Britain’s naval ‘influence capital’ – and how to spend it wisely
How the Royal Navy can leverage its international influence
Call it naval soft power, maritime prestige, or – more usefully for the City of London – maritime influence capital: an asset which sits on the United Kingdom’s (UK) balance sheet whether or not it appears in the Budget Red Book.
For a medium-sized economy with finite defence resources, such an asset matters. It explains why British designs still win frigate competitions against bigger economies, why North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies continue to send their ships to Devonport for a bruising few weeks of training, and why a 40-year-old campaign in the South Atlantic still shapes naval doctrine from Canberra to Oslo.
If the UK wants to turn defence into a durable export engine, it should treat this maritime influence capital as deliberately as it does its tax regime or financial services rulebook.
A navy whose story is larger than its order of battle
On paper, the Royal Navy is no longer the global behemoth of 1914 to 1945. In terms of tonnage and hull numbers, it sits firmly in the tier of serious but not dominant navies. Yet, its historic narrative – from the Battle of Trafalgar to the defence of North Atlantic convoys against German wolfpacks – still shapes how allies and adversaries alike perceive British seapower.
This narrative is not just a historical romance. It has left behind a deep doctrinal and institutional legacy: concepts of task group operations, carrier aviation, convoy protection and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) which other navies have studied, borrowed and sometimes copied outright for a century. The fact that the Royal Navy’s Type 26 ‘Global Combat Ship’ frigate has been adopted, in local variants, by Australia, Canada and now Norway – culminating in a £10 billion deal for five ships; the largest warship export in the UK’s history – is not just about steel price and radar fit. It is about confidence in a British way of operating at sea.
In other words, the Royal Navy still projects credibility disproportionate to its size. For investors and policymakers, this credibility is not a sentimental asset. It is a pricing power in export competitions, and a de-risking factor for partners buying into UK-designed platforms.
The Falklands: The last Western navy to fight a high-end war at sea
The second pillar of this influence is more recent, and far less comfortable: the Falklands War. It remains the only post-Second World War conflict in which a Western navy fought and sustained losses in a high-end maritime campaign against a capable air opponent – including up-to-date anti-ship missiles.
For all the trauma it inflicted, the 1982 campaign forced a generation of officers and engineers to learn in weeks what others have tried to recreate synthetically ever since: air-sea coordination under pressure, long-range logistics at the edge of one’s tether and layered air defence cobbled together from what was available. Analyses of the Falklands War’s lessons on air defence, missile vulnerability and operational art still circulate in professional military education across NATO and beyond.
The experience of the Falklands has had two quiet but important effects. First, it gave the Royal Navy a culture of operational realism. Warfighting is not an abstraction: ships can be hit, political guidance can be ambiguous, and the perfect solution rarely arrives on time. This mindset informs how British officers now design exercises, rules of engagement and survivability standards.
Second, the Falklands War gave foreign partners a sense that British advice is battle-tested. When Royal Navy officers talk about missile defence, damage control or operating under constrained rules of engagement, they do so with the authority of a service which has lived the downside risk. In a market where many navies are relearning the basics of high-end war at sea on paper, this lived memory is an exportable commodity.
FOST: A ‘finishing school’ for NATO fleets
The third, and perhaps most tangible, vector of British maritime influence is training. The organisation previously known as Flag Officer Sea Training – now Fleet Operational Standards and Training (FOST) – has, for decades, been the Royal Navy’s crucible of operational readiness. It is also increasingly becoming a finishing school for allied navies.
From its bases in Plymouth, Portsmouth and elsewhere, FOST provides intensive pre-deployment training and assurance for Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) units. However, its reach goes much further. Over the years, NATO and non-NATO navies have routinely sent their ships to subject themselves to the same demanding serials, with permanent Dutch and German staff embedded in the training teams, and regular participation from up to a dozen partnered navies at any one time.
Foreign crews do not keep coming back because the weather is pleasant. They come because the standards are high, holistic and unforgiving: involving fighting the ship, certainly, but also damage control, firefighting, information warfare, logistics and so on – the full spectrum of what a modern task group needs to survive first contact.
For the UK, this is soft power in its most concrete form. A frigate commander who has taken their ship through a FOST work-up will tend to think in Royal Navy patterns about safety margins, readiness thresholds, and what ‘fit to deploy’ truly means. Over time, this shapes procurement preferences, interoperability choices and, ultimately, platform selection.
Turning influence into contracts without cheapening it
None of this is an argument for complacency. Influence capital can be run down if it is over-promised and under-delivered. Britain still needs credible mass, timely recapitalisation and munitions which match rhetoric. But, used intelligently, this naval soft power can underpin a broader maritime export strategy.
The Type 26 shows what is possible when a combat-proven doctrinal heritage, a modern ASW design and long-term industrial partnerships come together. With eight ships for the Royal Navy and at least 26 variants now planned or under construction across Australia, Canada and Norway, the platform has become a de facto standard for high-end ASW among allied navies. Beyond hulls, the UK is well-placed to export ‘naval readiness as a service’. This encompasses FOST-style training, exercise design, digital twins and mission rehearsal tools which package the UK’s operational practice for allies investing in new fleets.
Looking ahead, concepts such as the emerging Atlantic Net – combining crewed ships, autonomous systems and private sector maritime services to sustain presence and logistics – can turn Britain’s doctrinal and training edge into modular solutions for allies and partners who want credible seapower without recreating the entire ecosystem from scratch. For the City of London, this is not just about defence companies. It is about long-term availability contracts, export credit, blended public-private funding for infrastructure, and the analytics underpinning modern naval maintenance and training.
The UK does not need to rebuild a Victorian-era Royal Navy. Instead, it possesses significant maritime influence capital in its dense, respected web of naval experiences and standards, which other like-minded free and open nations use. In this respect, discussion matters, which is why events such as the recent International Sea Power Conference are so important. They help to shape the future direction of policy – encouraging policymakers to treat this as a strategic asset and nurturing it so the Royal Navy’s reputation continues to outpace its tonnage.
Julien Lalanne de Saint-Quentin is Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy. Previously, he was an officer in the Marine Nationale for 27 years, commanding a number of warships. He has also served in both the British and French ministries of defence in strategy and policy roles.
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Brilliant analysis of how historical reputation translates into tangible strategic value. The FOST example particularly stood out becuase it shows how operational credibility becomes self-sustaining through training ecosystems. I've seen similar patterns in how tech platforms build developer trust, and its exactly the kind of compound effect thats hard to replicate once established.
There are aspects of the Royal Navy that the United States Navy would be well to emulate. Basic seamanship being one of them. British officers spend considerable more time mastering the art of conning a ship. (Just review the USS Truman's collision. Just the rambling thoughts of an old hermit. Hope I haven't upset anyone.)