Trump wants a new armada. Can America still build one?
47:19 Share

The Telegraph. Instacart is on a mission to have you not leave the couch this basketball season.

Because between the pre-game rituals and the post-game interviews, it can be difficult to find time for everything else. So let Instacart take care of your game day snacks or weekly restocks and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Because we hear it's bad luck to be hungry on game day. So download the Instacart app today and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days excludes restaurants. Quince believes that quality products shouldn't be a luxury.

Whether it's a breathable 100% European linen shirt or effortless stretch cotton pants, all of their high-end, top-quality pieces are about half the cost of similar brands. Yes, really. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markup. Get the high-end goods you deserve at quince.com slash upgrade for free shipping and 365-day returns.

This extra money could be the impetus to reverse what has been a fairly steady decline in terms of ship numbers and ship capabilities in the US Navy over the last 30 years. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. The US will take over the Gaza Strip. We'll own it. Know that China is doing very poorly right now.

I just saw some reports coming out and I don't want that to happen to China. You're gambling with World War III. I was saved by God to make America great again. I'm Roland Oliphant. This is Battle Lines. It is Friday the 4th of July 2025.

Late last month, in fact, just last week, the US Department of Defense announced its most ambitious naval modernization plan in recent history. It's going to spend $47.3 billion specifically on the procurement of 19 new battleships for the US Navy.

It's a dramatic increase from the five vessels that were funded in the previous year. And it comes amid a general shift to prepare the US Navy to eventually face down the Chinese Navy in the Pacific. It has all kinds of implications for the future of naval warfare. And so to discuss this, we brought in a naval warrior today.

Tom Sharp spent 27 years in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of commander. He commanded four warships in the course of that time. I'm hoping to get him to tell us some of the things that he told me before recording about some of the hairier moments during that time. Tom, welcome to Battlelines. Thank you.

You've read this news about the US Navy, about this huge allocation of money and this expansion of warships. I want to get, well, first of all, it's a very simple question. What do you make of it? And what's the kind of context in which this decision comes?

It's broadly encouraging, and it shows that President Trump's intention to rebuild is cascading down. He said it in his first term, and he said it again now as an executive. In fact, he said, we used to make so many ships, we don't make them anymore very much, but we're going to make them very fast, very soon.

Okay, so what? Well, this could be, and this is the important caveat, this could be the so what. This extra money could be the impetus to reverse what has been a fairly steady decline in terms of ship numbers and ship capabilities in the US Navy over the last 30 years, like everyone else. But theirs is hidden slightly more by mass, but they still felt it. So this could be the reversal of that steady decline.

Can you just, I know you, you know, during your career, you obviously served alongside the US Navy at certain points. And I want to, I really want to get to that. Give us just a picture of where the US Navy is now. And I suppose,

We're focusing on it largely because it is the Navy that rules the waves, I suppose the way the Royal Navy once did or it has done. And we know that it's going up against the Chinese PLA Navy now in terms of that that's the competition, that's our dominance. Tell us about the US Navy today. You talk about years of decline that they maybe want to reverse.

Describe it. Yeah. I mean, I use the word decline and it's with slight caution because it is still the world's preeminent maritime fighting force and it's not even close. I mean, it's off the scales, off the chart, more comprehensive than anything else, including the Chinese. Chinese hull numbers now exceed US Navy hull numbers, but in tonnage, they do not. And tonnage is perhaps a better metric than hull numbers because it's

because it alludes to the greater capabilities, let's say 11 US nuclear aircraft carriers. That's a lot of tonnage, it's a lot of firepower. So in tonnage, it exceeds the Chinese Navy. That figure is closing fast, that gap is closing fast.

But when you start breaking down what that means, in terms of enablers and logistics support and intelligence gathering and space-based activities and drones, et cetera, et cetera, when you put the whole US Navy together as a package,

It is still an extraordinarily comprehensive way of protecting the maritime commons. It's still extremely formidable. So if this is a reversal of that slight decline, that's very good news. But that's not to say they're in a terrible place now.

What does this new money and these 19 new vessels, what do they look like? Yeah, the ships themselves. Well, firstly, does it manifest in ships? This is why I kept saying, could it? This is where the cynic in me, as someone who's managed this decline throughout my career and is now seeing...

through the last government, but increasingly now, all these promises for extra cash that never quite make it. They're just promises by the end of the next parliament, by when economic conditions allow. You know, so what? Shipbuilding requires...

