America Might Spend Big Time to Deter China in South China Sea and over Taiwan Proposed legislation would fund a “permanent and persistent land-based integrated air and missile defense and associated weapons delivery system on Guam.” by Kris Osborn

What kind of impact would land-based air defenses, increased intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) operations and more bomber patrols have upon U.S. deterrence efforts in the Pacific theater? Is this question taking on additional relevance and urgency in light of Chinese maneuvers near Taiwan and the South China Sea?

The impact of adding these systems would be both substantial and helpful, according to members of Congress now proposing as much as $6 billion in additional funds for a so-described “Indo Pacific  Deterrence Initiative.” The proposed legislation would fund a “permanent and persistent land-based integrated air and missile defense and associated weapons delivery system on Guam.”

A group of lawmakers, led by House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), are requesting this massive plus up in funding for the Pacific, which also includes increased funding for undersea warfare. Such a proposal for the 2021 budget, while first announced in April of this year, seems to take on even more relevance in light of current Chinese maneuvers near Taiwan and the South China Sea. While the proposed legislation of course does not advocate any kind of provocation or military action, it does call for increased U.S.-allied training exercises and specifically cites a need to deter Chinese hostility. The apparent aim of the initiative, it seems clear, would be to increase peace and stability in the region by virtue of increasing a U.S. footprint in the region.

“These are not all new programs but by pulling them together under one policy we will be better able to judge our own commitment here at home, demonstrate our resolve to our allies and partners, and deter China,” Thornberry said in a “discussion draft” statement on the proposal earlier this year.

The request, which has the backing of more than fifteen members of Congress from both parties, also calls for additional missile defense radar in Hawaii and the placement of Long-Range Precision Fires systems throughout the region.

There are several pertinent and timely nuances to consider along with some of these questions. The proposal would fortify existing strategic movements already underway in the region. The United States already operates B-2, B-52 and B-1B bomber patrols from Guam, bases several maritime-specific Triton drones on the U.S. territory and often conducts joint-training maneuvers with allies in the Pacific area. Many of the missions, which include both ISR missions and peacekeeping freedom of navigation patrols, are of course aimed at sending a message of deterrence and stability to China. China has moved more surface and air assets throughout the region. It has sent carriers toward the South China Sea and conducted aircraft patrols near Taiwan. Taiwan has expressed growing concern, according to many news reports.

Strategic thinking along the lines of this proposal seems already underway in some respects, given that the U.S. Navy has been conducting coordinated, dual-aircraft carrier attack training operations and increased Poseidon sub-hunting patrols in and around the South China Sea. Aerial surveillance and submarine missions of course take on additional strategic significance in coastal areas around the islands in the South China Sea, given that the shallow waters make it difficult for deeper-draft Navy ships to operate. 

China’s current increases in activities, viewed by U.S. leaders as provocative, have increased in the region following the escalation of Coronavirus-related tensions between the United States and China. China’s massive and ambitious military modernization campaign, which is now pursuing new indigenous carriers, fifth-generation fighters and more amphibious assault ships, has of course captured the attention of U.S. lawmakers and military leaders. Many U.S. military leaders are also expressing concern about China’s overt, and rather transparent effort, to assert itself as an international power exerting influence throughout the globe.

At the same time, the U.S.-China relationship is not without complexities and additional, impactful dynamics; the two countries engage in substantial economic activities between businesses and have, at several points in recent years, even conducted friendly “port visits.” So, there are some areas of potential cooperation, however, such ties are increasingly strained at the moment, for obvious reasons, and lawmakers requesting additional military support for the region seem to see the possibility as a stability “enhancing” effort to deter Chinese hostility and provocations in the Pacific. 

Some of the many additional Congressional supporters of the proposal include Rep. Micheal Waltz, (R-Fla), Rep. Ed Case, (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Michael Turner, (R-Ohio). 

Study This Picture: It Might Be a Preview of What A 6th Generation Fighter Looks Like As is the case with the X-32, the YF-23 never faced the most dramatic problems to afflict the F-22 Raptor. by Robert Farley

The F-23 included some characteristics that may eventually find themselves in a sixth generation fighter, or perhaps in the Air Force’s “deep interceptor” intended to support B-21 Raiders on the way to their targets. For example, the V-tail aspect has been mentioned in some of the early conceptualization for a next generation fighter. And Boeing will undoubtedly hearken back to its experience with the F-23 when thinking about its next fighter.

The Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition, staged at the end of the Cold War, yielded a pair of remarkable fighter designs. The United States would eventually select the F-22 Raptor, widely acknowledged as the most capable air superiority aircraft of the early twenty-first century. The loser, the YF-23, now graces museums in Torrance, California and Dayton, Ohio.

How did the Pentagon decide on the F-22, and what impact did that decision have? We will never know, but going with the F-22 Raptor may have saved the Pentagon some major headaches.

ATF Competition:

The origins of the ATF competition came in the early 1980s, when it became apparent that the Soviets were planning to field fighters (the MiG-29 and the Su-27) capable of competing effectively with the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) F-15/F-16 “high-low” mix. The ATF would allow the US to re-establish its advantages, potentially on grounds (notably stealth) where the Soviets would struggle to compete.

To great degree, the success of either of the ATF competitors was overdetermined. The Soviet Union disappeared during the course of the competition, and the major European aerospace powers largely declined to compete on the same terrain (stealth, supercruise, and eventually sensor fusion). Either the F-22 or the F-23 would become the finest fighter of the early 21st century; the only question was which aircraft would win the investment of DoD. And each plane had its advantages. The YF-23 enjoyed superior supercruise, and in some accounts better stealth performance, over the F-22. The F-22 offered a somewhat simpler, less risky design, along with an extraordinary degree of agility that made it an awesome dogfighter.

The Choice:

As Dave Majumdar pointed out a year ago, political and bureaucratic factors contributed to the selection of the F-22. Fed up with Northrop and (the still independent) McDonnell Douglas in the wake of the B-2 and A-12 projects, the Pentagon preferred Lockheed. The US Navy disliked the F-23 for idiosyncratic reasons, and hoped it would get a crack at a heavily modified F-22. For its part, the Air Force preferred the gaudy maneuverability of the F-22, which gave it an advantage in nearly every potential combat situation. In a sense, the F-22 (and to some extent its Russian competitor, the PAK-FA) represent the ultimate expression of the jet-age air superiority fighter. They can challenge and defeat opponents in every potential aspect of a fight, while also having stealth characteristics that allow them to engage (or refuse an engagement) under highly advantageous circumstances.

Had the ATF competition not taken place coincident with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the YF-23 might have stood a chance for resurrection. Some of its characteristics were sufficiently advanced that they could have drawn further attention and investment. Moreover, building the F-23 alongside the F-22 could have been justified on grounds of maintaining the health of the US defense industrial base; as it was, the selection of the Lockheed aircraft undoubtedly contributed to the decision to consolidate Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

Raptor Problems:

As is the case with the X-32, the YF-23 never faced the most dramatic problems to afflict the F-22 Raptor. It never experienced cost overruns, technology failures, software snafus, or pilot-killing respiratory issues. Those problems, which regularly afflict new defense projects (in fairness, the pilot suffocation is largely idiosyncratic to the Raptor) were consequential. In context of the broader demands of the War on Terror, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates curtailed the F-22 production run at 187 operational aircraft, just as the fighter was working through its teething troubles. Although understandable at the time, this left the USAF with a fighter deficit that only the F-35 could fill.

Had the YF-23 enjoyed a smoother development path (a huge “if”), the fighter might not have faced such a hostile environment as it entered service. But given that the YF-23 was generally perceived to be the more innovative (and therefore riskier) design, and that it had a slightly higher price tag, the chances that it could have sailed through without a hitch are correspondingly low. And trouble with design and production might have left the USAF with even fewer operational fighters.

Parting Thoughts:

The F-23 included some characteristics that may eventually find themselves in a sixth generation fighter, or perhaps in the Air Force’s “deep interceptor” intended to support B-21 Raiders on the way to their targets. For example, the V-tail aspect has been mentioned in some of the early conceptualization for a next generation fighter. And Boeing will undoubtedly hearken back to its experience with the F-23 when thinking about its next fighter.

For years, one of the two YF-23 prototypes sat in the Hangar of Unwanted Planes (more formally known as the Research and Development Hangar) at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The YF-23 was positioned right under the last remaining XB-70 Valkyrie, the centerpiece of the museum’s collection. Both aircraft have now moved to the newly opened fourth building of the museum, where they continue to represent alternative visions of the (past) future of the Air Force, visions deeply grounded in the industrial and organizational realities of American airpower.

