Agence France-Presse, Britain’s Royal Navy would struggle to fight a major war because of years of under-funding and cut-backs, according to a defense ministry study leaked to the Sunday Telegraph.
The weekly newspaper said the report was ordered by Defence Secretary Des Browne to counter claims from opposition political parties and the media about a lack of resources in Britain’s military.
But the study concluded: “The current material state of the fleet is not good: the Royal Navy would be challenged to mount a medium-scale operation in accordance with current policy against a technologically capable adversary.”
A “medium-scale operation” is similar to Britain’s naval involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the newspaper said.
The document comes at a time of concern about the capabilities of Britain’s armed forces due to a perceived lack of adequate funding for equipment and so-called “overstretch” because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Five of the country’s former top military commanders last month criticized Prime Minister Gordon Brown for failing to fund adequately the armed forces during his 10 years as finance minister under Tony Blair.
The 14-page document, prepared by the assistant chief of the naval staff Rear Adm. Alan Massey, who commanded the aircraft carrier Ark Royal during the Iraq war, says the fleet is ageing and thinly-stretched.
Anti-submarine capability is below a “prudent minimum level”, the Royal Marines’ ability to conduct amphibious operations is being “eroded” while too many ships are being put to sea with “operational defects”, it added.
The report said that numbers in the fleet had been significantly reduced in the last 20 years: for example, in 1987, 35 ships patrolled British waters, but only 10 do so in 2007.
On a positive note, the report welcomed Britain’s future aircraft carrier program as giving the country “considerable global political military leverage” and said the navy’s modern ships are capable and cost-effective.
The Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on leaked documents.