It requires the shipyards and the contracts and the commercials to be committed to in a very ugly and early fashion, or this money will not manifest in extra ships. So that's the sort of first point to note. If it does manifest in these ships, then we're talking about another ballistic missile submarine, a bomber or a boomer as they call them.

two Virginia class submarines, attack submarines. And these are quality submarines. And if you talk to our submariners who drive our equivalent, which is the A boat, there is quite close to parity there in terms of capability.

To Arleigh Burke's, which has been the destroyer backbone of the US Navy now since the... I mean, it's extraordinary to think that that ship first came out in the very late 80s and it's still going strong. They found a way to just keep making it better and better.

They've got an America-class landing helicopter amphibious ship, which we used to call aircraft carriers. They don't refer to them as aircraft carriers because they've got actual aircraft carriers. But these things are still 45,000 tons, 50,000 tons. They're big and they can take fixed-wing aircraft. Then you get into their aircraft.

the landing platform docks, that's their amphibious ships, the medium-sized amphibious ships, and so on. And then two smaller ones of those, two tankers, and a surveillance ship. I mean, that

That's not a bad Navy. Across those 19 ships, that is a really, really good spread of capability. And the US would concede that, with the exception of it misses one of the big nuclear carriers, which they are slightly fixated on. But take the nuclear carrier away out of the equation. Those 19 ships are a significant capability. But back to the caveats, will it actually happen? Will they actually turn out those 19 ships as a result of this failure?

promise of extra money and when. You can't flick this switch back on. If these yards are going to start picking up the pace, then an awful lot of other things need to happen. And this is where the cynicism from my American colleagues starts creeping in. The general feeling is that the switch has been off for so long now. If this is turning back on, good, but no one quite knows what to do now.

to energize it into actual hulls that we can fight with. What switched off?

And how can it be turned back on? Are you talking about simply the challenge of building in America? Yeah, building ships is such a complex business. It requires so many different skills. I think people tend to think often in terms of iPhones or cars. That is the wrong impression. These things are more like the sort of space shuttle in terms of complexity. In fact, a nuclear submarine probably exceeds that.

So what happens is if you let these capabilities atrophy over time, gradually sort of just taper away, then the yards start losing the people that are required to build these ships. Now, it might just be the nuclear welder. Let's say the person who's qualified to do the nuclear welds in the Virginia-class submarine in the heart of the reactor, there's probably only six people in America who are qualified to do that.

And qualifying. Is this hyperbole? No, I mean, I'm making a point for effect. The point being is it doesn't need too many of them to leave because they don't see the build orders or they get laid off because the yards aren't turning the ships through quickly enough.

It doesn't need too many of them to leave before you can't turn it back on because you can't. They've gone. Maybe they've gone to live somewhere else. Maybe they've got another job and you can't retrain people quickly. So this is one of the problems with turning shipbuilding back on. As we're discovering here in the UK, it's not a quick fix. You need academies. You need to be taking kids out of school and going, hey, do you want to be in shipbuilding?

And then convincing them that's a really great way to earn a living and then training them up. So money is not the only problem here. You can have all the money in the world, but when it comes to the complexity of shipbuilding, quickly you're going to run out of the required skills to do it. Right. And do we think, I mean, you said you've been speaking to American colleagues. Do they feel that the Trump administration grasps that side of the equation? No, in a word. He does. He does.

How far down is that cascading? There's a lot of, this is a quote, there's a lot of parlor games and backstabbing as usual. The Navy admirals don't seem very motivated to help. It's been so long since we moved the needle that nobody has left who knows what they're doing. These are dark statements, right? And I picked someone, I asked someone in particular who I thought would probably have a, you know, kind of a cynical view, which is helpful. But then he goes on the positive side, enthusiasm from the top is real.

