LNG shipments from the Iranians does not require us to have a lot more ships. You know as well as I do that building enough conventional warships to escort all the ships in transit would tax Chinese building capacity, let alone ours. Even doubling the size of the RN wouldn't help significantly, and it's not going to happen. What is needed is a robust response from the hyper wealthy and heavily tooled up nations in the region. They need to sell their oil much more than we need to buy it. Let them police their end of the supply chain for a change.

 

Chris, it doesnt matter where we get our Hydrocarbons from. We are willing to register ships that sail whereever they may. Either we should be willing to protect them in harms way, or we should refuse to register anymore and tell everyone to go to Panamanian registrations so its somebody elses problem.

 

Yes, I entirely agree with the principle of having nothing to do with the gulf and let them all kill each other. Inevitably due to the global nature of things we will be involved if only because our nationals or our ships will be sunk. Free trade doesn't thrive on principles.

 

 

I don't recall any guarantee to British ship owners that we will protect their ships wherever in the world they choose to go. Did we ever actually have the capability to do that? If the Iranians interdicting British flagged ships is a problem, why not have the producer nations flag their own ships and protect them on the journey to a transhipment hub a decent distance away from the Gulf?

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

I think we need to rely a lot less on hydrocarbons from the Gulf and hydrocarbons in general. Protecting oil and LNG shipments from the Iranians does not require us to have a lot more ships. You know as well as I do that building enough conventional warships to escort all the ships in transit would tax Chinese building capacity, let alone ours. Even doubling the size of the RN wouldn't help significantly, and it's not going to happen. What is needed is a robust response from the hyper wealthy and heavily tooled up nations in the region. They need to sell their oil much more than we need to buy it. Let them police their end of the supply chain for a change.

 

Chris, it doesnt matter where we get our Hydrocarbons from. We are willing to register ships that sail whereever they may. Either we should be willing to protect them in harms way, or we should refuse to register anymore and tell everyone to go to Panamanian registrations so its somebody elses problem.

 

Yes, I entirely agree with the principle of having nothing to do with the gulf and let them all kill each other. Inevitably due to the global nature of things we will be involved if only because our nationals or our ships will be sunk. Free trade doesn't thrive on principles.

 

 

I don't recall any guarantee to British ship owners that we will protect their ships wherever in the world they choose to go. Did we ever actually have the capability to do that? If the Iranians interdicting British flagged ships is a problem, why not have the producer nations flag their own ships and protect them on the journey to a transhipment hub a decent distance away from the Gulf?

 

Well yes, that is pretty much what we were doing in WW2 as I recall. In fact the Government went so far as to underwrite Lloyds for any losses. Can you imagine anyone doing that today? There is complete apathy towards shipping, which is fairly stupid of us, considering we were twice nearly starved into submission and quite how much of our consumption comes from container ships from the far east.

 

Transhipment is going to add to the cost, which again, is going to be doing the Iranians work for them. Interfering with the freedom of navigation is a pretty serious event. It doesnt affect just us, it affects everyone. Can you imagine the effect it would have if a Government said all white people could use motorways, but not black ones? That essentially is the ethnic choicemaking Iran is undertaking, and if its allowed to stand, there is going to be a LOT more of it. China im sure is taking notes here.

[Josh]

Its important to note the practical freedom of navigation was a product of US dominance at the end of WWII combined with a desire to globally integrate trade. Historically the idea is quite new and enforcement requires total naval hegemony. The US is close to lacking both the will and capacity to enforce that principle, and the view of other regional powers is more conventional (historically): they will control local bodies of water as they see fit.

[Chris Werb]

Stuart, my recollection is our ability to protect our ships in WW2, even given that our economy was on a total war footing, and heavily bankrolled by the US, proved pretty patchy. Had we chosen to run convoys directly off the German coast, things might have been even worse.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well if you think on it, we did precisely that in 1944. And we did it several times off Norway for commando raids.

 

Ok, so im being very picky. Im just illustrating, we have completely got out the habit that we need to protect our shipping, and ensure the freedom of navigation. We clearly cannot depend on the Americans to do it anymore, so we must do it for ourselves. This I do not think is very reasonable. We went to 3 percent before, and we dont have a big army in Europe, there is no reason to suppose we cannot have a far larger frigate fleet than we currently do.

 

Or alternative, we can do nothing, and give the lesson we are subject to blackmail. The choice is ours alone.

[Chris Werb]

No, we never ran convoys off the coast of Germany. Normandy and Norway are not Germany. A commando raid is not a convoy.

 

I don't think you get how bizarre the current situation is. For many years we supplied other nations with energy in the form of coal. Did we ever insist on those customers sending fleets of warships to protect their coal shipments? Did we ever ask anyone to send ships to protect trade in our home waters whilst our own warships sat in port or cruised around doing bugger all? The choice is theirs. They want to sell their product, they can escort it out of the Gulf.

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, we never ran convoys off the coast of Germany. Normandy and Norway are not Germany. A commando raid is not a convoy.

 

I don't think you get how bizarre the current situation is. For many years we supplied other nations with energy in the form of coal. Did we ever insist on those customers sending fleets of warships to protect their coal shipments? Did we ever ask anyone to send ships to protect trade in our home waters whilst our own warships sat in port or cruised around doing bugger all? The choice is theirs. They want to sell their product, they can escort it out of the Gulf.

