I believe that Prof Dombrowski wanted his article to be a little provocative. Well, let me rise to the bait. While his argument that European navies should concentrate in their own backyard and cut the vanity deployments to the other side of the world has many supporters on both sides of the Atlantic, I feel it is short-sighted for a number of reasons. Let me set out just three.
First, what Prof Dombrowski suggests is, effectively, a spheres of influence argument. “You take here, we’ll look after there.” Such approaches rarely work for any length of time because of “national interests.” Let’s be frank. As the political turmoil of recent months has shown, countries cannot always rely on other countries to be the stalwart ally they hope them to be. Sometimes, sovereignty matters. Lord Palmerston’s line is often quoted, but it is applicable here: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies; our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Second, for all the current buzzwords such as “warfighting” and “lethality” armed forces, especially navies, do not have one single role. They may be required to fight, i.e. their military role, but they are also arms of the state supporting the state’s “national interests” mentioned above. If the Indo Pacific is the economic centre of gravity and the UK and other European countries have territorial, economic and cultural interests there, why would we ignore it? We want prosperity, there are friendships and partnerships to be built and strengthened – naval diplomacy is a thing and it works.
Third, if we do have to fight, threats are global and responses must be global, too. Russia is a Pacific nation. China is increasingly active in the Euro Atlantic. We talk about the indivisibility of theatres, and I think that is right. I’m reminded that one of the first major naval actions of the First World War, a conflict most people would think of as European in origin and military focus, was not on the seas around Europe but in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile. Do we really think a future conflict would be geographically constrained? We need to be familiar with potential operating environments.
There are many other points which could be made from treaty commitments, to burden sharing, to freedom of navigation operations, to capability development and integration, even to the retention of people, but I’ll leave those for others.
I believe that Prof Dombrowski wanted his article to be a little provocative. Well, let me rise to the bait. While his argument that European navies should concentrate in their own backyard and cut the vanity deployments to the other side of the world has many supporters on both sides of the Atlantic, I feel it is short-sighted for a number of reasons. Let me set out just three.
First, what Prof Dombrowski suggests is, effectively, a spheres of influence argument. “You take here, we’ll look after there.” Such approaches rarely work for any length of time because of “national interests.” Let’s be frank. As the political turmoil of recent months has shown, countries cannot always rely on other countries to be the stalwart ally they hope them to be. Sometimes, sovereignty matters. Lord Palmerston’s line is often quoted, but it is applicable here: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies; our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Second, for all the current buzzwords such as “warfighting” and “lethality” armed forces, especially navies, do not have one single role. They may be required to fight, i.e. their military role, but they are also arms of the state supporting the state’s “national interests” mentioned above. If the Indo Pacific is the economic centre of gravity and the UK and other European countries have territorial, economic and cultural interests there, why would we ignore it? We want prosperity, there are friendships and partnerships to be built and strengthened – naval diplomacy is a thing and it works.
Third, if we do have to fight, threats are global and responses must be global, too. Russia is a Pacific nation. China is increasingly active in the Euro Atlantic. We talk about the indivisibility of theatres, and I think that is right. I’m reminded that one of the first major naval actions of the First World War, a conflict most people would think of as European in origin and military focus, was not on the seas around Europe but in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile. Do we really think a future conflict would be geographically constrained? We need to be familiar with potential operating environments.
There are many other points which could be made from treaty commitments, to burden sharing, to freedom of navigation operations, to capability development and integration, even to the retention of people, but I’ll leave those for others.