The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Armed Forces will begin reducing the number of overseas training exercises from next year, as the UK reorients the Army and Royal Navy around NATO commitments and high-end warfighting.
Responding to a parliamentary question on future training plans, defence minister Al Carns said the services would continue to prioritise overseas activity only “in alignment with both our own and partners’ operational needs, as well as the priorities outlined in the Strategic Defence Review.”
Carns set out a clear shift beginning in 2026.
The Army will “reduce the number of overseas training exercises” from financial year 2026–27, a move described as necessary “to enable a greater focus on NATO commitments and enhancing land warfighting capabilities.” The adjustment will be carried out with international partners.
The Royal Navy will also scale back non-European training. Carns said that “over the next four years, the Royal Navy will scale back its participation in overseas training outside the Europe, Atlantic, and Arctic theatre.” The change reflects the Navy’s “evolving global posture” as it concentrates resources on the Euro-Atlantic and Arctic regions, where it expects growing operational demand.
By 2027–28, Carns said the Navy anticipates “an increase in participation and support for NATO,” signalling that the reduction is intended to reallocate effort rather than diminish activity overall.
No reduction was announced for the RAF in the period covered, though the minister noted that all services will continue aligning their training output to SDR priorities.
The answer, taken together with the Strategic Defence Review and recent speeches by senior commanders, shows the department narrowing its training focus to prepare for major-power confrontation in the Euro-Atlantic theatre.
Might save a few £ thats the real reason, increses defence spending but do not spend any more ie no new major orders since last year. Talk a lot, press releases, statements, projects, wish lits, but nothing ever ordered and when we do order kit its late, over cost, in reduced numbers as slow as possible production runs, all state normal.
A complete dogs dinner, this government has been signing defence packs with countries in the indo Pacific. Operation highmast? If that proved one thing we can’t provide escorts or replenishment.
That is exactly one of the reasons why the CSGs should not be operating that far away from the theatre which matters the most. Exercises in vanity.
European NATO members provided escorts and replenishment ships to the USS Ford on her last deployment to Europe,
Does your logic suggest the USA shouid not deploy into the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean?
My “logic” doesn’t need to be extended to whatever it is the US is doing, this is a UK defence journal and I made a comment about what we should be doing with UK assets IOT best assist our allies and do something which is both helpful and achievable.
Tell that to our idiot politicians who bluff and boast on the world stage.
Im sure Danielle will be on top of this but wasn’t the last large scale exercise in Oman a couple of years back? If by this they mean cutting down on training exercises for a month is so to places like Belize,Kenya etc at Batt/Coy/Sqn level then they are taking away incentives for any recruitment! Who wants to sit around in the UK waiting for the next NATO exercise that happens, probably every couple of years if your unit is lucky enough to be involved!
My thoughts entirely.
Saif Sareea, was quite a few years ago I recall, and much smaller than earlier ones.
There is another “Swift Sword” planned, for 2027 I think?
This is just an excuse to save money in my book.
We were just talking of the value of BATSUB and BATUK on another article, so I hope reduced doesn’t mean stopped.
Hmm… ref our last chat, seems that lots of types of training may be hit. That be the case, it’s pretty p** poor to me, and smacks of little more than saving a few quid.
Never believe a word that HMG say, look at every statement to find the spin and actual meanings.
A deployment to an interesting place is vital for retention.
Ask RAF about Cyprus and how it helps them. It really does.
Spot on.
I agree
So more DIP hints.
The Navy and Army will become NATO-focussed, while the RAF will take over the global strike role (presumably also using the Carriers). What with Atlantic Bastion and GCAP that all makes a lot of sense.
Let’s just hope we don’t cripple the Navy’s global capability to focus on ASW like we did in the 1970s.
Let’s just hope we don’t cripple the Navy’s global capability to focus on ASW like we did in the 1970s.
We may have to. I can’t see that we have the resources currently to be any more than a Britain and North Atlantic Defence Force. I wish it weren’t the case.
There is almost nothing happening in the North Atlantic, daft to focus the entire navy there again.
What navy mate? A handful of frigates past their sell by date, destroyers that never go to sea and two gin palaces. Oh and the Astutes in a damp parking lot.
Its not whats there right now that worries me, its what the Russians can potentially surge into it in a crisis. Its our frontline with them.
Why does the RN need to operate globally? The threat is in our own theatre and we need to cover that well before we worry about the south china sea. leave the other side of the world to the americans and australians. If we do want to play that side I’d suggest RN needs doubling with appropriate RAF support. And we’d still be taking our eyes off the ball in Europe.