How Cities Created the Perfect Breeding Ground for Coronavirus It is the political ecology of extended urbanization that created the conditions under which COVID-19 could emerge, proliferate and go global. by Roger Keil, Maria Kaika, Tait Mandler and Yannis Tzaninis

COVID-19 brought the relation between humans and animals to the core of social and scientific debates. COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease: the coronavirus that causes it crossed species boundaries from animals to humans. A wet market in Wuhan may be the place where that original species-jump happened.

There is mounting evidence that humans now transmit COVID-19 back to other animal species: domesticated dogs and cats, but also tigers in captivity and possibly apes. As an April 2020 article in the Los Angeles Times notes, diseases like COVID-19 “are an expected consequence of how we’re choosing to treat animals and their habitats.”

Wildlife trade, deforestation, land conversion, industrial animal farming and burning fossil fuels are contributing to the increasing frequency of novel zoonotic diseases.

Urbanization is both a driver of zoonosis and a determining influence on human-nature and human-animal relationships.

Urban political ecology considers urbanization as a political, economic, social and ecological process. It is a field of study that investigates the relationships that physically sustain urban life and the processes that affect them.

The reach of urbanization

Urbanization is a process that involves extending the city as much as it involves the concentration of activities and movements of people and stuff. Traditionally, the urban periphery is described as either polished middle-class suburbia with perfectly manicured lawns or invisible dumping ground: polluting factories, nuclear plants, garbage dumps and recycling facilities as well as retirement homes.

Today, however, the ever-extending size and importance of the urban periphery takes a variety of forms: informal settlements, gated communities, tower estates, peri-urban villages, classical suburbs, warehouse districts, aerotropolises (areas surrounding an airport) as well as recreational and infrastructural spaces.

Remnants of industrialism — such as abandoned mines, decommissioned factories and outdated agricultural production facilities — are being reclaimed as suburban space. These old and new developments often rely on infringements of ancient land rights.

Driving urbanization

Extended urbanization happens within a capitalist framework of massive inequality. The food, gas, electricity and water that make urban life possible are often packaged, piped, cabled and plumbed into the city. Urban lifestyles are sustained by vast networks of infrastructure and industry that reach into environments well beyond.

These relationships are profoundly shaped by the exploitation, injustice and oppression that capitalism relies on and perpetuates. The colonial character of urbanization violently transforms material landscapes and destroys, diminishes and confines imaginaries of difference, resistance and possibility.

Uneven development produces the potential for inevitable and sometimes unpredictable catastrophes. In 2019, natural disasters devastated regions from Australia to California to Mozambique; the poor, working class, Indigenous and ethnic minorities were disproportionately affected. In other words, those on the periphery, physically and metaphorically.

In California, prison labour — increasingly managed by private companies — is used to fight wildfires. Meanwhile, animals and other non-human life trying to escape scorched landscapes change their relationships with humans as was the case during the Australian inferno that began in September 2019.

Anthropocentric imaginings

Science fiction, which often occupies its own kind of literary periphery, can help us examine and imagine new human-nature relationships.

In Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar, humanity attempts to escape nature — and its own nature — by becoming a God-like, post-human divinity that can control black holes and wormholes. In contrast, in Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, sustainability and food efficiency are achieved in a post-capitalist manner: the globe is covered in solar panels and synthetic farms. What remains is a deeply divided planet, and the political ecologies of extended urbanization are classed, racialized and gendered.

The ambiguous worlds of Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Andrea Hairston’s Mindscape and Samuel Delany’s Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia, to name a few, are reminders that humans, nature, technology, environments and the relationships between are them are malleable.

Complicit systems

The way in which capitalist states and enterprises address crises like fires, floods and the COVID-19 pandemic are illustrative: governments behave like ostriches by burying their heads as extended urbanization and capital expansion continue unabated.

Blaming environmental destruction on all of humanity obscures the variable degrees to which people are responsible; this depends both on their economic and political power and their access to and use of natural resources.

It isn’t urbanization alone that caused the pandemic, and it isn’t capitalism alone either. It is the political ecology of extended urbanization that created the conditions under which COVID-19 could emerge, proliferate and go global.

Armies Of Tomorrow: By 2030, These Will Be The World's Best Ground Forces Like its American counterpart, the ground force of the PLA must share the financial pie with a pair of voracious partners. by Robert Farley

 In the end, the answers to “how do we build a powerful army” remain painfully simple. States that have access to enthusiastic populations with high human capital, that can cull the most innovative technologies from robust, modern economies, and that can structure their civil-military relations with just-enough-but-not-too-much independence will tend to do very well.

