Think Defense has an interesting article about a proposed European Amphibious Ready Group pulling together several different nations to equal the capability found in one of our MEU's.
We sometimes forget exactly how powerful our Carrier Battle Group and Amphibious Ready Groups actually are.
We also forget how others lust after those capabilities.
Read the article here, but consider this. China, Russia, Europe and almost all of the rest of the world desire to equal what we do everyday.
This is one area where we lead. We can't afford to give that up.
Before one proposes joint naval forces perhaps it's worth asking what political structure is being served by this force? Then what military structure does it directly report to? Most importantly is what is the political and military objective of such a force?
ReplyDeleteThe article points out the force should be NATO led but should leave out various members since they don't politically agree. I submit many of the "approved" nations will not often agree.
Further I'd suggest this isn't in the UK's interest. The UK can't afford being tied supporting the rest of the EU when it can't afford to maintain a sufficient military today. More specifically the UK has significant foreign policy commitments outside the NATO operating area.
What happens when the RN needs to surge to the South Atlantic just when it's assigned to this force, or worse, coming off a long deployment?
If Europe wants to unify politically enough to justify real joint military forces great. It appears to me, however, that the political integration of Europe is not happening anytime soon and that the main naval players often have their own significant interests and that tying up forces in some standing joint force that has no real purpose is not in their national interests.
Europe couldn't be bothered, ever, to send enough troops and kit to Afghanistan even after invoking Article 5.
NATO currently has 2 standing naval forces and 2 standing mine warfare groups. I'm not sure these existing forces are worth the bother?