To deal with the threat in our own theatre we should doubling the size of our military anyway so comments about focusing our capabilities closer to home belies fundamental weaknesses and a continuing financial pressure that isn’t going away. A £2.6 Bn problem this year and despite marginal increases in the future I believe the renewal of the nuclear deterrent will take most of that certainly until the next decade and beyond this timescale any form of real predicability is not possible given the volatility in U.K. politics.
So for the Navy you can expect a further reduction in frigate numbers as the Type 23s continue to fall to bits and no increase in numbers of DD/FF until the next decade. The availability of SSNs will also continue to be very low given the lack of maintenance infrastructure, which again will not improve until the next decade. There is also a lack of crews for the RFA and no FSSS.
Therefore the embarrassingly small RN will be unable to generate a GSG for the foreseeable future is probably the reality but this is now being ‘dressed up’ as strategy. I remember the Cold War and even at its peak the RN maintained units outside of the NATO area and deployed small carrier groups on extended deployments to other parts of the globe.
A ship can sail from Singapore and be back in the Med in less than two weeks so the idea we need our resources in the NATO area is absolute rubbish when in reality we have £1Bn Destroyers and SSNs tied up for years because they have been stripped for spares and we have insufficient trained crews.
As for the personnel they will miss out on valuable training and seeing parts of the globe that could well have been part of the attraction for them joining.
We are at a very low ebb.
And if someone decided to close the Indian Ocean, gulf of Aden or gulf to ships carrying UK cargos.. ? Cutting us off from key markets to sell, raw materials for our industry and good we need every day…. Best way to force the UK ( or any nation ) into an armistice..starve and isolate it… that is why we need to project naval power and support allies in Africa and across the Indian Ocean…
Absolutely, the RN (and the Air Force, I don’t care about the Army) need to be consciously two-faced. The “Atlantic force” with T26, T92, P8 etc. needs to be balanced by a global power projection force with GCAP, T31, A400 etc.
There are obvious assets that fit in both camps like SSN, the carriers, MQ9B STOL if that happens, but they are two very different means of fighting and different ideal outcomes.
You do realise that Russia has an eastern coast? ie Russia is both an an Atlantic & a Pacific power. You go to war with Russia, you are going to war at both ends of the continent. One end has Russia & Belarus & not much more. The other end has Russia, N Korea & China. Half the stuff in your house probably comes from China (PRC). If this were simple, it would have been sorted years ago. Unfortunately too many people thought that China would behave like everyone else. So they sold everything to China without thinking about that in China CCP rules absolute.
Even the likes of Germany are finally realising that winning in the west is only half the job. If you don’t defeat the East, they will keep supplying the West & you will be fighting for decades.
Because whether we like it or not it is a global world and events the other side of the planet can still heavily affect us.
Once you no longer have a presence somewhere you no longer have a say about anything that happens there.
im not sure the RN can influence anything beyond the med. a few ships every 5 years is not a lasting presence east of suez. better off sticking to the core duties in N Atlantic, North/Baltic seas, and maybe the med and gulf. That in itself needs double the ships we have. We are a regional naval power – lets do that well rather than masquerade as a global naval power. It’s only the US that can claim to be a global naval power so there’s no shame in that.
Up until now with HMS Lancaster being retired we have maintained a permanent presence in the middle east with a ship available be it a destroyer or frigate four things like safeguarding passage through the straits of Hormuz.
It certainly will become difficult with the ever dwindling ship numbers, but it is something very difficult to regain even when we do go back up to 13 frigates.
The RN has no need to be in the Baltic Sea, that can easily be covered by Germany, Sweden, Poland (when they get their Type 31’s).
Soon we won’t be operating alone in the North Sea for ASW for the first time in a long while with Norway’s purchase of the Type 26 so will help free up a ship.
The Mediterranean shouldn’t actually need much RN presence either with France and Italy doing lots and Spain, Greece also operating there.
The North Sea and Atlantic bastion region needs ASW but not general purpose frigates like the Type 31. The RN can split between the heavy ASW focus in the North Sea/GIUK and further away to mean we aren’t crippled due to a random event like Iran shooting tankers.
Although it was T45 that proved its worth when shots were fired.
T26 would be fine as it has enough radar and missiles T31 would be fine if it was fitted with Mk41 and NSM as it would have a decent level of warships.
I genuinely don’t understand the Type 31 armament decision. Currently with only 12 CAMM its just the most expensive OPV in the world and not actually able to do the jobs of a frigate. A massive shape for a ship with so much potential.
And it’s not like much was even saved by no giving them the MK41.
