Welcome to The Signal, your monthly maritime newsletter, written and edited by William Freer.
Thoughts from your correspondent
August and September have been big months for the United Kingdom’s (UK) defence industry. Britain’s maritime efforts were under-invested throughout most of the 21st century: the ‘peace dividend’, the needs of the ‘War on Terror’, the lack of peer naval threats and the process of globalisation meant that the UK’s shipbuilding industry withered, and the Royal Navy shrank to breaking point. Tentative steps were made in the late 2010s and early 2020s to reinvigorate Britain’s maritime soul.
The national shipbuilding strategy and long-delayed programmes to recapitalise the Royal Navy’s old and overworked fleet may have come late in the day (dangerously close to too late in the day), but they are already showing signs of paying off.
First came success in the export of British designs. The Type 26 designs were exported to Canada and Australia, and the Type 31 design was exported to Indonesia and Poland. Combined, this will see 26 British-designed warships (though these designs have – in true naval procurement tradition – in many cases been altered to varying degrees) built in foreign shipyards. This will include the export of many British-built components and subsystems.
At the end of August, the good results on frigate exports turned into great results. Norway announced that it had selected the Type 26 for its £10 billion frigate programme. These five warships will be built in shipyards here in the UK; the first escorts (cruisers, destroyers and frigates) a British shipyard has built to a foreign order since Argentina ordered Type 42s in 1970 (unless this author has missed one somewhere) – a pretty damning 55-year hiatus! Even better news could be forthcoming, with both Sweden and Denmark rumoured to be interested in Type 31s being built for their navies in Britain.
To be clear, the Type 26 order is not without its issues. It will likely require the transfer of either the third or fourth Type 26 destined for the Royal Navy to be transferred to Norway at a time when the Royal Navy can ill afford delays to replacing the rapidly deteriorating Type 23 fleet. It will also likely lead to delays to the Type 83 programme, which is due to replace the Type 45 destroyers in the mid-2030s (depending on how much faster production can go now that the order book is fuller).
At the same time, on the other side of the world, HMS Prince of Wales hosted the Pacific Future Forum (PFF) to showcase British naval capabilities to Japan, and deepen bilateral relations. The details of the PFF cannot be explored here for the sake of brevity, but fear not – other Council on Geostrategy publications will soon be able to fill you in.
The key takeaway from recent events should be this: if Britain can get such dividends from these tentative steps towards remembering its maritime strategic culture, imagine what it could do if it applied itself with more vigour.
Tracking the deployments of the Royal Navy
Key movements:
Carrier Strike Group 2025 (CSG2025) has reassembled following visits to Japan and South Korea from HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Dauntless and HMS Richmond. The reassembled force conducted exercises with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, the United States (US) Navy and the South Korean Navy.
HMS Somerset continued the Royal Navy’s vital Towed Array Patrol Ship (TAPS) duty in a period which saw what appeared to be quite a busy surge of submarine-hunting activity.
In what was welcome evidence of Royal Navy nuclear submarine activity, an Astute class boat (presumably HMS Anson) was seen returning to Faslane after what was most likely ‘delousing’ duty (i.e., making sure no Russians are snooping for a Vanguard class ballistic missile submarine).
Maritime news from allies and adversaries
People’s Republic of China (PRC): At the military parade held in Beijing to celebrate the end of the Second World War, the PRC unveiled a host of new weapons. This included a number relevant to the maritime domain, including drones (airborne, surface and underwater) and a suite of new anti-ship missiles, including hypersonic and ballistic variants. The parade should serve as a wake-up call to free and open countries to rearm with greater urgency. For those hopeful Russia’s struggles from translating parade awe into battlefield effect will similarly plague the PRC, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) increasingly regular and sophisticated exercises should show this might not prove to be the case. But hey, they released some doves at the end, so I’m sure they are simply doing all this for their love of parades.
Russia: A surface drone struck a Ukrainian intelligence ship operating at the mouth of the Danube, proving that although the Russian Navy may be a slow learner, it is adapting to the requirements of the Black Sea campaign. The operation serves as a reminder that the drone threat (when sea state allows, vigilance is slack and appropriate defensive weapons are not present) will continue to present a growing danger.
