Just a couple of days after his meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Sandringham, King Charles was snapped onboard the HMS Prince of Wales. Inviting him was a smart move by the navy’s leadership, fully aware that the hefty price tags attached to the aircraft carriers, including its sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth, are under intense scrutiny. These massive vessels, often labeled as excess luxuries, don’t quite fit the mold of today’s warfare needs. While defense authorities are hustling to find desperately needed weaponry for Ukraine, like basic ammunition, the Prince of Wales is being sent on a symbolic mission to southeast Asia.
These carriers are the priciest and biggest warships the Navy’s ever built, costing over £6 billion—far surpassing the original estimate of below £4 billion. A staggering £1 billion has already been spent on repairs and maintenance due to significant mechanical issues these ships have faced in their relatively short lifespan.
Shortly after he stepped down as Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen (now Lord) David Richards once told me that these carriers are “unaffordable, vulnerable metal cans.” He referred to them as “behemoths,” pointing out their susceptibilities, to the extent that last year, the Navy advised against deploying them to the Red Sea due to the threat from Houthi missiles.
Adding to the woes, there aren’t enough sailors to both crew the ships and protect the carriers. The fleet of F-35 fighters available is also far less than what these large ships were designed to accommodate. In a twist of irony, these costly vessels, meant to host expensive warplanes, are now poised to become a platform for drones—those which cost no more than a few thousand, or even just a few hundred pounds, yet have proven to be extremely effective in Ukraine.
For many years now, decisions about military equipment in Britain have largely been influenced by outdated warfare models, ignoring the clear shifts in military conflict dynamics. I once asked a senior official at the Ministry of Defence about the oversights they were making; his one-word response was “Cyber.” The delay in recognizing the threat of cyber warfare has been a frustration for intelligence agencies. Russian defense leaders, contrasting President Putin’s aggressive stance, have acknowledged their limitations against the West using conventional means, hence their strategy leaning heavily towards non-military tactics like cyber attacks, sabotage, and disruption of undersea cables.
Every year, the National Audit Office, along with the Commons public accounts committee, criticizes the Ministry of Defence for not learning from prior errors. UK taxpayers are shelling out over £5 billion for the army’s Ajax armored vehicle, which is now incredibly late by eight years, plagued with design flaws such as noises and vibrations making soldiers unwell. The army’s new communications system hasn’t been immune to setbacks either, nor has the navy’s nuclear-powered Astute submarines or the Type 45 destroyers.
Interestingly, Britain allocates more of its military budget to nuclear arms than any other nation, per research from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Annual spending on these nuclear weapons has more than doubled since 2012, as reported by the Defence Eye site. The Ministry of Defence has indicated uncertainties surrounding the expenses of Britain’s nuclear weapons program as a rationale for not disclosing its spending plans.
As of 2023, a £16.9 billion gap was highlighted in Britain’s defense equipment budget by the NAO. Yet for the second year running, the Ministry of Defence has not published an annual report on its equipment program’s status. Consequently, the NAO hasn’t been able to independently evaluate the government’s arms procurement strategies.
Earlier this year, the chairs of the Commons defense and public accounts committees reached out to express their “deep frustration” to the top MoD official. They cited the “unacceptable loss of transparency” which “severely undermines” their capacity to review approximately £300 billion earmarked for defense equipment in the coming decade.
Lord Richards, along with defense scholar Julian Lindley-French, penned a book titled The Retreat from Strategy, cautioning against indulging in nostalgia. They criticized British defense policy as “incoherent and purposeless.” Currently under government review are the final recommendations from George Robertson’s strategic defense review—a crucial evaluation to gauge if any lessons have been learned from past missteps. History repeatedly shows that it’s not the budget size allocated to the military that matters most, but rather how efficiently those funds are utilized. The ongoing waste needs a decisive end.