There's lots going on, but there's no planning behind it. There's no real strategic plan. Lots of organizations and entities pushing, but not coordinating. He goes, it's like having a ship with 11 captains on board. So yes, there is a push from the top. There's willing. Congress are clearly looking at sums of money that they can allocate to this. Okay, what next? Who's actually going to grip this? It needs a shipbuilding czar or someone to step up, whether that's

SEC NAV or whether it's the chief naval officer their equivalent of the first sea Lord Whether it's someone in a deity is not clear to me But somebody you know needs to own this as a problem and and drive it hard And it sounds to me from what you're saying is this is it This is something that will probably outlive the current Trump administration This would have to be someone who's going to be in there for maybe several administrations. Yes, I think it is he can say he can set the conditions he can set the atmosphere and

He can go a long way to ensuring that the right people are now in charge of these different organizations and ideally pick the one who can really lead it. He could definitely do that. And when it comes to mindset and culture, these are very Trumpian things that he definitely has the ability to affect over there. Will the rate at which, I don't know, Ingalls shipyard starts turning out ships, will we notice that effect in his current term?

Probably not. I think there'll be more of a lag than that. But let's see. I wanted to turn to kind of the specifics of naval warfare in the modern world, really. And I suppose one of the questions is, okay, these ships, why do they need them? What are they meant to do? What capabilities? What is the task that the Americans are ordering these ships to do? I mean, it's as simple as this, right? Everything in your home arrived by sea. Everything.

Okay, 95%. And someone has to assure that that stuff can reach your home in peace and war. That is the Navy's job.

And most of the time, Navy spend their time setting the conditions to ensure they don't need to fight. It's very easy when talking about warfare to default immediately to the high-end warfighting scenario, missiles in the air, submarines firing torpedoes. That is not the default condition. In fact, it's probably a 1% proposition. The rest of the time, it's about imposing...

conditions and reinforcing international law and ensuring freedom of navigation. So that the things that you need to make your country exist, whether that's oil, food,

information, money, stuff in your house, whatever it is, gets to your house. And without that, we die, right? It's the UK in the Second World War. If that gets strangled, your country dies. So that's what navies are for. And that's where the US Navy really hold the baton in that regard, policing and enforcing something resembling international law in the choke points of the world, all of which

pretty much without exception and now contested in some form or other. That's interesting because I thought you were going to talk about a big naval war for Taiwan, but that's not what's on your mind. Tell us about the American Navy. You're in the Royal Navy, obviously, but the Brits work closely with the Americans. Do you work with the US Navy over the course of your career? Tell us about them and how they work.

It's an extraordinary institution. They're very, very hierarchical. They're very disciplined. They're very hierarchical. Both of those sound like good, sensible ways to run an organization. And I think in an organization that size, by and large, it is a sensible way to run it. I think when we operated very closely with Americans, which I did dozens of times over the years, including in my last job,

frigate command, we were the anti-submarine warfare commander for a carrier strike group in the Gulf of Oman, essentially prepping for the scenario that nearly played out a couple of weeks ago. So we were given the role of anti-submarine commander, which is a good place to be. If the Americans are handing you senior duties like that, that means that you've earned their trust and that you've got probably some equipment on board that they perhaps don't have. So that's a nice place to be. But by and large, they're in charge.

in these areas, whether it's in Bahrain or in the Caribbean or wherever it is, wherever you plug in, if it's into a NATO organization, generally speaking, they're in charge by combat mass alone, if nothing else.

And then as I sort of alluded to earlier, it's not just hull numbers and missile tubes. It's the framework. It's the supporting framework, intelligence and logistics and lift the Americans bring that is just so far in excess of anything anyone else has got. It naturally puts them in charge. So yes, I mean, I loved working with the US Navy. They are austere. They're very disciplined.

If you're going to operate successfully with them, there's a set of rules that you need to understand, one of which does not involve bringing too many good ideas to the table.

And when the Comm Deseron, the Commodore in charge of the carrier says, do this, you probably need to do that. Unless you have an utterly life-saving, compelling reason to not do that. It's better if you do as you're told. Whereas in the Royal Navy, we do a lot more of our discussions on voice, on voice circuits. They do it a lot by sort of classified sipper nets and typing. Ours is a lot by voice where you can have those conversations. You can have tactical conversations, even with the Admiral.

And then at the end of it, he goes, I just, you know, get on and do as you're told. And you go, okay, fine. But you've had that conversation.

Americans don't encourage that. They run it from their carriers or whichever ship's in charge, and they have a series of orders, and you comply with those orders. So it is a good way of doing it. It's very rigid, perhaps on occasions too rigid, but it works well for them. And it works well for allies plugging into it, as I say, providing you understand the rules of the game and you conform to them. Well, I mean, I...