United States: The US Navy has greatly increased its presence in the southern Caribbean. The deployments include several destroyers and amphibious warfare vessels in a bid to tackle drug cartel activity directly and to pressure Venezuela to contribute more to doing so too. Though drug busting is a role navies have played across the globe, this seems somewhat like overkill at a time when the US Navy should be focusing on the challenge of potential peer conflict with the PRC.
Japan: The Japanese Ministry of Defence announced a record new defence budget of almost £45 billion, with a heavy focus on procuring equipment to challenge growing PRC maritime capabilities. Given the crossover of capabilities in the maritime domain that are in demand, the UK and Japan will hopefully deepen their relationship with further defence industrial collaboration.
Naval technology news
The PLA Navy (PLAN) unveiled a suite of new Extra-Large Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles (XLUUVs) at the PRC’s military parade. Though similar in appearance to Russia’s ‘Poseidon’ system, the role the PLAN has in mind for these new XLUUVs remains to be seen. It is a reminder that not only is the PRC investing heavily in building up the mass of its ‘legacy’ platforms, such as the Type 055 cruiser and Type 052D destroyers, it is simultaneously investing heavily in innovative new systems.
The Royal Navy has been trialling new technologies over the course of the CSG2025 deployment. One area of particular interest has been the use of drones to conduct ship-to-ship logistics work. Drone-conducted logistics will significantly ease the burden on Royal Navy helicopters, freeing them up to focus on other roles. The lessons learnt from drone use in logistics will also help the Royal Navy adapt them to accelerate the development of drones to be used in support of ‘warfighting’ missions.
Oceanbird (a Swedish company which is a joint venture between Wallenius Lines and Alfa Laval) recently held the first demonstration of its new wing sail concept. The concept could see the return of sail-powered, or sail-assisted, shipping, reducing fuel costs and emissions (by up to 90%). Though not ideal for a ship’s radar cross-section, the wing sail could come in handy for reducing the costs of running naval auxiliaries in low-threat and peacetime conditions (as the sail can be lowered in high-threat environments). Plus, who doesn’t love the idea that a naval captain can once again give the order to ‘unfurl the sails’?
Who deserves a mention
Who else could it be but Adm. Sir Tony Radakin, former Chief of the Defence Staff? The admiral stepped down from the role at the start of September after what has been a remarkably eventful period since accepting the position in November 2021. Since then, a number of conflicts – including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the various conflicts in the Middle East – have broken out. During Radakin’s tenure, many events which previously would have been deemed extremely unlikely have been witnessed. Large-scale conventional conflict has returned, and new military technologies have been used at scale for the first time, including drones and ballistic missiles.
The geopolitics of 2025 are completely different to those of 2021. The last four years have seen the British state demand its armed forces prepare for this deteriorating landscape, yet it has been deeply reluctant to give them the resources they need to do so (given British performance going into most conflicts, this appears to be a depressingly familiar tradition).
Under great geopolitical and fiscal pressures, Radakin has been a steady hand at the tiller, carefully guiding the armed forces through a transition period away from the previous focus on the ‘War on Terror’ and back towards a focus on the demands of potential peer conflict. One can only hope this transition began soon enough and, more importantly, that the continuation of the transition is properly resourced and these early efforts accelerated.
For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?
– 1 Corinthians 14:8 (one of Adm. Sir Jackie Fisher’s favourite quotes)
A reading list on maritime matters
‘China’s military in 10 charts’ by Matthew P. Funalole and Brian Hart for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – because who doesn’t love a great set of data visualisations to help increase the sense of semi-existential defence industrial dread?
‘Dance of the Flamingos: Ukraine’s FP-5 heavy cruise missile’ by H I Sutton – a great overview of what we know so far about Ukraine’s new V-1 look-alike long-range weapon.
‘Lights out? Wargaming a Chinese blockade of Taiwan’ by Mark F. Cancian, Matthew F. Cancian and Eric Heginbotham – this impressive 165 page report outlines the challenges of responding to a potential Chinese blockade of Taiwan, as well as a general history of blockades. To cut a long story short, the word ‘convoy’ appears over 100 times (which should surprise nobody), so we had best all start thinking about how it is we should convoy not only military but also civilian logistics (I’m looking at you too, Euro-Atlantic countries).
William Freer is Research Fellow in National Security at the Council on Geostrategy.
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