The Type 26 would work independently anywhere but given its speciality I feel it would be best placed with a carrier or in the North Sea, let the escorting in the middle east be carried out by something more general purpose. With 8 of them we could probably get 3 in the water at any time, allowing for 1 to protect a carrier, 1 in the GIUK area and 1 in the North Sea
Julian,
The RN has always operated globally. We are a global power (or global player, if you prefer the term). We have (political, economic, trade, allies, BOTs) interests overseas. Especially as an island nation, we are reliant on overseas trade across oceans. That is why we have a Rank 2 bluewater navy.
Sure Graham I get the point and the history but we can put to sea now just a handful of ships literally. With a fair wind over the next 15 years we may get back to where we were 15 years ago but we surely can’t claim to be a global naval power now.
In reality this means even less incentive to join the military, as part of the sales pitch is to see far flung places.
I guess this is the reality of the situation with such a small force but if they keep diminishing the service offering then we will have even worse morale than currently
We joined the Navy to see the World
And what did we see? We saw the Sea! 🙂
There was a reason that the Mediterranean fleet was a popular posting….you need to keep people interested and freezing everything off in the High North doesn’t tick that box.
And so it begins…..
Maybe we should stop with the willy-waving CSGs that we cant properly defend by ourselves anyway.
3.5% ? Dont make me laugh. This Government has NO intention of going for that.
Spot on, the CSGs should be committed to Europe and the High North. This Asia-Pacific nonsense must stop. Defence engagement using a CSG every five years with places like India is not going to stop the Indians being in bed with Russia, which is of course a far more strategically essential partner for them.
There is no need for a carrier the size of the QEC’s to be stuck in the North Sea and North Atlantic. Almost every spec of that sea can be reached from land-based aircraft from a NATO country anyway, and the few bits that aren’t are far better served with a small carrier such as the invincibles or even a Cavour.
The QEC’s are large carriers meant for a global focus in a global world. The UK and Europe as a collective cannot continue the ridiculous notion that’s a long as we just tightly shoulder up this fortress Europe plan or stand against anything that happens.
What happens if a foreign actor closes the straights or Hormuz? Or someone tries shutting down the South China seas?
Are we always going to be able to rely on the US to do the almost entirety of global antipiracy and safeguarding of the seas for the good of the entire world. And looking at the current things are we even sure that the US won’t be paid off by some of these foreign actors shutting down these waterways.
We need a large carrier to be able to sail anywhere in the world to put a presence there if it is so required.
I did say this would happen we were going retrench to Europe Healy and Starmer said it pre election so I don’t why theres so much shock.
And yes there no point having large carriers operating close to so many allies where they can operate from land bases.
I really don’t understand the goal of “NATO first”. To be blatantly honest it should be UK first, and wouldn’t expect any other member to be any different. We are all in NATO for ourselves, yes it involves helping each other, but nobody joined NATO to hand out freebies and receive nothing but it mostly seems to be about doing nothing for the UK, everything for Europe, and I don’t mean that in a Trump like manner
We can do the vast majority of ASW for NATO (and by extension ourselves given our placement) but that means others should be doing their role, Poland and Germany as the land based behemoths or Italy and France Safeguarding the Mediterranean.
Currently Labour/MOD/Military’s position seems to be, that so long as the eastern front is safe nothing can ever harm any NATO member, only we all know that’s not true given previous examples like the straights of Hormuz.
What happens if Argentina attempts to take the Falklands again, the River class and 4 Typhoons are nice and will do something, but we can’t pretend they’d hold the islands against a proper attack. Would we just give up the islands due to “NATO first” and the decisions meaning we no longer have any amphibious ability?
NATO (and Europe) needs someone other than the US actually capable of sailing more than a couple hundred miles from European soil, we need someone that can actually have a global presence, even if not permanently everywhere, and the UK is perfectly placed to do so.
Norway and our Type 26’s, particularly when given the autonomous assets, can easily enough lock down the North Sea and GIUK, how many ships do we need to stick in one tiny area? Let the rest of the Navy show there are alternatives to a Trump US or China, that the UK and Europe is actually capable on the world stage instead of some insular introvert couped up in a house all day long.
Jacob, you’re just making the argument for me that the CSGs are a waste of money, which is something that I am increasingly convinced of. I’m just trying to find a role for them to get some good value. Not keep them as a contingency for a rainy day scenario, of which they would likely be very limited use anyway.