I've got two questions. One is like, how do you explain that difference? I never thought of the, I haven't served in the Royal Navy, but I never thought of the British military as a democracy, as it were. So how do you explain that kind of cultural difference? Is it just about size or is there something deeper between, you know, the US Navy and the Royal Navy? And also, I want to find out if you ever actually broke the rules and got in trouble with an American admiral. There is a cultural difference. And they take...

They take the business of being at sea very, very seriously. I'm not saying we don't, but for example, in the Northern Gulf, right up in the oil platforms there in the heat of the summer, 50 degree heat, it's a 95% humidity. And our job was to keep potential attacks off the oil platforms. This is a while back now in 2004, but we had to keep ships away from the oil platforms.

Again, it was a US led coalition. So attacks from who? From terrorist attacks on the Iraqi oil platforms. There were zones around the oil platforms, 3,000 yards to 2,000 yards was a warning zone. Any ship goes inside that, you have to warn them. Now, most of these guys are just fishing vessels trying to go home half the time. You still need to keep them away from the oil platform because you don't know if that's the one that's going to hit the platform. Inside 2,000 yards,

you had to put shot across the bow. So you rounds in the water and get them away from the oil platform. That means you can now determine if this is the one that's going for the oil platform, because if they don't alter at that point, you know it's a threat. And then inside 500 yards, weapons free, engage. We let a vessel get to 2,900 yards. It was clearly heading home and we could look at its track and it wasn't responding on the radio. We could see into it. We knew it wasn't a threat.

but it wasn't answering the radio. It got inside 2,000 yards and we didn't put rounds in the water. Decided we didn't need to. We got an app, I mean, the signal that night from the American Admiral, I will never forget. The use of his language probably isn't repeatable on this podcast and certainly not something you'd expect to see in print. But basically said it's unacceptable. This is about imposition of real estate, not Royal Navy threat assessment. And then the rude words tumbled thereafter.

And then a couple of hours later, we get sent another signal, essentially dispatching us 200 miles south. And we've been sent to the naughty step. We've been sent away to go and have a long, hard think about what our role in life is.

And then come back when you think you're ready. So that's what I mean by the rules of the game. We thought we had a judgment view on this and we could bring that to the table and that was incorrect. And do you think that's because you're the outsiders or is that how they are to Americans within their hierarchy? That's how they are with themselves. So they just wouldn't do that.

And yeah, they do it to other countries as well. I've seen them dispatch plenty of ship thereafter. I mean, I wasn't in command of that ship. I was the third in command. I learned that lesson and worked with them many, many times after it and played by the rules. And that sometimes means taking a decision that you're not entirely sure is correct, but you do it because those are the rules.

and everyone lives happily ever after. But I've seen certainly other navies since come wimbling into the task group, try and bring too much value, too many good ideas, and eventually, after a period of time, they get dispatched to go and patrol somewhere a way away. Coming up, the world relies on America to keep its sea lanes open, but does America still want to rule the waves?

Thank you.

because we hear it's bad luck to be hungry on game day. So download the Instacart app today and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days excludes restaurants. Out here, it's not only the amazing views, but the way time stretches out a little longer, how laughter bellows louder among friends, and how the breeze hits just right at the summit.

With AllTrails, you can discover and experience the best of nature. With over 450,000 trails worldwide and navigation right at your fingertips. Find your outside with AllTrails. Download the free app today and find your next outdoor adventure. Ready to level up your everyday? Quince makes premium essentials without the premium price tag. From quality clothing and stylish accessories to travel staples and high-end home goods. Quince has it all.

Welcome back. You're describing...

you're describing a world of maritime naval warfare that is dominated by one power in which we all revolve around. And I suppose in the land domain or the general domain, we talk a lot about how NATO itself is built around the Americans. Yeah.

when we're talking about land, when we're talking about European security, there's a lot of anxiety at the moment about American retreats, about whether we can operate without all of that capability. You talked about the logistics, naval logistics that we can't replicate. I know I've spoken to people about getting a land division into Europe in the event of a war in Europe. I've been told no one can do that without American airlift and so on.

Can you talk us through, is it a similar debate in the maritime campaign? Are there signs, are there risks of the Americans disappearing? And if they do, are we, as the Royal Navy, the French Navy, other Western navies in any condition to operate without them? It is very hard to overstate how thin we become in the maritime domain without US support.