The focus of ground combat operations has shifted dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Relatively few operations now involve the defeat of a technologically and doctrinally similar force, leading to the conquest or liberation of territory. Preparation for these operations remains important, but ground combat branches also have a host of other priorities, some (including counter-insurgency and policing) harkening back to the origins of the modern military organization.

What will the balance of ground combat power look like in 2030, presumably after the Wars on Terror and the Wars of Russian Reconsolidation (more to come on this idea below) shake out?

Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but a few relatively simple questions can help illuminate our analysis. In particular, three questions motivate this study:

• Does the army have access to national resources, including an innovative technological base?

• Does the army have sufficient support from political authorities, without compromising the organization’s independence?

• Does the army have access to experiential learning; does it have the opportunity to learn and innovate in real-world conditions?

Given these questions, most ground combat forces of 2030 will very much resemble the most lethal forces of today, with perhaps a couple of important changes.

India

The Indian Army is poised to stand alongside the world’s most elite ground combat forces. The Army has dealt with combat operations across the intensity spectrum, contending against a Maoist insurgency at home, a Pakistani-supported insurgency in Kashmir, and a variety of other, smaller domestic operations. At the same time, the Indian Army remains well-prepared for high intensity combat against Pakistan, having long accepted the need for realistic combat training. Altogether, these experiences have helped hone the force into an effective tool for New Delhi’s foreign and domestic policy.

While Indian Army equipment has lagged behind competitors in important ways, India now has access to nearly the entire universe of military technology. Russia, Europe, Israel, and the United States all sell their wares to India, complementing a growing domestic military industrial complex. Despite the need to compete with the air and naval services, the Indian Army should have greater access to advanced technology in the future than it has in the past, making it an ever more formidable force.

France

Of all the European countries, France will likely

retain the most capable, lethal army in the future. France remains committed to the idea of playing a major role in world politics, and clearly believes in the necessity of effective ground forces to fulfill that role. This should continue into the future, and perhaps even accelerate as France takes on greater control of the military and security apparatus of the European Union.

France’s military industrial complex remains robust, both on the domestic and the export fronts. The Army has modern command and communications equipment, and provides the backbone for most multilateral European Union forces. It also enjoys access to excellent field equipment, including tanks and artillery. The commitment of the French government to maintaining a strong domestic arms industry works in the Army’s favor.

The French Army has considerable experience with operations from the low to medium arcs of the combat spectrum. It has served in the Afghan and North African theaters of the Wars on Terror, using regular and elite forces to support locals and defeat enemy irregulars. The Army also enjoys the support of the two other French services; the Marine Nationale has creditable expeditionary capabilities, and the Air Force has increasingly focused on support operations, including battlefield strike, transport, and reconnaissance. The modular, professional nature of the Army makes it easily deployable across a wide range of territory.

Russia

The Russian Army went through a wrenching transformation at the end of the Cold War, losing much of its access to resources, to political clout, and to manpower. The military-industrial complex that had supported the Red Army collapsed in slow motion, leaving the force with outdated and poorly-maintained equipment. Morale dropped, and the Army struggled in combat against irregulars in Chechnya and elsewhere.

Not everything has turned, but some things have. Improvements in the Russian economy allowed for more investment in the force. Reform, especially in the elite forces, helped Russia win the war in Chechnya. In 2008, the Russian Army quickly defeated Georgia, and in 2014 it spearheaded the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. Together, we might call these the Wars of Russian Reconsolidation, a conflict that may not yet have ended. The Russian Army continues to play the central role in Moscow’s management of the near abroad, even as it has ceded some space to naval and air forces over the past couple of years.

The Russian Army will remain a lethal force in 2030, but nevertheless will have serious problems. Access to technology could become a greater problem in the future. The death throes of the Soviet military-industrial complex have finally played out, leaving a system of innovation and production that has struggled on both sides of the coin. Manpower may also prove problematic, as the Army seems stuck between the old conscription model (supported by a dwindling population), and the volunteer system that makes elite forces so special. Still, Russia’s neighbors will continue to fear the size and prowess of the Russian Army (especially in so-called “hybrid” operations) for a long time.

United States

The United States Army has represented the gold standard for a ground combat force since at least 1991. The defeat of the Iraqi Army in 1991, and the consummate destruction of the same in 2003, remain the most impressive feats of ground combat since the end of the Cold War. Over the last fifteen years, the Army has continued field operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; special operators have gone much farther afield.