If the SoH get closed, you’re not reopening them with a QE, it’s just not happening. The US couldn’t keep the BaM safe with the Truman CSG and their assets, and that was against the proxy force of the ones who might close the SoH. A SoH op would be done completely with land based air assets from the Gulf States. It would probably fail too. The only way to solve that issue is sensible diplomacy, something we apparently do not do anymore.
As for the SCS, if that gets closed by that actor, I’d suggest the QE and PoW don’t go anywhere near. The only thing they’ll be providing there is a new reef. Our CSG would not stand a chance in that arena.
Totally agreed.
I was very much on board with a properly funded carrier capacity but reality is that funding and crewing the carriers has crippled the navy and massively impacted the RAF.
In a different world there was no spend on carriers, we got ASW frigates and sub maintenance facilities and RFA ships.
The RAF would have been free to procure whatever aircraft worked best for them (and let’s face it right now absent block 4 it’s probably wise only to have a handful of F35’s for familiarisation)
As it stands we’re stuck with ongoing T45 problems taking up resources to fix, Frigates absolutely catastrophic and the T31’s that’ll come online won’t even have any meaningful offensive capability and out subs are not only problematic in construction but we don’t have the maintenance facilities.
Sending a T45 and T23 round the world this year along with getting the F35’s salty was sheer stupidity. We just don’t have the resources right now, and maybe won’t ever again, to risk the defence of our homeland.
There’s reportedly lots of Russian sub activity in the North Atlantic and we absolutely need the T45’s to be close to home to defend against any missile attack.
We have so few bases and so few combat machines that any successful first night attack could quite literally render the entire RAF inoperable.
But hey, let’s put a housing estate on a hardened shelter base in Oxford because we’ll never need to use that again.
Pound foolish thinking we were penny wise.
‘…3.5% ? Dont make me laugh. This Government has NO intention of going for that…”
That would make Trump very unhappy, of the U.S having to ‘carry the can’ at already 3.5% of GDP!
So looking like HMG may of listened to the top Brass that we can’t even spread our wings on exercisers has short of Manpower and Equipment specially now we have Russia braving down our neck .I do believe France are makeing their young people doing national service , Is this not an Option for the UK ? Could be but has always it means Money and despite words of investment in our defence ,ships ,Aircraft ,still getting cut don’t even mention the poor state of the Army with Ajax 🙄
The last thing the forces need is unwilling conscripts. It just needs proper funding & a functional equipment & supply stream. Cutting in the face of unprecidented threat, dysfunctional recruitment, many delayed, over budget replacement programs & political neglect are killing the forces. HMGs have done more damag to our forces than any enemy could wish for.
Ah so the lingering British Empire and its after effects live on! Let’s see-the Atlantic- Falkland Islands with occasional visits to the chain of islands from South Georgia all the way up Tristan, St Helena, Ascension. Caribbean-the numerous islands plus Beilze with lingering responsibilities plus great training in the jungle, Guyana threatened by Venezuela, Canada- training in a friendly environment; Gibraltar and Cyprus; the Middle East-Bahrain; Kenya-also varied training and military links, the(former) BIOT, Singapore, Aus and NZ showing the flag,and not to forget Pitcairn even if it is just an occasional visit by a River Class!
Ah-the White(and Brown and Black) Mans burden, friendships, and Kith and Kin the world over! :0
what you on about, get to the point,
Good Afternoon Martin. No need to be so brusque young man. The point I was trying to make is that the UK has residual responsibilities and relationships the world over. These relationships have consequences in terms of both soft and hard power. A case in point is for example the Pitcairn Islands whose area includes a vast expanse of ocean and pristine islands sitting about as central and isolated as possible in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean-who knows how valuable these islands may become in an ever shrinking planet? A regular showing of the flag as with a fairly recent visit by a batch 2 OPV asserts British sovereignty and boosts the morale of the tiny population. Repeat these stories over the territories I mentioned above and to a greater or lesser degree you might see that it is not in the UK’s interests to simply abandon these links and confine ourselves to the North Atlantic.
Regards from Durban
my apoliges , I agree with that point but we as westen nation must defende our own back yard, We no longer have world wide reach we had our airforce is more a defensive force now not really a strike force.
The navy is very short on ships to visit these far flung places, and We own/rule govern them in just name really. The US wants are carriers to be used more in areas near China and that kind of place even though the US is focused on China now not the west.
Returning top our old role ASW in the north sea isc land gap is right but we can not be every where, 9 ASW aircraft is a joke hen we have Gibraltar, Cyprus/Faulklands and whole of the UK including Ireland who want it all for free and do nothing.
The remains of old empire need visiting, guarding but the treat to them is small. Our armed forces is tiny now a shaddow of what it was 35 years ago we like bang on about things but really we are now a secound rate power with do much to do and not enough to do it with.
