Introduction
Thank you Michael for inviting me to address this year’s RUSI Maritime Conference. I am delighted that we have had the opportunity to hear from the Minister and from Julian Miller, to provide a sense of the broader direction in which the UK is responding to the challenges in our interconnected world.
As the third speaker in this Session One ‘trinity’, I am not going to offer you a sense of completeness. Rather, I intend to provide you with a sense of perspective and continuity, at a time of considerable challenge and change.
Churchill once said, “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” And I take this as the theme of my speech because I think we should guard against what is sometimes referred to as “the tyranny of pessimism” when viewing the challenges for the future of Defence and the future of the nation’s Royal Navy, which I am enormously proud to lead.
This is not to ignore the very real challenges, especially in the short term. Far from it. But there is much in the long term about which we can be confident and where, if we are to control that long term space, then we must seize the opportunities today.
Future Challenges
So, against a backdrop of a future global security environment that is dynamic - one that is complex, one that is multi-dimensional, one that is uncertain - from my perspective, as the nation’s maritime advisor for defence and security, we are presented with two principal challenges.
First, for a nation so dependent on export and import, those of us with responsibilities for providing maritime defence and security, must ensure that confidence in using the maritime environment to conduct trade and harness resources remains high.
Second, when threats to the nation need to be dealt with at range, we must continue to be able to use the maritime environment to project power to reassure and ultimately protect our national interests.
To meet these challenges it is important for the maritime defence community to move both responsibly and decisively into the Government-endorsed “Adaptable Britain” tramline. For in an uncertain world, the need to adjust our Armed Forces’ structures to provide the necessary flexibility of response has never been more pressing. Afghanistan and Libya remain the key priorities, absolutely, but they are certainly not the only priorities.
And for us all in the wider maritime community - be that, amongst others, in the Ports industry, the Shipping industry, the Defence Industry, the maritime business services sector, academia, or the maritime Defence sector - there is a need to collectively understand, and respond, to how the future security environment will affect the sea-going environment, the maritime environment - upon which the UK’s economy and indeed the economic engine of our interconnected world is so dependent.
Part of this response, for the wider maritime community, is the need to awaken the national maritime consciousness from its slumber.
And whilst responding to such challenges - especially against a global, regional and national backdrop of economic sobriety - is by no means easy, neither are, I believe, such challenges insurmountable.
Confidence
Let me share with you just three reasons for a degree of confidence regarding our ability to meet the demands of the future.
First, the recent SDSR ultimately endorses the strategic utility of the Royal Navy. The strategic analysis which underpinned the Review was entirely sound, despite the noises made by commentators. The Cabinet Office Paper correctly concluded that, for a host of reasons, the UK needed to rebalance its defence and security mechanisms, including its Armed Forces, towards a security posture described as “Adaptable Britain.”
A security posture which best reflects the strategic realities for this island nation, whose military operations are essentially expeditionary in nature.
Against such a posture within which the capabilities of our Armed Forces were evaluated, maritime capabilities scored highly across the range of future scenarios under consideration. Nobody should be surprised by this. In any security posture which places a premium on global access, precision attack, agility, and the ability to work easily alongside allies, maritime forces are an essential part of the UK national response, as indeed they are for many nations.
So the Review process has confirmed the ends which the Government seeks to serve, as expressed in the National Security Strategy and elsewhere. The UK wishes to remain a global player, and recognises that defence and security are part of a continuum. All of us in this room understand that prevention of conflict is better than cure - but if conflict cannot be prevented, then it is better to win than lose and it is better to deal with threats at range.
The role of deterrence - and by that I mean both conventional and nuclear - has received the emphasis it is due. The value of persistent presence in regions of interest, whether to signal national intent, gather intelligence and form insights, contribute to capacity building or to reassure others, is understood. The Royal Navy’s long term commitment in the Gulf is testament to this. Indeed, in volatile locations such as the Middle East, the ability to influence without embroilment has seldom been so important.
Above all, the need to maintain a credible war fighting capability, able to operate and be maintained at range, has been confirmed. For you cannot deter effectively unless it is understood, by those whose behaviours you seek to influence, that you can intervene militarily with confidence. Having determined the correct range at which to exercise influence, you cannot keep the peace unless you are physically there, and prepared and able to stay there.