The US Army continues to have access to a formidable system of military innovation. It shares the pie with the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, but notwithstanding sluggish growth in the last decade, the pie remains very large. While some of the equipment used by the US Army still dates to the Cold War, almost all such material has undergone a series of upgrades to bring it up to the standards of modern, networked warfare. The Army has the world’s largest array of reconnaissance drones, connecting forward observation with lethal, accurate fires.

Moreover, the Army has fifteen years of combat experience in the Wars on Terror; the longest period of consistent combat operations since at least the Indian Wars. To be sure, this experience holds dangers, not least of organizational exhaustion. This is particularly concerning given the apparently endless nature of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the US Army should remain the most powerful ground combat force in the world in 2030, and not by a small margin.

China

Since at least the early 1990s, the People’s Liberation Army has engaged in a thorough-going reform of its ground forces. For decades, elements of the PLA acted as the guarantors of specific political factions within the Chinese Communist Party. As reforms took hold, the PLA became a commercial organization as much as a military one, taking control of a wide variety of small enterprises.

This situation began to turn as the Chinese economy erupted in the 1990s and 2000s. With access to funding and an increasingly innovative technology sector, the ground element of the PLA began to slim down and reform itself, becoming a modern military organization.

Like its American counterpart, the ground force of the PLA must share the financial pie with a pair of voracious partners. The era in which China focused on ground power at the expense of sea and air power has decisively ended. Also, the PLA can never detach itself fully from the factional struggles within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); the two are too closely intertwined for anything approaching Western style civil-military relations to take hold.

Reform has included massive equipment modernization projects, realistic training, and steps toward the professionalization of the force. While the PLA does not enjoy the same level of funding as the US Army, it does have access to nearly unlimited manpower, and it controls greater resources than almost any other army in the world. The one thing the PLA lacks is real-world experience; it has not conducted live combat operations since the Sino-Vietnamese War, and has played no role in the major conflicts of this century. Still, there is no reason to believe that existing trends in PLA modernization and reform will change direction in the next fifteen years.

Concluding Thoughts

In the end, the answers to “how do we build a powerful army” remain painfully simple. States that have access to enthusiastic populations with high human capital, that can cull the most innovative technologies from robust, modern economies, and that can structure their civil-military relations with just-enough-but-not-too-much independence will tend to do very well. Experience doesn’t hurt, either. The simplicity of the answers does not imply that the prescriptions are easy to achieve, however.

India's Violation Of Nepalese Sovereignty Is A Gift To China Bad move, New Delhi. by Anil Sigdel

Nepal, as a small neighbor mostly surrounded by India, and with Tibetan region in the north, has been living under Indian heavy-handedness for a long time. Right now, however, there are strong voices in the country calling for the government to confront India head on. The nationalist commentators are in the mood of either kill or cure.

India changed the status quo of the disputed territory of Kalapani between Nepal and India without any consultations with Nepal. First, in 2019 November, India issued a new political map which included those territories. Nepal protested, but India officially responded by stating that the boundary is accurate and dismissed Nepal’s plea to sit for talks. Then, in May 2020, India suddenly inaugurated a new road section through the areas to the Tibet border at Lipulekh Pass. Nepalese were agitated but nevertheless asked India to resolve the matter through talks. However, such pleas fell on deaf ears, which prompted Nepal to issue a new political map. Said new map goes further into “Indian territory,” which was not actively disputed, and has led the “special relation” to such a low that has further aggravated the stability in the region—especially at the time when Indian and Chinese soldiers are at a standoff along the Line of Control (LAC).

However, India, though a rising global power, has shown little maturity in terms of dealing with such simmering discontent in its sensitive neighborhood, which India itself has caused. First, India’s Chief of Army Staff General Naravane made an awkward statement insinuating that Nepal was acting upon Chinese behest, either in total ignorance of or blatant disregard for the history and previous exchanges between Nepal and India on the matter. Second, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has simply given statements supporting India’s unilateral act and seemed uninterested even in a call with the Nepalese government. This is not to mention that most Indian public narratives put the whole blame on Nepal prime minister KP Sharma Oli’s “nationalism” and “cynicism” by downplaying India’s own missteps of the past and Indian excesses in building infrastructure through lands that Nepal sees as its own sovereign territory.

