For British air power, satire becomes reality

In a 2008 episode of the British satire show Bremner, Bird and Fortune, a fictional news reporter interviews the fictional Admiral Sir George Parr about the strange trajectory of the British Navy.

Talking about the British Navy’s real-life plan to build two new aircraft carriers, Admiral Parr struggled to explain why the constrained British defense budget should be spent on such big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, and what the new carriers would be used for.

"An aircraft carrier, as its name implies, carries aircraft," Parr said, "But at the moment we can afford to have the carrier or the aircraft but not both… I’m sure we’ll find a way around it."

Skip ahead to today, where British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced the results of his government’s "Strategic Defense and Security Review," which will immediately decommission the Royal Navy’s flagship carrier, the HMS Ark Royal, in anticipation of the two new carriers that are being built. But now, they won’t be ready until 2020, at the earliest, leaving only one carrier in operation until then.

As part of sweeping British defense cuts, Cameron’s government also announced the immediate withdrawal from service of the Nimrod MRA4 maritime reconnaissance jet fleet and the Harrier fighter jet fleet, the latter plane making up a large part of the carriers’ current armament.

Axing the Harrier and Ark Royal means that no planes will be able to fly from British aircraft carriers until 2019, according to the BBC’s analysis.

The new carriers must now await delivery of the American-made Joint Strike Fighter, which faces production delays and cost overruns that have raised concerns with allies that have ordered them. The Brits decided further that they no longer want the Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) version of the JSF, which is more complicated and more expensive to build, placing more of the development costs back on the shoulders of the U.S. taxpayer.

The decisions have caused significant angst inside the U.S. Air Force, both because the British are drastically reducing their naval strength for the next decade or so, and because cutting their airlift fleet could put more responsibility on the shoulders of the Americans, who are already compensating for British airlift shortfalls in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The question is, how can they operate as a credible ally and partner if they can’t project power very well," said Douglas Birkey, director of government relations at the Air Force Association, the industry group that represents the Air Force. "Considering their allies are also taking cuts, including the U.S., buffers from allies aren’t going to be there as much as they go along."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates made that point explicit during remarks last weekend in Brussels, in anticipation of the cuts.

"We must guard against the hollowing out of alliance military capability by spending reductions that cut too far into muscle. My worry is that the more our allies cut their capabilities, the more people will look to the United States," he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also in Brussels, said that the plan worries her.

"I think we do have to have an alliance where there is a commitment to the common defense. NATO has been the most successful alliance for defensive purposes in the history of the world I guess but it has to be maintained. Now, each country has to be able to make its appropriate contributions," she said.

With less ability to project power from the sea, the British defense decisions seem tailored to focus military strength on ground-based conflicts, or those that can be fought from bases on the ground.

"It tailors their operations to things that look a lot like Iraq and Afghanistan, which is fine as long as the future threat environment matches that paradigm," said Birkey. "But the only thing we know about the future is that it’s going to be unpredictable."

When asked whether the new aircraft carriers themselves might be even further delayed, Admiral Parr said it was "very likely indeed."

"But then, this is Britain," he said.