Let me start there. There's an idea because you start totting up hull numbers across European countries. Again, hull numbers is not the solution here. There's much, much more to it than that. But if you start looking at ships and submarines and even aircraft carriers across European navies, you can start convincing yourself that we can do this. That is absolutely not the case. Can you give us some numbers, though? I've got a number here of...

The Navy will maintain an active, the US Navy will maintain an active fleet of 287 battle force ships. How many do you think we could get from Europe if you totted it all up? It would be less than that. I would actually hesitate to guess because it really, you know, again, how many ships does the Royal Navy have? That varies between 13 to 65, depending on what you're counting as a combatant.

And if you multiply that across five or six different European navies, then you get an almost. So I don't know the answer to that, but it's not the point anyway. The point is we lack all those underpinnings. Now-

Is there a fear that the US is going to undermine all this? No, not as much as you might think. Clearly, the president says things and does things and makes noises. But if you take the example of our carrier strike group going down the Red Sea recently past the Houthis. Now, we were in a bit of a ceasefire at that point, the latest sort of ceasefire, if you like.

And there was a naval watchers were going, will the US assist us as we go through that choke point? We've got our own destroyer who, the same class of which acquitted itself there very well last year. We've got a Spanish destroyer. We've got a Canadian ship. We've got a nice little package, but there's nothing quite like an Arleigh Burke destroyer in terms of shooting down ballistic missiles.

In fact, there is exactly nothing like it. And it was really reassuring because we actually went through the choke point there, the Babelmender choke point, with one of the strongest screens you've ever seen. American warships were coming out of the woodwork to support us.

In fact, two of them came through the Suez Canal with us. So the special relationship is in place. And it's not a political thing, the special relationship. People who want to pretend we have no value in this world or think we have no value and that we have no special relationship with America because of what's being said at the political level misunderstand what the special relationship actually is. And it's high level, military to military issues.

engagement, and quite often technology sharing as well. There's a surveillance, there's an intelligence, there's a technology part to this that we will never see. It's behind locked doors. But that is not something that can be eroded quickly. Likewise, the trust between our navies is absolutely in place. And we saw it

very, very clearly just the other week as Prince of Wales passed through. And then interestingly, she then carried on to the Indo-Pacific. And there was a little bit of sort of wailing and gnashing of teeth that she should be turning around and posturing off Iran with the two US carriers that were already there, the Vinson and the Nimitz. And sort of at superficial level, you could go, yeah, okay, our carrier should be there ready to fight. That's what it's for. It's a strike carrier.

But actually, when you find out that the Americans and the Brits had spoken and the Americans had gone, look, the USS Nimitz is leaving the PACOM Pacific Command Area. Can you backfill for that? It would be better use of your carrier and its capabilities if it backfilled for the Nimitz so the Nimitz can go and fight in the Gulf of Oman. And that's pretty mature and actually technically, tactically makes a lot of sense. Right.

We had that discussion here, actually. I was sitting there with my colleague David Blair and kind of pondering, you know, Keir Starmer's got this Trump card up his sleeve. He's got enough F-35s there about, I think about, you know, he could double the Israeli strike force by about 50% or something. Why aren't we using that card to be part of this and gain influence?

Yeah, I think it was, if you put the Carl Vinson and the Nimitz in the Gulf of Oman, you've got the USS Ford, the largest in the world for now, Chinese fourth carrier is bigger, but for now, USS Ford steaming east, heading to the Mediterranean. That is the equivalent of the Israeli Air Force in terms of strike power in those ships.

At that point, I'm afraid to say you've got to look at Prince of Wales and go, fantastic capability, developing fast, got some great kid on there. But actually, we've got the fight part of this covered. And as I said before, it's not about the fight. It's about stopping the fight. And they did. They did it.

I want to get to the Royal Navy and the question of the Prince of Wales and F-35s and all of that. But just picking you up on this question that we come up with again and again and again in this podcast, and it is the theme that everyone's grappling, and it is this theme of U.S. retreats.

When I asked you about naval warfare, what's it meant to do? You didn't talk about the Battle of Taiwan or something like that. You talked about keeping sea lanes open and how the US Navy globally has that role. It's all very well them escorting the Princess Whales through the Red Sea or so on. I suppose the question is, is the US Navy still going to be there globally to fulfill that role?