India’s use of “nationalism” as an argument is puzzling because India blames Chinese nationalism for its own excesses at the LAC along the India-China border. And when Nepal protests India’s excesses on its border, India puts the blame on Nepal’s nationalism, arguing in either cases that India is the righteous actor. India’s intransigence to not go beyond its cliché arguments that Nepal has more benefits in the bilateral ties and India inflating Nepali leaders’ nationalism for India’s domestic consumption as well as to increasingly push Nepal into China’s fold—and this time India has gone very far in this, just has Nepal in its strong reaction. In the name of special relations and cultural ties, India has crossed the limits of international law and norm, therefore, such a reaction by Nepal was inevitable. Therefore, the United States should nudge both countries to come to a peaceful and correct solution. As far as India’s neuralgia in external mediation for its border issues is concerned, this is neither India-China nor India-Pakistan conflict—Nepal is India’s “special neighbor.”

Two Aircraft Carriers Are Central To The Royal Navy's New Maritime Strategy HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the two new carriers, is scheduled to deploy for the first time in 2021. by David Axe

 

If the reorganization succeeds, the Royal Navy will evolve from a thinly but widely spread force to one that deploys to fewer places at a time, but does so in greater concentration. The Royal Navy would become what Tony Radakin, the new first sea lord, called “a proper, carrier task group navy.”

Amid great uncertainty, the Royal Navy is about to begin its most radical reorganization in many years. With two new aircraft carriers slated to begin deploying in two years’ time, the U.K. fleet must figure out how to deploy, as a cohesive force, large numbers of warships comprising a carrier strike group.

Contrast this with the fleet’s current deployment model, which for the most part sends out single warships on solo patrols, each at their own pace.

If the reorganization succeeds, the Royal Navy will evolve from a thinly but widely spread force to one that deploys to fewer places at a time, but does so in greater concentration. The Royal Navy would become what Tony Radakin, the new first sea lord, called “a proper, carrier task group navy.”

“The whole pattern of the fleet will have to change so that a group of escort vessels and support ships are all brought to readiness together to deploy with the aircraft carriers,” the website Save the Royal Navy noted. “Changing the rhythm of deployments to this new model, while still retaining the flexibility for ships to operate independently, perhaps detaching to and from the carrier group, will be a complicated balancing act.”

The Royal Navy’s small size -- it possesses just 19 frigates and destroyers -- makes this balancing act even more complicated. A U.S. Navy carrier strike group typically deploys with one carrier, a cruiser functioning as air-defense commander plus three escorting destroyers, an attack submarines and a logistics ship. The destroyers and submarine can detach for solo patrols.

As only one-third of warship are available for operations at any given time, in the Royal Navy a single carrier strike group easily could account for more than half the deployable frigates and destroyers. 

“Limited escort numbers offer limited choices but the [Royal Navy] is moving towards a new manning model which may get more from the same number of hulls,” Save the Royal Navy explained.

HMS Montrose’s permanent deployment in Bahrain with her crew rotating about every four months is effectively a trial to see if this is workable. More forward-basing could be adopted with another vessel permanently based in Singapore as an option under consideration.

Crew rotation for ships on long deployments is also a possibility. There are great efficiencies to this system as it saves long transits to and from the U.K. and extends the time a ship can be deployed in a particular region. It may also help retention as sailors are away for shorter and more predictable periods.

But forward-basing and crew-swapping are risky.

On the downside, the crew that is about to fly out to replace the current ship’s company need to train and become a coherent unit on a near-identical ship in the U.K. which imposes limits on how that vessel may be deployed.

There is also a reduced sense of ownership and pride in being part of a particular ship’s crew if frequently rotated on an off. This system has, however, already proved workable for many years on the smaller minehunters but can it be made to work for much larger and more complex vessels?

Besides providing adequate and timely escorts for the carriers, the operation of the two largest ships ever built for the [Royal Navy] presents a steep learning curve and management challenge. Considerable progress has been made on the path towards full [carrier-enabled power-projection] but there is still much to discover and re-discover about operating fixed and rotary wing aircraft in a complex joint environment at sea.

In the next three years, the manning, logistical support and availability of the carriers will have to be defined more precisely while being balanced with the needs of the navy as a whole. The employment of the carriers will have an especially weighty political and strategic dimension that may demand careful handling by [the first sea lord].

HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the two new carriers, is scheduled to deploy for the first time in 2021. It will be a “very high profile, operational deployment,” according to Save the Royal Navy.