Hi Martin. No apology necessary but thank you anyway. You are absolutely correct about the reality of our hollowed-out Military and the priority of our own back yard. I had ironically always thought of the Tories as the Party who championed the Defence of the Realm but they are no different from the others. I suppose the stark truth is that the UK cannot afford to spend more on Defence and it will have some painful decisions to make going forward. Hot and humid here in Durban-hope you are coping with the British Winter. All the best from Durban
In Scotland its cold raining, and gets dard at 15;30, i agree totally there simply is not the money do do every thing. Some things will have to be dropped and sadly i feel its the Army that has to and will foot the bill because is reactive not pro active like ASW or Carrier strike groups,
A sad state of affairs but its here its not going to get better many need to see that. The next war will be over by the time our Army gets to the fight any way. Armies like ours are not defensive they are just a NATO reserve really. They will not be in fight day one or if they are it will be in weak numbers.
We are not Great Britain we are a small broke island that needs face up to what we are, not what we were. No one beats us at ASW we were the best at it that is what NATO needs not a small army with rusty old kit and little or no ammo.
Last time we were in Scotland was last week in June when the sun stayed up late in the evening! We don’t have those extremes here 🙂
😃
Hello Daniele. Sent you some videos 🙂
Do we even need the Armed Forces any more ?
We could save billions and that would allow us to give Cyprus, Gibralter, FI’s and all the other places, away with lovely cash thrown in .
Oh and Scotland, We wouldn’t really need them either.
🙄
You may take oor lives, but you’ll ne’er take oor free dumb. Wish you would, got plenty to spare!
HW Be careful UKDJ is a highly respected source and some idiot in HMT could read your comments and have a bright idea 😩 And if they got rid of all the Armed Forces what would we do all day 🤷🏼♂️
..and Rodney, even if my friend halfwit was speaking in jest it is not necessary to insult our Scottish brethren who occupy a very large portion of the island of Great Britain. If the Union were to break apart, the whole would be considerably diminished. Consider yourself chastised hw!! 🙂
Can they even read ? 🤔😁
Ministry speak for ‘ we can’t afford it ‘ . We have no ships for global deployment anymore , down to 7 frigates now , mine hunters withdrawn from the gulf , only 1 operational sub and 2 destroyers . The army are too thinly stretched with knackers equipment and the RAF have far too few planes of all types to project power . Where is the promised uplift to defence spending , we need it now not in 2- 10 years . We need those frigates under construction in the water , we need better organised maintenance schedules to keep the ships/ boats we do have at maximum availability . The armed forces are underfunded and falling apart and the government do absolutely nothing to remedy the situation .
Yep, the sums it up perfectly.
Yep, that sums it up perfectly.
Doing the minimum because it is broke.
I do not really understand all the naysaying in the comments as if this decision represents a sort of ‘surrender’?
The whole idea of the next few decades is that we fully commit to Europe and NATO, something which makes complete sense from a ‘crocodiles and canoes’ and capability standpoint. Highmast, whilst nice to have, it’s of course always nice to see the White Ensign “East of Suez”, is not really demonstrating anything sensible or realistic. We do not need to be projecting (a facade of) power in that area.
The future Asia-Pacific deployments should be cancelled. The CSGs need to be in the high north and Atlantic, we can contribute something essential and capable there.
As always we need to stop pretending it’s the 1950s, let’s concentrate on commitments that are realistic and where we can actually provide something of use to our allies.
Well said.
wise words we can sort our own back yard not the world, no need to. We are NOT world power and have not been for about 50 plus years. why have a massive army to do what with? Sweden/Poland/Germany can do the heavy lifting now and in future not us. We need wake up and see we are good at some thing ie ASW, we have carriers, but apart from that we have not much to offer on the big scale any more.
Some on here want like it was, it will never be like that we have good at some things only not every thing.
Pretty much my thoughts too, especially with the US seeming more and more shaky as an ally and increasingly in bed with the Russians.
Absolutely its not a surrender, its a reality check. As a nation our position is suddenly a lot more precarious due to one man being prepared to push the boundaries beyond the established norm and another man who’s turned 80 years of co-operation on its head. Its personality cults and populist politics impacting the global order and not an outcome that we necessarily could have planned for. So we need to be realistic about what we can achieve with our resources and put them to best use.
I wonder if France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and other European nations are going to cancel all their deployments East of Suez, which many have ramped up in recent years? I doubt it very much because simply for one thing and that’s trade. Whilst Europes share of global trade is ever shrinking, Asia’s in particular is growing and the US in particular talk of pivoting to the East it is as much about economic opportunities as it is about facing down China.
