A Return East of Suez – A case study of British Foreign Policy

The UK needs friends it can trust. Note how France and Germany declined to support UK in Stena seizure whilst Australia is sending a P8 and frigate to the Gulf. Shows things in their true light doubly so when you consider how UK helped France in Mali.

Agree Elizzar.

How would that make us a global player if we are cancelling/reducing other budgets to do it

The US does it with a bigger foreign aid budget than us, they spend a lot on welfare as well, look at what China is spending while still being able to afford much, much more on their military

“6+ RFA Argus-type vessels, marines and engineers cruising the globe, with helicopters and the like for disaster relief and infrastructure projects.”

What has an RFA Argus-type vessel got to do with infrastructure projects?

A portion of our GDP has been paying the interest on our national debt for nearly 400 years, it isn’t magically going away for a new “global Britain”

“I would wholeheartedly love to see £10+ billion a year spent helping poorer nations and our overseas dependencies / former colonies via the medium of a large-scale RN and RFA presence”

What poorer nations would rather have a Royal Navy frigate off it’s coast instead of a £500m soft loan to build infrastructure like schools & hospitals?

I agree with the sentiment to an extent, it’s natural for us British to expect that we should be at the very top table, with a Royal Navy presence in all corners of the world because of our history, but the cold hard truth is we don’t have the population or resources to be at that level any more, we had an empire so our population pool was 10 times larger than what it is now, 20% of the worlds population we had, we had the largest economy in the world for a very long time with the pound as the worlds reserve currency like the dollar is now

Now we are out of the top 20 population size and our economy 6th/7th, predicted to be out the top 10 in next 25 years

Even if we did the most logical thing and trimmed a few budgets to get up to 2.5% and put the nuclear deterrent back in the treasury it would only just fill our current spending black hole on defence, I read Gabriel’s blog and just look at what the army is missing or needs badly spent on it, everyone loves to get stiffys over the Royal Navy but money needs spent massively on other things before we even think about growing the Royal Navy

And we already are a global player, in the sense we can deploy globally, backed up with good logistics, only a handful of nations can do that, but then again some lads on here with the experience are saying we can’t even deploy what we did in Iraq now

Any extra money we get must be spent on all our armed forces to get us back to that level, to a level where our current standing patrols are met, can deploy a naval force for a fight and the army with numbers and equipment it needs for a fight, either on our own against a peer or with allies against someone stronger, but going beyond that and growing the Royal Navy into a huge fleet that’s patrolling all corners of the globe is just pie in the sky stuff

These “east of Suez” articles are just fanciful and dare I say it, delusions of grandeur

We can afford to be in the top 10 maybe, and I am not sure about that. GDP is only part of the puzzle, also wage costs, levels of health and safety and plus country poverty level (poorer people more likely to sign-up) and social welfare expenditure come into play.

But even if you do put us in the top 5, which over nation outside the US has its assets spread globally?

The majority of our trade comes from the EU and US, this isn’t about supporting trade it’s about vanity and holding onto the past.

Enoch Powell pointed out that the United Kingdom was never a major power. It has been completely unable (and unwilling) to prosecute a major conflict in Europe since Elizabeth I of England on its own. England and then the United Kingdom has always fought in major conflicts around the world as an ally. Our greatest achievements have been made as part of successful alliances. Our many friends value our contributions and the training and commitment of U.K. forces is enough assurance for most. One Russian observer at a British exercise is reported to have said he was glad our armed forces were so small. What has carried forward our countries best interests and influence have been ideas backed as necessary by a willingness to stand beside our friends. I think the best way to consider ‘East of Suez’ is what this would be like without us. There is a lot of evidence to examine since 1967.

Detriment or benefit? I don’t know the answer to this, but it is a question, what helps our foreign policy (trade position) more, international aid spent on emerging countries and not starting wars, or spending money on defence and fighting endless wars.

GDP per capita of the UK is lower than a lot of far more peaceful countries and even overall GDP is only marginally higher than France/Spain/Italy and yet the UK is involved far more internationally, so is it really helping us beyond vanity?

The IAEA was the official monitor and they confirmed that Iran was in full compliance. I suspect what is closer to the truth is that Tehran stepped-up efforts to assert itself in the region to the annoyance of US allies – at which point they exerted influence on the US to act. If that was poorly judged by Terhran, the American response was worse: They created needless tension and what’s far worse, have created a total mistrust of the value of a treaty. This has long-term implications for world stability, the nature of which we can’t know the full extent of but which are likely to be profound. Stupid, clumsy and short-sighted so HMG should have stayed completely out. As is was we had one foot in with the business of the tanker seizures and got humiliated in the process. I for one am glad to see us re-engage East of Suez but I believe the recent reactive ‘policy’ in the gulf region is an example of how not to do it.

Thank you for giving me all the reason I need to vote for him again. Because if this is how “allies” act when America looks out for itself, it shows you who your friends are. I don’t want a “statesman” or someone who just lets the revolving door of career bureaucrats and lobbyists at the State Department have their way.
On another note the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s and the Army Chief of Staff were fully informed of his intent to leave.

Oscar Zulu, I totally agree with your figures and yes I simplifed termangology otherwise I would need to write a full thesis. Brunei does have links with the UK and the UK participates in the defence of the country. Its one of the reasons that the Gurkhas are there.
I used Brunei as a possible Royal Navy base as we do have relitivly good relations with the country and its strategic location. With political will and foresight the UK could have some strategic locations to act in regional trouble spots if need be without having a huge navy that we could no longer afford. Well that is at least my thinking

Agreed, British influence in Brunei was maintained primarily because of the threat from Indonesia and Chinese-backed communist insurgency in the 1960s-80s (the same reason Malaysia and Singapore did not object to British and Australian forces retaining bases on their territory after independence). Indonesian claims over Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo have subsided, and China is no longer exporting communist terrorism, rather China is now behaving more like Japan in the inter-war period, looking for regional hegemony to guarantee access to raw materials and trading routes. The war on terror has created some distance, as has, frankly, the lower level of economic and political clout of the UK and the EU when compared to China in the region – a process which began when the UK became less dependent upon oil from the region when the North Sea was exploited from the 1970s.

