"Tough Choices For Small Navies" Topic

Interesting article here.

"The following is a guest post inspired by the questions in our Maritime Futures Project. For more information on the contributors, click here. Note: The opinions and views expressed in these posts are those of the authors alone and are presented in their personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of their parent institution U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, any other agency, or any other foreign government.

Any attempt to answer question #8 from the MFP faces a problem at a very beginning: If we focus on what should be but isn't, we eventually risk ending up with a dream fleet disconnected from reality. However, if we focus on what is possible, we risk to be stuck in real-life constraints, unable to conceptualize the next stages of naval development. Therefore, if there appears some fantasy within the my answer below, it means that the right balance is still ahead of me.

Today's Polish Navy is at the beginning of a modernization process, which assumes construction of conventional submarines, corvettes, patrol ships, mine-hunters, and ASW (anti-submarine warfare) helicopters among others. The dilemma the Navy faces is block obsolescence of most of its assets, which means setting priorities for modernization within the context of a national security strategy based on two pillars — defense of the country and commitment to alliances/cooperation in the field of broader international security…"
Full article here.
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Well, the UK has the 4th biggest military budget in the world but has very limited options – take away a very powerful submarine force and there really isn't enough left.

Minor navies? probably better off buying second hand from the US or Russia.

"probably better off buying second hand from the US or Russia."

maybe the latter, almost certainly not the former – if its second hand its probably shagged (ask the Aussies if they'd buy any more second hand US ships). Best bet would be to go for some of the current OPV/corvette/frigate designs coming out of Europe and the Far East.

Every country has the obligation to protect it citizens first. Without it's citizens, the government has no power. (Tax base + GNP = Power.) (Or MONEY if you prefer.)

By securing the integrety of it's borders, by default, that country DOES contribute to international security by denying their country as a transit point for illegal drugs, money laundrying, human trafficing, etc.

This said, smaller third world countries ARE making great strides in protecting it's littorial waters these days. There are a couple of African countries that are now operating Chineese small patrol craft (as well as other country's boats) and are starting to make a difference.

Sad part is that some of the countries that have proposed such measures are increasingly becoming deficient of practicing what they preasch! I offer as an example of the recent bust of a human trafficing ring in Europe this past week. For how many years has this weakness been allowed to occur before these second world countries took action to close the gap?

In these days of dwindling resources, and the concept of starting small seem to go together quite well; upgrade patrol and interdiction capabilities of the littorial navies. This course of action will get a bigger bang for the buck than investing into the ability to project power in an international emergency.

Just my personal take on the matter, nothing else.

The problem with buying from the US Navy is that Congress has not authorized the money to maintain equipment that is getting used a lot more than the maintenance budget had anticipated.

Lots of worn-out ships in the US fleet.

For small ships, I'd honestly look at the Danish fleet with their StanFlex modules. It's awfully expensive to build an entire ship that can do everything, but it's pretty cheap to build standardized modules that a ship can swap out as needed.

The problem is small players like Poland want it all.

They want:
1. Territorial defence
2. Power Projection
3. Play role in NATO/Allied deployments
4. Economic benefits derived from defence procurements including job creation and export opportunities.

There is also a complete lack of at least public acknowledgement that in a real shooting war against a large capable/semi-capable opponent (i.e. Russia) a couple of frigates and submarines will not ensure territorial integrity (just like it didn't in 1939).

The militaries also live in la-la land when it comes to economic factors (as do health systems). A lot of them won't accept that the countries they represent no longer have the money for acquiring or more importantly maintaining large military equipment.

Personally for Poland I think an OPV is the way to go:

1. Maintain territorial integrity – anti-drug, illegal fishing etc.

2. Built using commercial standards – hence easier to build locally as well as maintain.

3. Larger OPV are useful for international deployments (OPV = Offshore Patrol Vessel).

4. OPV = smaller crews due to lower systems requirements. Combine with cheaper maintenance (remember built to commercial specs) and you can maintain a useful number of hulls.

If it ever comes to a major shooting war with Russia, well then they're pooched either way.

The same could be applied to a lot of Navies in the world. Somewhere like Colombia has better utilisation from more numerous OPVs for drug and weapon smuggling interdiction than frigates.

Or Croatia – OPV's are a far better investment than current missile boats. Etc etc

Whilst Pax Americana rules, conventional war is no longer possible.

When half your economy isn't inside your own borders, you need to be able to send ships to where your economy IS.

Yep and OPV's are perfect for anti-piracy patrol and maintaining a presence.

And in the end being able to deploy a single corvette or frigate isn't exactly force projection.