I support focusing on NATO but for reasons that go beyond simple military matters a presence East of Suez that is sometimes enhanced with a larger scale deployment is no bad thing, which can be brought home in less than a month. That this could be done in conjunction with other European allies with similar motives is actually important or does Europe want the the US, China, Russia and India to carve up the globe.
We have weakened our conventional forces to levels that have reduced there deterrent effect but that can be remedied with political will by putting more cash into it but no amount of statements about focusing on NATO changes that fact and I see little real evidence things are positively changing for the better.
In that scenario and with US interest waning and who can blame them, the coalition of the willing needs to consider some radical ideas such as the other European nations financially contributing to increasing the U.K. and Frances nuclear deterrent forces. That combined with a modest uplift in defence expenditure by the U.K. and Europe would provide conventional forces more than capable of handling Russia without US support and that is how it should be. In only that way the countries of Europe will find there voice heard on the world stage again with forces capable of genuinely venturing further afield as and when required.
The reality is we don’t need CSG to defend Europe. There’s far less costly way of defending close to home. If the government is serious it should divest the carriers and invest in appropriate asset for the European theatre.
Of course the problem is with just defending Europe is it limits war time supply chains, Britain’s strength in WW2 was its global supply chains and a navy that could defend them. This meant we could out produce Germany and every one knows its factories that win wars. The fact the government has almost zero military industrial strategy shows that this retrenching is more to do withdr cosyng up to Europe and saving money rather than serious defence policy. And if you do think the government has a military industrial strategy then im afraid you’ve fallen for the spin.
The other elephant in the room is a war in Europe is expected to go nuclear quickly and therefore a European war with NATO is unlikely.
I agree Expat, I’m increasingly of the mind that these ships (whilst no doubt good to look at) are an absolute burden on the national defence effort and should be sold if possible. Also completely follow your second paragraph, that’s the key bit that always gets missed. We no longer have the capacity or capability to keep us bombed up and equipped, now that there’s also no guarantee of supply from the other side of the Atlantic we really are in a difficult position.
I think the entire national defence structure has potentially already failed. We should hope and pray the Russians do not call our bluff, we would be in serious trouble. I highly doubt many in NATO would actually step up for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps we need to seriously calm down as a nation, we are writing some serious cheques which we have no hope of cashing.
Literally can’t even defend the Channel
Not the Navy’s job, and I think you should have a look at the recent migration statistics. Labour are overseeing a pretty large fall in migration.
The navies job is to protect and defend these shores and it’s surrounding seas as well as defending British interests around the globe so yes defending the channel is there job .
Being purposely obtuse now, are we?
About what ?
Dealing with migrants, legal or otherwise, is the job of Border Force – so the Home Office. By all means be angry with their inability to do that job, but it’s not the Royal Navy’s role. If we were being invaded by a state actor then yes it would be.
Carrying on a Tory policy on legal immigration BUT have completely lost the plot on illegals coming across the ditch🙄
Erm measuring this government by the last governments appalling record. I really hope that’s not the goto position for the government because the bar set by the last government is extremely low. Its like saying i did well at school because the kid next to me didn’t even get a grade and I got an ‘F’
Also isn’t there the fact that when you look at the large number of Brits that left the UK its not a great picture and given the publics perception is migration is causing a loss of British culture encouraging hundreds thousands of Brits to leave so net migration is lower is it going to fix the perception.
The current incumbents do not seem to want to spend anything on defence, so this comes as no surprise really.
Bonkers 🙈
And so we leave Africa, South America, the Indian Ocean and pacific and all the goods resources and markets to china, Russia and the U.S. and be good little Europeans in our box just as the US! China and Russia want us to be isolated and weak.. this announcement is literally straight out of the new U.S. strategic defence document.. next we will be fulfilling the US requirement for all none American nations to leave the western hemisphere and abandon our defences of the Falklands so the US and Argentina can look after it for us and being extracting all the resources of the south Atlantic and BAT.. let’s just leave Africa to Russia, the U.S. and china because we don’t need those raw materials and future markets… who needs to make sure the seaways from the indopacific, through the Indian Ocean to Europe are safe and controlled… as goos little Europeans we should let Russia, China and the U.S. sort out what that all looks like…
For fucks sake… when are we going to grow up and smell the coffee.. great power competition is back rite large and the the U.S., china and Russia want us off the table and living in fear in our own back yard.. we need to grow the balls our ancestors had and to the world by the horns and say we will not live a box dictated to by other powers.
