Is the U.K. Royal Navy freaking out that it might have to fight the Russians without the U.S. Navy by its side, or is it just manipulating public opinion to get a bigger budget?
First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins issued a “stark warning” on Monday, Dec. 8, that Britain must “step up” or risk losing its strategic advantage in the Atlantic unless it significantly bolsters its defense capabilities. Speaking at the International Sea Power conference in London on Dec. 8, Jenkins revealed a “30% increase in Russian incursion in our waters” over the past two years alone. While spy ships such as the Yantar are visibly operating near U.K. waters, he stressed his primary concern lies in “what’s going on under the waves.”
“I can also tell you today that the advantage that we have enjoyed in the Atlantic since the end of the Second World War is at risk,” he said, reported The Independent. “We are holding on, but not by much. There is no room for complacency. Our would-be opponents are investing billions. We have to step up, or we will lose that advantage.”
Separately, the former director of nuclear policy at the Ministry of Defense, retired Rear Admiral Philip Mathias said the U.K.’s “silent service” was facing an “unprecedented” situation from which it was highly unlikely to recover without radical intervention, reported The Telegraph. He said delays in building new attack boats had reached record levels, while the duration of patrols for crews in nuclear-armed submarines had been driven up from 70 days during the Cold War to more than 200 days now. This had led to a “shockingly low availability” of submarines to “counter the Russian threat in the North Atlantic,” the retired submarine commander warned.