All this has implications for the characteristics, capabilities and structures of our Armed Forces and of the Royal Navy. We need to be:
• more deployable;
• better able to operate with allies and partners;
• capable of precision effect;
• able to operate across the land, sea and air;
• and able to contribute across the widest spectrum of national activity - war fighting, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, but more besides - deterrence, influence, keeping the door open through regional engagement, and so on.
Why? Because the National Strategy for the UK has to be balanced against the threats we face, able to offer the Government the greatest possible range of options in protecting and projecting our national interests.
There is obviously a fundamentally important maritime dimension to this as we face the future, and it is a dimension to which the Royal Navy can, and will, contribute strongly in the coming years.
This brings me to my second reason for a degree of confidence. The naval equipment programme, enshrined in the Review, gives cause for the defence community as well as the wider maritime community to draw at least some encouragement.
Of course the economic realities and political imperatives in Afghanistan have rightly demanded that, in the short term, we lean more towards the “Committed” side of an “Adaptable” posture. And as such there are significant consequences for Defence and the Royal Navy. We have necessarily had to make some difficult decisions in terms of platforms and people.
So, from a maritime perspective, the Royal Navy that is emerging from this Review is smaller: with an obvious gap in our current Carrier Strike capability, a more limited Amphibious Strike capability and the withdrawal from service of the Type 22 Frigates some of the significant changes. Yet the key Royal Navy’s core capabilities and operational tasks have remained and, importantly, will remain into the longer term.
Which is why, by 2020, the Royal Navy will have new aircraft carriers, a high readiness amphibious capability, Type 45 destroyers, Astute Class submarines, and soon after, Type 26 Global Combat Ships, and upgraded helicopter fleets.
Not to mention the delivery of new Fleet Tankers and a maturing programme for the Solid Support Ships; and a successor in build to replace the current deterrent submarines.
A naval equipment programme to which the Secretary of State for Defence reinforced the Government’s commitment in this very location only last week, and was echoed this morning by Min (DEST).
This is an equipment programme that ensures that, in the long term, the inherent flexibility associated with maritime capability is preserved. The ability to veer and haul with ease across the spectrum of conflict: from warfighting to international engagement. The ability to operate across the seams of warfare. Above all, the ability to provide Government with choice.
All of which is why the Government has expressed a commitment to the vision of Future Force 2020 set out in the Review. And I welcome the Prime Minister’s desire for year on year real-terms growth in the Defence budget in the years beyond 2015. For ambition must be reconciled with resource.
My third reason for confidence owes much to the Royal Navy’s continued operational success in which its present achievements demonstrate its future utility, and flexibility in responding to the future security challenges of our interconnected world.
Our primary focus is concerned with preventing war, yet deterrence is underwritten by our ultimate ability to fight war and to succeed. And as this audience understands only too well, deterrence is also about credibility, and credibility depends on their being a tangible presence in the place where it is needed.
That is why the Royal Navy in this country is not held in reserve, garrisoned in naval bases. Rather, it is out there, 24/7, every day of the year, fulfilling the entire range of Defence tasks.
So out there, right now, more than 8000 sailors and marines are deployed on operations around the world, and over 40 ships and submarines are at sea, today, protecting Britain’s interests and serving our international obligations. From providing the UK’s strategic deterrent to fishery protection, and from conducting counter-piracy in the Indian Ocean to Maritime Security in the Gulf and Mediterranean.
Indeed, it is of note that, this summer, nearly a quarter of our Armed Forces personnel deployed in Afghanistan are either sailors or marines.
Evidence of the Royal Navy’s enduring flexibility of force providing an enduring utility of force - day in, day out.
But make no mistake, such confidence is no ‘conspiracy of optimism’, no mis-placed sense of the very real and very considerable resource challenges ahead, but rather a long term ‘rationale for realism’.
The Government recognises in the Review the enduring strategic utility of the Royal Navy. There is a desire from the Prime Minister to ensure that, in the long term, the funding is in place to balance resources with commitments, power with interests, and means with ends.
And with proven operational credentials the Royal Navy consistently demonstrates its inherent utility in making a significant contribution to the security posture of the “Adaptable Britain” headmark.
Opportunity
And because delivery won’t be easy, as we consider how to adapt for the future, I believe there are three key areas where we need to seize opportunity.