With this lot in charge? A very large part of the Labour party will be applauding this, and probably want us to go further.
They do say “training” though so I hope our overseas bases are left intact so that we can still project forces beyond Europe as needed, however small they may be.
If this is the start of wider withdrawal, well, I called it when Labour first came in, and was promptly told not to worry that all would be fine.
Yep! Clearly…
Sadly it looks like your pessimism may be correct in this..don’t get me wrong I don’t have an issue with focusing on the Euro Atlantic and high north.. but European powers such as the UK cannot look away from Africa, the Middle East and Indian Ocean.. very specificity the UK also needs a south Atlantic focus that matches the geostrategic threat in that area.
Fingers crossed it only a training refocus….
One area I will be less worried about is a bit of a retreat from the north west pacific.. I really don’t think we want to be much involved in the future pissing match in that area of the world.. our red line should be Australia and the South Pacific.
It will be interesting to see what CBG 27 does and does not do..
But this is a failure that was a long time coming.. 28 years or so of poor decisions has caused this….
I’d say this is a disappointing but probably realistic move at least in the short to medium term. There are at least three good reasons why this makes sense.
Firstly, the threat from the CRINK Axis while global in nature also presents Europe with a very specific set of very threatening scenarios on it’s eastern boarder with Russia. The UK has traditionally played an important and leading role in NATO and needs to step up and focus on contributing to an effective deterrent posture in Europe. Failure to deter and we will find ourselves in a very hot war with Russia and quite possibly the rest of the CRINK Axis as well.
Secondly, and probably the main driver, the Army and RN are simply too small not to put their main effort into defending Europe. For the RN it is the lack of escorts and of investment in submarine maintenance that are perhaps the two most dangerous acts of self sabotage that we have managed to inflict on ourselves. For the Army, Ajax! One project pretty well encapsulates the woeful state of British Army procurement over the last 20 years or so… Then there is the complete lack of mass across all three services. List would fill a very think book indeed.
Thirdly, time! Time is running out for Europe to rebuild it’s deterrent posture. Only this time round we cannot rely on the US to fill the legion of gaps. Like Europe the US seems to have over drawn the peace dividend. Her once mighty industrial capability, like ours, has seen significant portions off shored largely to China, the leading power in the CRINK Axis. Together we have financed what is likely to emerge as the greatest threat to Western Democracy since the 1930’s! As such the US now finds itself with a significant and growing threat to it’s West. A threat that yet may soon be able to build nuclear powered submarines at least at twice the rate of all of the western navies added together. That one possibility should be sobering enough on its own, but China’s ambitions do no end with submarines. They will soon have the largest escort force and a growing and increasingly capable carrier force. None of which is good news for the USN or America’s place in the world, let alone ours.
eNATO and the Royal Navy are nowhere near ready to fight another Battle of the Atlantic and we will need to fight such a battle no matter what form it takes in the future. It is possible to argue that we are already fighting a maritime grey zone war with Russia.
We need to step up and frankly we are not coming close to do that yet… Parliament needs to get a grip or we fill find ourselves fighting a war possibly against the CRINK Axis within the next few years.
So reluctantly I would say this is a good move, but for all the wrong reasons.
Cheers CR
It might have made sense if the amount training and exercises were to be increased in Europe to compensate for fewer exercises further away. No mention was made of that in the case of the RN. For the army it’s even worse. There’s a reduction in all overseas training, which might have meant inviting foreign allies to more training on Salisbury Plain, but again there’s no mention of that. Reducing the overall amount of training is suicidal, especially as it appears to also reduce training alongside the allies we depend on to fight with. The Army doesn’t even pretend it can field a fighting force without allies, so less training even with European allies is a really bad choice to have to make. How can it possibly enhance land warfighting capabilities? Saving ammo?
Hi Jon,
I’m certainly not in favour of reducing the amount of training for the forces as that is the route to even further decline in our capability.
I would hope that training in Europe alongside allies will be increased, it needs to be. Integration with eNATO forces is particularly important especially given the changing nature of modern warfare especially with the impact of drones and cyber warfare. Sharing new ideas and concepts and testing them along side allies is the best way to ensure that we develop the doctrine, conops and equipment to deal with these rapid changes.
I would also note that the article makes no mention of British Forces Training Teams which I hope would continue as they represent a significant and cost effective way for supporting allies outside of the NATO area as well as giving British forces insights to operational scenarios and environments they might not otherwise have visibility of. They also add a significant level of influence and support to our diplomatic efforts.
