General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, spoke today at the Combined Naval Event in Farnborough to set out three priorities for the Royal Navy: building a hybrid fleet capable of warfighting, deepening the partnership with industry to deliver it, and forging a persistent multinational maritime force with Joint Expeditionary Force partners in the High North and North Atlantic.

Jenkins, who took up the role one year ago as the first Royal Marine to serve as First Sea Lord, described the geopolitical environment as more volatile and dangerous than at any point in his career. He pointed to Russian activity in the North Atlantic, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the lessons emerging from the Middle East as drivers of urgency. “The capable status quo is not good enough, not anymore,” he said. “Freedom is not free.”

Jenkins was blunt about what the evidence from recent conflicts had demonstrated. “Drones and autonomy have rapidly become the dominant and decisive factor in the modern battlefield,” he said, adding that anyone who had watched Russia massively increase its drone capability and production over four years would understand how much things had changed. He said the Royal Navy had no time to pander to hybrid sceptics. “We have no time to pander to cynicism or traditionalists, because autonomy is already demonstrably changing the nature of warfare, as evidenced in Ukraine and in the Middle East.”

His vision for the hybrid fleet was summed up simply. “Crewed where necessary, uncrewed wherever possible, and integrated always.” War games had demonstrated that the hybrid model delivered a substantial uplift in combat mass, additional tactical flexibility, and a threefold increase in missile capacity compared to the current fleet. “The case for hybrid is clear. The task is now to get on and deliver it.”

Jenkins confirmed that the first 20 Beehive autonomous boats from Kraken had been delivered, with the first ten arriving in just six days, and that the system would reach full operating capability within 12 to 14 weeks of contract signature. “This is the definition of an agile partnership,” he said, adding that Beehive would be among the first hybrid systems deploying to the Gulf as part of the multinational Strait of Hormuz mission. He described the ability to deploy autonomous sensors and effectors at scale in a congested chokepoint as conferring a clear operational advantage.

Turning to industry, Jenkins called for a fundamental change in how procurement is done, moving from multi-year acquisition models to iterative spiral development, enabling commercial and classified technologies to develop side by side, and allowing talent to flow more freely between the Navy, industry, and academia. He said current regulation was not fit for purpose and expressed hope that the Regulation for Growth Bill announced in the King’s Speech would provide the means to change it. “The navy of the 2030s cannot be created using processes from a bygone age,” he said.

Jenkins also addressed the ongoing Russian threat directly, warning that Moscow was seeking to exploit the current focus on the Gulf. “We must not lose our long-term focus on the North, on our backyard, because it is here that Russian surface and subsurface activity continues to pose the most acute and persistent threat every single day to our critical national infrastructure and the continuous at sea deterrent.” He said the Royal Navy had been expending significant resources with allies to disrupt and deter Russian submarine activity in recent weeks.

His ambition for the JEF was to move beyond episodic exercises toward a persistent integrated multinational maritime force with real capabilities, real war plans, and real integration. Jenkins confirmed that JEF chiefs of navies would meet in the coming weeks to convert a statement of intent into a concrete proposition, with a full formed plan ready for implementation by autumn. “By the autumn, it is our firm intention that a full formed plan is ready for implementation. That sounds like we’re moving fast. It’s because we are, and it’s because we must.”