First, we must embrace the opportunities offered by Defence Reform which, as the Secretary of State for Defence said last week, “sets out a vision of transformation on a scale not seen in Defence for a generation.” He is right, of course, and such reform represents a welcome opportunity to remove unnecessary overheads and duplication, driving even greater efficiency into our Defence and Naval business.
But I am also acutely aware that we are already highly efficient at force generating and operating maritime forces to deliver effect at, and from, the sea. As I have said, right now, more than 8000 of our trained strength are deployed, somewhere in the world on operations. The remainder are either preparing to deploy, recovering from their deployments or directly supporting our front line activity from lean and efficient Headquarters structures.
And by continuously exploring ways to improve our efficiency, the Royal Navy has, for example, at least at Junior Rate level, de-latched personal harmony from the unit, so that we can extract the maximum platform availability, right to the edge of engineering certification criteria. And the lower maintenance burden of newer platforms will see our availability increase whilst still continuing to provide an adequate harmony routine for the sailors.
So, I would counsel, that the laudable pursuit of efficiency, at the heart of Defence Reform, must not compromise the effective delivery of maritime outputs: the very capabilities that we seek to preserve.
The second opportunity to be embraced is my intent articulated in the Future Navy Vision, my recently published headmark for the future of the Royal Navy, including the Royal Marines and Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
It details why and how we shall develop in the challenging years ahead - as Defence moves from a mindset of mass to manoeuverism, from intervention to prevention - and the implications for our people, capabilities and force structure. Critically, it describes the path towards the Royal Navy of 2025.
Why then? Three reasons: first, it takes time to build maritime capabilities; second, it takes time to train and grow the skilled people who operate these capabilities; and finally, 2025 will be the aiming point for the next Defence Review around 2015.
You will hear more on this from Rear Admiral Phil Jones, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, in tomorrow’s Closing Session on the Future Role of Navies. For those who can not wait until then, I would summarise by saying that I envisage the delivery of the Future Navy Vision being synonymous with the delivery of Defence’s “Adaptable Britain” security posture. Nothing more, nothing less.
The third opportunity is a wider one, and touches, in particular, on the need for the wider maritime community - all of us - to awaken a national maritime consciousness from its slumber. From which it is already stirring.
We owe much of this to the efforts of a number of maritime bodies - the IMO, the Chamber of Shipping, the British Ports Association amongst others. Indeed, I - as the Government’s principal maritime security adviser - sense that the blanket of fog, on a hitherto sea-blind nation, is beginning to lift.
This represents a significant opportunity for us all. An opportunity for cooperation.
In understanding our maritime environment so that we can, with a single voice, communicate the intrinsic value that the maritime sector, in its widest sense, brings to our national economic and security interests.
In an interconnected world of shared vulnerabilities and shared opportunities, there is an important international dimension to all this as well.
The author Parag Khanna offers a welcome perspective. When governments, businesses and NGOs work together - not just at a national level but at an international level - real progress can be made. For the networked world has the potential to truly galvanise dot.gov, dot.com and dot.org into generating more dynamic and innovative responses in our increasingly uncertain world.
I would proffer that if we are not to be consumed by our networked world then - as a maritime sector, as a maritime community - we must respond in a more networked way. We need to ‘join the dots’.
So, three opportunities. Embracing Defence Reform will help Defence deliver the SDSR outcomes. Embracing the Future Navy Vision will enable the Royal Navy to serve at the heart of an “Adaptable Britain”. Embracing the stirring national maritime consciousness, will strengthen our maritime nation’s global ambitions.
Conclusion
To conclude. Amidst a future security environment characterised by more uncertainty and less predictability than we would wish, with sources of potential conflict increasing and threats more diverse, never has there been a more compelling need for us to consider how the Royal Navy, the maritime community, will serve at the heart of the “Adaptable Britain” posture enshrined in the SDSR - and thereby serve the interests of this nation.
Never has there been a more compelling need for us, as a wider maritime community, to understand and communicate our environment in a way that recognises ‘security at sea’ as being synonymous with ‘security on our streets’.
Never has there been a more compelling need for us to awaken our national maritime consciousness. For just as strong economies make strong maritime communities possible, so strong maritime communities make strong economies probable.
Thank you.