A co-author of last year’s defence review has warned that US comments about the Falkland Islands should be taken seriously and engaged with directly, describing Trump’s stance as a combination of genuine belief and political posturing rooted in his alliance with Argentina’s President Milei.
Dr Fiona Hill, who served on the review alongside Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, told the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that the Falklands comments were “a bit of both” when asked whether they represented substance or posturing.
“It is classic Trump. Greenland was obviously a major shock to the system, and he meant every bit of that,” she said, adding that Trump still wanted to see Greenland as part of the United States but was pivoting toward Argentina because of his close political alliance with President Milei.
“He is basically saying that, as far as he is concerned, the whole set of geopolitical arrangements is up for grabs,” she told MPs.
Hill was clear the UK should not let the comments pass without response. “One should engage directly on this. Certainly, behind closed doors would be better initially, but we should certainly take that seriously and do not let it just pass by,” she said.
The wider discussion touched on whether US support for Europe had effectively infantilised European allies by allowing them to avoid hard defence choices for decades. Hill said that from the US perspective the answer was absolutely yes, adding that across both Republican and Democratic administrations the US had talked “rather derisively in private, but sometimes also in public, about Europe and allies in Europe”, at times referring to Europeans as an unwashed mass.
Lord Robertson agreed, saying a Lords committee report published last week had made the same point, that European countries by “relying on the United States of America for key capabilities, have in many ways infantilised themselves” and were now having to wake up to the prospect that American support taken for granted may not be available for every crisis.
Pulls up comfy chair, sticks the kettle on…..
😊
HMG does take the threat seriously. That’s why there is a flight of Typhoons and an air defence systems permanently stationed on the island as well as a significant army and naval presence.
A lot smaller army and RN presence than there used to be.
Sky Sabre is a very, very good system.
Something like land based NSM would be more than useful to make up for the limited ASh capabilities of Typhoon T1.
Or we could do something with the rivers 2s give the Falklands guard ship an ASuW punch..
The issue is once there was a modified rivers 1 and a major surface combatant in the south Atlantic..
So that rivers 2 guard ship has essentially taken the job of both an OPV and a surface combatant.
This is my big problem with the Rivers 2 as they are, essentially the RN uses them instead of frigates and not instead of older OPV( it still has 75% of its river 1s).
I know everyone gives stick about up arming the Rivers 2s but the reality is they are going to end up tossed in the fire.. be they armed as a corvette or as an OPV.. so we may as well do ourselves a favour and arm them as corvettes for high end EEZ security purposes.. we can happily slash the range of the rivers 2 by 50% or more if we stopped pissing around in the pacific.
Er, a roulement AR company and a B2 is your idea of taking the threat seriously? We live in a different universe.
An investment in the islands, with provision for serious renewable power generation, land set aside for an AI data centre, a determination to increase the population, and provision of a large detention centre for asylum applications (serious point, why can’t we use the FIs?) which would have attraction of more jobs and act as a deterrent for applicants could fund a much larger military force, and that is before oil is found in sufficient quantities.
Rant over 😀
Why on earth would you want to put a detention centre all the way down there? Quite apart from getting them there and back costing a fortune it would actually increase the risk to the islands with various do gooders and unfriendly Govts making much capital out of it!
There are Scottish islands much closer to home that could be used if the will was there for camps but dream on there are no hotels etc on the ones I have in mind👍
Better yet put them on the isle of Sheppey, it’s nice and close to the beaches where everyone is coming in and no one lives there.
You can’t dump a detention centre on the Falkland Islands because the governing Legislative Assembly has authority- and wouldn’t want one there. The status of British Overseas Territories is not just that of an English county that happens to be detached from the mainland. (Though interestingly, that is how the French administer their ‘Overseas Departments’).
I can think of 3000 reasons why a “Large Detention Centre” would be subject to your “Why” question.
N.I.M.B.Y. (It’s just as bad here In the UK).
😁😁😁
“significant naval presence”? One River class visiting when in the area.
How well defended are the Falklands against a sustained drone attack ? Presumably, Sky Sabre is there to defend against manned aircraft.
This is where we really need to start cutting our cloth.
The RN needs to be hyper focused on core UK national interests. We have a very very useful EEZ that requires a large navy as it’s so spread out. But we now have a very small navy that we try to project still as a true global navy.. but in reality we can no longer be showing the flag in the Pacific and protecting our EEZs.
As we have such low numbers of active escorts ( we should have 30 but we now have 8 in reality) pretending that having 5 2000 ton warships with nothing more than a 30mm cannon doing the jobs of GP frigates is not only hubris is a stupid waste of resources..
Not so long ago the South Atlantic territories would be guarded by a modified rivers 1 OPV and a major surface combatant.. now a single Rivers 2 is pretending it can be both an OPV and replace the major surface combatant deployment.. It could have done that if it was adequately armed.