The point is we return to the region on a different playing field. Beyond the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, our natural allies in the Asia Pacific region against an emerging Chinese threat are South Korea, Japan, Singapore – and to some extent India and the Philipines, All of these nations are democracies in the western camp (India at least partially), industrial competitors to China, and also rely on the same raw materials and trading routes. All have been massively re-arming in face of Chinese militarisation of the South China sea. Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Pakistan and Thailand for various reasons are attempting to sit on the fence, both cultivating China as a customer and source of inward investment, while keeping a foot in the western camp – and buying weapons from both parties. There is a great power tussle going on over influence in Myanmar. Russia is playing its usual role of spoiler (distracting the west from Putin’s attempts to regain hegemony in Eastern Europe is in iRussia’s interests), and retaining influence and selling arms and oil where it can – to China, North Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and India.

Thanks for the comments Don, I will try my best here to answer the two questions and one problem as far as I can see from your post. First I will start with the one problem the River 2. I am not going to go bashing them as they are good boats with two issues for their use in the Carribean, one speed they are just not fast enough to catch drug runners or people smugglers. Two helicopter hanger or lack of. With the lack of speed the Rivers would need to use a helicopter but with the lack of a hanger it can only be embarked for a short period. The Rivers are very seaworthy, and good for what they are designed to do Fishery protection but to deal with anything faster than a fishing boat or merchantman then they would have a problem.
Would the Carribean want a squadron of 1xT31 and 2-3 Fast missile boats, I think the answer would be yes, many of the Island nations are British overseas territories meaning that we are responsible for their protection and defence.
Yes, it would be nice if we could have a squadron of advanced frigates there but we can’t afford them.
Yes, its nice when we send over a frigate or destroyer and fly the flag, but even with all of their radar, sensors and missiles the ship can only be in one place at one time.
Next issue is with the major task that the RN carries out in the Carribean, anti-drug smuggling patrol, at the moment we use RFA ships and or a frigate/destroyer for this. The RFA ships are not designed or officialy manned for this task they are civillian manned ships with some RN personel on board for weapon systems, they depend on the embarked helicopters. They are however ideally suited to to humanitarian requirements of the region especially in the hurricane season. The could act as a base ship for a T31 and fast missile boats supplying fuel, food, accomadation and recreation for crews.
The reason that I am thinking about the FMB along the lines of the Finnish Hamina class is as follows this class has the following fitout 1×40 mm DP Bofors, 1×12.7mm remote station, 8xUmkhonto SAM which can easily be replaced with 8xSea Ceptor, 4x RBS-15 Mk2, 1x anti sub torpedo a rail for mine or depth chages, decoy systems and a towed array sonar. I would think about replacing the mine/depth charge postion for a RIB. It has a 30+ knots capability however, they are short legged with only a 500 nautical mile range. These vessels for their size are hard hitting and can take care of themselves. They have reduced heat signatures as the exhaust is directed underwater and they can sprey the decks and superstructure to cool it down or as NBC sprey down. A potential enemy would need some serious airpower to take on 8 Sea Ceptors if they are operating as a squadron of three plus a T31 thats now 48+ Sea Ceptors. That will do some damage to any attacking airforce. If they took a missile hit it would probably sink the boat, so they cannot withstand serious damage.
Fast missile boats are idealy suited to operate in coastal waters, choke points, between islands etc they do not need a lot of space to turn, with water jets they can turn in unconventional ways and get into really shallow water. Very importantly they have a towed array sonar designed for use in brown water/coastal water/Island enviroments. They are stealth vessels with minimal radar, heat and magnetic signatures. They cost about £100 million each.
So to use this type of vessel in the Straits of Mallaca/Hormuz or Brunei for patrol work, they could even be used in the Scottish Islands to sanitise the area for our submarines leaving harbour, makes sense and shows intent.
To use them in the Carribean, a squadron of three would cover 2.5 times the area with radar than a T23/26. It is reported that Artisan on a T23 has a range of 200km, this appears to be the same as what is reported for the Hamina class. I very much doubt that they both have the same coverage as well put it simply the T23 Artisan is much higher up so I will assume that the Hamina has about 66% of the radar coverage of a T23. They could be in three places at a third of the cost of a T45 or T26, they have enough firepower to make a much larger ship of war think twice let alone a drug smuggler and the speed to catch them. It would also mean that blue water ships such as the T45, T23/26 can do blue water jobs leaving the inshore/ confined water work to boats designed for the job.
The only draw back that I see in this Hamina class is its range, if that could be increased, crew accomadation for seven days and a mini-RAS postion then the RN would have a good addition to the fleet at a reasonable price, 10 for one T45. The other issue would be manning the RN would need an extra 500 crew, two crews for each boat at 25 crew members per vessel per rotation. Possibly we could get crews/part crews from the locality.
Many would argue that the half sister Khareef class to the River 2 would be a better solution. In some ways that is possibly true but the issue is this, HM Government and especially the Treasury would not see the diffrence between a Corvette and a Frigate, all they will see is what the ship carries, range etc. whereas with a Fast Misslie Boat and a Guided Missile Frigate there is a marked diffrence.
I suppost the diffrence between a River 2 and a Hamina class boat would be the same as the Bobby on the beat and the armed responce unit,the one you respect the other puts the fear of god into you.