UK leaves aircraft carrier nations club
In scrapping the HMS Ark Royal, the UK is giving up membership of a global club with just one remaining member – nations with top-of-the-range aircraft carriers, writes expert Dr Lee Willett.
Delivering air power from the sea with an aircraft carrier is a capability to which many nations aspire but which very few have managed to deploy to enduring, global effect, writes Dr Lee Willett, Head of the Maritime Studies Programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), for Channel 4 News.
Smaller European navies such as Italy and Spain have active and capable aircraft carriers, though without the ability to and experience of deploying regularly out of area.
Read more as the HMS Ark Royal returns to port for the last time
Medium-sized navies like Australia and Japan are building new ships which will enable them to project helicopter-based – and perhaps other forms of – air power from the sea, particularly on a regional basis but also globally on occasion.
Aspiring blue-water navies like China, India and Brazil are all hoping to build aircraft carriers embarking fast jets.
Both France and Russia have top-of-the-range aircraft carriers in principle, with the theoretical ability to deploy fast jets on large-deck carriers around the world. In practice, however, neither has managed in recent years to put their carriers to sea for any reasonable length of time.
Just two navies at top table
This leaves just two navies sitting at the top table of the carrier club. Embarking high-end fast jet capabilities deployed regularly and routinely around the world, these two navies are the United States Navy and the Royal Navy.
Take a look at a photo gallery of the HMS Ark Royal
The Royal Navy’s three Invincible-class carriers, HM Ships Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal have been deploying around the world since the last defence review, supporting combat operations in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as standing by to evacuate British nationals from the Lebanon and during the ash cloud crisis.
The United Kingdom is, through its decisions in the Strategic Defence and Security Review, volunteering unilaterally to suspend its membership of this exclusive, but also strategically critical, global club.