Going back to the Point Class we find that they are owned by Foreland Shipping, managed by AWShipping Management and leased to the MoD, and they sail under a UK flag. The Point Class aren’t, as the grey-hulled Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels are, being assigned to carry out increasingly warship-like tasks, but they are suffering many of the same age-related fragilities and overstretch as the RFA. Courtesy of their green and white hulls they are even less well known among the UK public, if that’s possible.
These ships are on the go year-round, supplying and supporting our overseas bases such as the Falklands (every six weeks), Gibraltar, Diego Garcia and Bahrain. They have been used in major overseas exercises such as Saif Sareea (Oman 2018) and the Cougar series from 2011 to 2018 and were also used ‘for real’ during events like Op Pitting, the evacuation from Afghanistan.
So they are important strategic assets and, safe to say, occasionally carry cargoes of interest. All of which begs the question, why is one of these operating anywhere near Yemen without protection? I’ve written any number of times that you can’t compare the risk of operating an aircraft carrier there to, say, the sinking of the Moskva in the Black Sea. The latter only happened because Russia was stupid enough to send a High Value Unit (HVU) inside a known threat envelope without layered defence in place.
Oh, wait …
Meanwhile, USS Eisenhower is returning home after eight long months providing leadership and striking power. Her replacement, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, won’t be there for weeks if not months. Houthi missile forces can operate with near-impunity in the meantime. The US Navy really is an eleven-carrier navy in a fifteen-carrier world.
Of course, not to throw too many stones, neither of the British carriers are there either and HMS Diamond, our Type 45 destroyer which has been operating in the area – an ideal ship to cover Anvil Point – is heading home, also after a successful combat tour in the Red Sea. Her replacement, HMS Duncan is also not there yet. Three other British destroyers are in maintenance. Our forward-deployed frigate is alongside in Bahrain. And so on.
As well as disrupting international shipping for its own sake, other Houthi desired end-states include improving their regional standing and stretching coalition resources. This last one is what we are now seeing and the reason Anvil Point is operating without any escort cover.
Zoom out further and we can see that almost everything except people comes to and goes from this nation on or under the sea: whether it’s goods, energy or information. Often the sea in question is not near UK shores – much of our trade moves through chokepoints like the Bab-el-Mandeb, just off the Houthi-controlled Yemeni coast. Our ability to control the sea and protect our vital arteries is terribly, terribly weak.
Normally I would say, “and this before the shooting even starts” but now, of course, it has. I’m not only talking about building more warships here, nice though that would be: I mean the whole thing, from shipbuilding infrastructure to maritime education to recruiting to maintaining a list of ‘ready reserve’ mariners who could be called up in the event of war. The Integrated Review and the National Ship building Strategy have elements of this in them, but both now need to be resourced and accelerated.
Rob Johnson, who recently stepped down as director of the MoD’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenges summed it up thus: “The UK has reached a situation where it cannot defend the British homelands properly.”
Meanwhile the present Foreign Secretary, whose decisions as Prime Minister from 2010 onwards had much to do with us being in our current unfortunate position, is now lecturing other nations on strengthening their defences. The chutzpah is breathtaking.
One hopes that the draft agenda for the day after the election has “Maritime Security” somewhere near the top. Rubber boats will be there but the conversation needs to go much, much further. The cost of doing this cannot be ignored but should be discussed alongside the cost of not doing it, which is potentially a much, much bigger figure. History tells us what that looks like and it reveals plans like “increasing defence expenditure by half a per cent when conditions allow” as short-sighted. This is where we are now.
And in the meantime free goods, such as not letting our adversaries constantly steal the narrative, should be addressed. While I was writing this, a colleague at the excellent Navy Lookout website kindly called AWShipping management. They have confirmed that Anvil Point is just fine. It took him two minutes. A statement saying “Anvil Point has not been struck by Houthis” would take another one minute.
Why is this so hard?
Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer and warship captain. He also served as the RN’s top press officer in the MoD, and today works in strategic communications