Hooper Prize - Third Place: Falklands Analysed.
Third Place (Joint)
LH(EW) Lewis Batch, Northwood HQ
It is more than 40 years since the Falklands conflict. Evaluate the challenges the Royal Navy face if it was to engage in a non-UN/NATO supported conflict in the Southern hemisphere.
Context
On 05 April 1982 the aircraft carriers HMS HERMES, HMS INVINCIBLE and their escort vessels, sailed from Portsmouth for the South Atlantic as part of the UK governments response to the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. Then, as would apply now, the UK was not afforded protection under NATO's Article 5 'collective self-defence' (valid only for territories north of the Tropic of Cancer) and a solely British Military operation was initiated. Given the need to carry an invasion force over some 8,000 miles, the Royal Navy (RN) was to act as the main military apparatus in the transportation of the invasion force south: this was codenamed OPERATION CORPORATE.
Forty-one years later and Argentina has elected a new president in Javier Milie, who is keen to re-open questions over the future of the Falklands sovereignty. This, coupled with the RN's recovery from a period of austerity-driven defence cuts, provides comparisons which are eerily reminiscent of the state of the RN in 1982. It is therefore appropriate to discuss whether the RN in 2024 could replicate a similar response to that that was launched in 1982.
To make fair assessment, the following areas will be discussed: political appetite (and foreign policy), fleet size, technology, defence procurement, as well as the UK's relationship with her allies and the role of overseas bases.
Political Appetite
The UK government does and continues to demonstrate its desire to play a global role, meeting its commitment to international partners and defending peace and stability. This is evident from the UK's leading role in both the training and delivery of equipment to Ukraine since 2022; the commitment through OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN to ensure freedom of navigation through areas littoral to Yemen; notwithstanding swift responses to the 2021 Kabul Airlift, the evacuation of UK nationals from Sudan in 2023 and most recently, the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Importantly, it was the release of the 2021 Integrated Review and Defence Command Paper which reiterated the appetite for 'global Britain'. This manifested itself in a commitment to respond to both concurrent and new and emerging threats, focussing largely on the following methods: the need for a more forward based Navy, the ability to deploy one functioning aircraft carrier and investment in future technology, such a direct energy weapons and artificial intelligence.
In short, the UK has demonstrated it maintains the political will to remain a global power in protecting its interests at home and abroad. However, this has been conducted with ever stretching resources, most notably, fewer available capital ships and a creaking support structure.
Fleet Size
With it established that the UK has the political will power to react to a theoretical conflict in the southern hemisphere, the next area of discussion lays with the current RN footprint and whether there is appropriate number of capital ships, auxiliary ships and supply chain to support extended deployment at high readiness.
If we compare the current RN fleet with that of the task force sent in 1982, we can see numbers are significantly lower and this has continued to decrease in size.
The OPERATION CORPORATE task group comprised of 127 ships: 43 RN vessels, (2 aircraft carriers, 15 frigates, 6 destroyers, 2 LPD's and 6 submarines), 24 Sea Harrier and 22 Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). The 62 merchant vessels were British-registered vessels requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), otherwise known as 'Ships Taken Up From Trade' (STUFT).
In contrast, the current RN in its totality encompasses 66 vessels, drastically reducing to 21 when listing only capital ships:11 frigates, 6 destroyers, 2 aircraft carriers, 2 LPDs an...
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