I hope that our leaders wake up to the growing threat and do something serious about recovering our military capability. If and when our forces do recover we can and will need to once again undertake exercises with none NATO allies. Right now with the US and NATO in general up against it in their own backyards the west is in effect in retreat from the world stage, at least militarily, and guess who would be only tooooooo pleased to fill that vacuum..?
So sadly, assuming training in the NATO area is stepped up to replace the training opportunities outside of the NATO area, I think the concentration on Europe makes sense, but it should be a temporary measure and as I said above it is being done for all the wrong reasons. We are after all a global trading nation and we risk leaving our trade routes exposed to interference. Not an unlikely scenario given Russian and Chinese propensity for grey area warfare.
Cheers CR
Many read it as weakness. I don’t agree. The most imminent and credible threat comes out of Russia, so best to train in Europe.
Not sure jungle, desert warfare, etc training is the priority right now.
my 2 cents
^^^ this^^^
“The recall of the Legions”
In 1970/71 the withdraw from the Near and Far East still amounted to a serious augmentation of the UKs strength in the North European NATO region. Today, the only obvious accrual will be the return of two OPV’s from the Indo-Pacific, and that’s assuming at least one doesn’t move to Bahrain. The downside will be an impact on morale and retention as the opportunities for travel to “exotic” outside Europe dry up.
Someone else who has read Vanguard to Trident, which is a really informative piece of work.
I’m lost, for a change.
Navy
Do we now withdraw our B2s from overseas deployments?
What does this mean for forward deploying an Astute for AUKUS
Do we close down overseas bases and redeploy the man power?
Army
What is the purpose of the Ranger Bns now?
The hooligans will continue to train overseas, I expect…
How will PARA get better interoperability with US PARA and familiarise with their equipment?
Airforce
Do we need the heavy lifters in such quantities as we have now, if we are only trundling over the North Sea? Would sealift not be safer and more economical?
It’s just training and presumably to free up money to be spent elsewhere. He clarified that operational deployments wouldn’t be affected.
So.how do you operationally deploy if you don’t train for it. How do you know you’re kit will do whats supposed to do f inot tested until its operationally dedeployed. Its bonkers and will cost lives!
Excellent idea !! Liebour have now finally announced that they have no interest in a Global Britain, or anything else in defence. Oh, apart from sound bites !!
They certainly, much the same as their predecessors, want to make every town, village, and hamlet “global” in a sense. The country is absolutely cooked.
Sadly yes. One bunch of no brainers after the other and if anything it’s getting worse.
You can argue how this is a change of focus or a reallocation of resources until the cows come home, but everyone knows, deep down in their heart the driving force behind this decision is to save money. Nothing more, nothing less.
So it will be join the army see Salisbury plains and join the navy get to see the cold Atlantic and the only reason the RAF isn’t being effected is they probably wouldn’t get enough flying hours if they just stayed in the UK I wonder why anyone would join the military now
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this relinquishing out power and influence, and just as importantly our visibility, across the world?
Well we’re scrapping machinery while we don’t have enough, giving away bases and paying countries to have them. At this rate the white flag will be synonymous with us in future.
All within a year and a half of Starmer.
I heard the Exodus abroad has already started !
I heard 700,000 have left the UK. Not criminals or illegals but British citizens. The number sounds rather high so I would need to confirm it.
But Labour are rubbing their hands with glee at replacing them with cheap labour and hopefully future votes, despite cultures, beliefs and behavioural standards that often seem to be incompatible with ours.
Fabians are in charge. No belief in Britain, a supplanted the population fits the plan.
We are certainly approaching the point where one half of the young men will not be willing to fight for a country they have no connection to, and the other half will not be willing to fight as it is no longer their country.
I do not think the politicians or elites of our society have any inkling of this sort of thing.
We have never been in such an emergency as this so I have no idea how it ends, although the 90s in Yugoslavia or South Africa might be a clue.
Whatever changes?
I love how with the net migration statistics it is never detailed how many are actually white or black British who are of the indigenous population with families here over multiple generations.
And yet, every institution we have dealings with are constantly collecting information about ethnicity, gender, even religion. We’re just not allowed to know the results.
Come on HMG you need to exercise in different environments to be ready for them. No way of knowing where the next war will actually be. This is clearly just penny pinching.
Well, the Ranger Regiment will probably do well out of this. As the wider field army focuses onto Europe, the Rangers and SF will increasingly be the only forces that go further afield. Want something different, attend the cadre.
10k retention payments coming back again next year as Labour are desperate to keep the Army numbers falling below 70k on their watch and get mullered for it.