 

And you are right, except if the UK was the ONLY source of coal in bulk in the world, and if we had an continual maritime dispute with France, I strongly suspect other nations would have done that, particularly if we proved unwilling or unable to provide the security required. As it turned out, we had a strong enough navy to ensure our security, and coal was available elsewhere in enough profusion that in the UK, the price of coal collapsed after WW1. This is never likely to be the case with oil.

 

Can we get oil elsewhere? Yes. If we are willing to pay the cost of the unavailability of gulf crude, which presumably we are not. We were not in 1991, and despite the greater sources in the world, nothing much has changed.

 

In the end, im less interested in what this says about gulf security (and I entirely agree, the freeloading bastards there are entirely able to provide a naval capablity should they choose), than what it says about our willingness to stand by freedom of navigation. We dont seem very interested by it in the Kerch strait, not that willing to do much about it in the Gulf, and I strongly suspect China is taking notes about our collective lack of willingness. Its like the footpaths we have here in England. If you dont use them, dont exercise the right to use them, some bugger is going to put up fences and keep you out. And in trade with Asia, there are obvious problems for the future here, that we simply are not thinking about.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[Chris Werb]

OK Stuart, can you think of anywhere else in the World in all of history that has/had an energy source, which was/is fabulously rich and incredibly heavily tooled up, which has insisted we or other nations do the escorting of said energy source from their ports onward?

 

Next question - the US is now a net exporter of energy in the form of hydrocarbons. Why should they pay one cent to escort hydrocarbon exports from their competitors, the Gulf oil states?

[Stuart Galbraith]

OK Stuart, can you think of anywhere else in the World in all of history that has/had an energy source, which was/is fabulously rich and incredibly heavily tooled up, which has insisted we or other nations do the escorting of said energy source from their ports onward?

 

Next question - the US is now a net exporter of energy in the form of hydrocarbons. Why should they pay one cent to escort hydrocarbon exports from their competitors, the Gulf oil states?

 

No, but how many carbon energy sources has there been? Coal and Oil, and latterly gas, and thats been it. Nobody required energy before the industrial revolution, so this is a comparatively new problem anyway. For most of the post industrail revolution period, Anglo American navies have resolved any problems there might have been by invading anyone that created a problem. For example, Persia and Iraq.

I think tbh, we are getting misdirected by this line of thought. The important thing is not that the Gulf Arabs are freeloading bastards because clearly they have been for decades. The important thing is that there is a threat to freedom of maritime navigation, that is not being met.

 

I mean how far away does a threat to freedom of navigation be before we stop seeing it as a collective problem? Portsmouth? The Channel? Gibraltar? Suez? Indonesia? The Spratleys? We are talking as if the further away it is, the less important is is. But if a cargo ship has to travel through all of them, and can be halted or delayed at just one of them, the effect on our trade is just the same. Its the same water. We are surrounded by it, the distance is purely relative in a world that is increasingly shrinking and data connected. This is no different from air navigation, whcih is why the world collectively shit a brick when KAL007 and MH17 were shot down.

 

Just my view anyway, i dont expect agreement.

[seahawk]

But if Iran could freely sell their oil, they would gladly let all shipping pass.

[Stuart Galbraith]

If Iran would be left alone to spread its influence in the middle east and develop an atomic bomb, im sure it would be entirely merciful to all concerned. Damn us for having values we are not willing to enforce.

[Josh]

If the original nuclear deal hadn't been scrapped, the status quo would have remained. Instead now Iran is running even more amok while also threatening tankers, and the current administration is unwilling to anything about either other than rely on sanctions to eventually change the regime. Britain got picked off for the Gibraltar tanker, but the broader message is that Iran will lean on anyone who leans on them, and likely no one else but the US can stop them from doing so.

[Stuart Galbraith]

If the original nuclear deal hadn't been scrapped, the status quo would have remained. Instead now Iran is running even more amok while also threatening tankers, and the current administration is unwilling to anything about either other than rely on sanctions to eventually change the regime. Britain got picked off for the Gibraltar tanker, but the broader message is that Iran will lean on anyone who leans on them, and likely no one else but the US can stop them from doing so.

 

Indeed, but lets not pretend that status quo was in any way ideal. They still had the means to work towards a bomb, they had the means to work towards long range ballistic missiles, they were spending a lot of money and weaponry in Yemen, they were underwriting the Syrian war, and not beyond supporting terrorists in Iraq to blow up allied servicemen whenever they had the chance.

 

Yes, we should have stuck with the deal despite all that. The difference I have with some of the supporters of it, is that they claim it made Iran respectful and compliant. It didnt, except in that one area. The difference I have with the Trumpists is that we had to get rid of the deal to confront Iran. Thats not true either. We confronted the Soviet Union, for decades, even though we had arms agreements with it.

 

Yes you are right, Iran will lean on anyone, but you dont have to lean on them to do it. You just have to be contrary to their worldview, which was laid down in the early 1950's and hasnt be modified a jot since. Like Russia, Iran looks for enemies, because without enemies there is no need for the regime.

[Josh]

The status quo wasn't ideal, but Iran had its nuclear program set back while also having controls on it that would prevent it from acquiring a bomb for ten years. If we had made that deal with the Soviet Union or North Korea or would have been considered a diplomatic coup. Throwing it away without having a replacement plan or even any will to militarily oppose Iran will be viewed historically as a massive mistake, particularly if it ends up provoking a costly war that involves Israel, Syria, and Lebanon to boot.