You see what I mean? That's the question. I think the answer to that is yes. It's in their DNA. It really is in their Navy's DNA, in their military DNA. Global policeman is a slightly clumsy term, but to do that. And we've had a case study. We had a case study.

earlier this year where they could have walked away. And it was back to the Red Sea. The Houthis were going. They were going and the US had five or six warships there, including, I think at the time it was the Eisenhower. It might have changed to the Truman at this point. It doesn't matter. They had loads of ships there. And it was during the signal gate leaks when Hegseth was discussing what next, Yemen.

And it was J.D. Vance, the vice president, said, are we sure this is the right time to go back in? You know, they were talking about reinitiating strikes, but really ramping them up. I think this is around about the 15th of March this year, really ramping it up.

And Vance jumped into the signal chat that Hegseth so kindly let us all see and went, is this the right time? Now, that was a real moment of pause. I mean, America had every reason to not do that. It's not their straight. They could just, they take a fraction of goods through that straight that we do in Europe.

And they were rightly throughout it going, come on, come on, Europe, what are you doing? Egypt, what are you doing? And so on. Saudi, what are you doing? I mean, it's not just us. There are lots of people who have China being the main one. You've got a squadron of three destroyers who quite often hang out in Djibouti. What are you doing? This is your straight. So all the while, America again, what are you doing? What are you doing? They then had an opportunity to go, I tell you what, actually, we're done with this. Let's just back off.

And they didn't. They went the other way and completely opened up the taps and then spent a billion dollars worth of munitions in the next month pummeling the Houthis. So I don't think anything that's coming out of the top of the shop now is going to necessarily diminish that. There is a constant battle between CENTCOM and PACOM, which is as to who's in charge. Just remind us what CENTCOM and PACOM are. CENTCOM is Central Command, and that is the area that involves the Gulf, Iran,

straight to four moves, babelmendeb,

And it stops on the Eastern Med and you get into UCOM at that point. And then PACOM is the big one that would, in theory, be in charge of tackling... Sorry, not in theory, but is in charge of the China-Taiwan... So it's the Pacific versus... I suppose if we go back 75 years, it's the Pacific versus Atlantic theatres. Well, not quite Atlantic. You're talking about Middle East. Yes, Middle East, yeah. And the way the US construct is, is that these are very hard-walled. If you want to move assets between them, let's say...

the B2s, for example, that were made famous with the strikes on the enrichment sites. If you want to move these assets or the carrier from one combatant command to another, it takes an awful lot of paperwork and a lot of discussion. And the China hawks in America will go, no, no, no, we're not sending Nimitz to the Middle East. The fight's here. So there's a lot of jockeying. There's a lot of pieces of the jigsaw that they move around to good effect.

But it is still focused, I think, on keeping freedom of navigation going. And if you need to fight to do that, then they're ready to do so. They're still there. Yeah. Reassuring. So I've got a couple more questions. Let's talk about the Royal Navy. I mean, you just said...

We can't underestimate how thin we've become without the Americans. Then you talked about this wonderful aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, has just sailed through the Red Sea, through the Arabian Sea. It's down in, what did you say, Singapore now. It's meant to have the largest wing of F-35s of anyone and isn't that terrific and so on. But we're thin.

Should we even be – this is the perennial debate, isn't it? Should we even be buying massive aircraft carriers and sending them around the other side of the world when our job is really kind of the North Atlantic and worrying about Russia? I can – I mean, there are two separate questions. Should we have aircraft carriers and should we not be focusing on the North Atlantic? The should we have aircraft carriers, I can tell you from writing for the newspaper, that is an argument I'm not winning. I think we should because it provides –

breadth to your fighting force. It provides you with the full suite of capabilities, all of which combine to create this deterrent effect that I've already discussed. If you don't have a strike capability, i.e. the ability to fire inland, then you lack that balance. And it's one of the things that for me defines a coastal navy from a blue water navy is the ability to have strike aircraft carriers. So I personally think we should have them.

And it's slightly nonsensical to imagine that had we not got them, that that money would somehow have manifested in loads more frigates and destroyers. It just wouldn't. It would have gone somewhere else. That's not how budgeting works. And final, not to do their PR entirely, but 6.3 billion for two ships that last for 50 years is not expensive. A US carrier is 16 billion for one.

So we've actually got good value for money out of the hulls. I think we should have them. They're not that expensive. What we haven't done classically is packed them fully. We've done it slightly on the cheap. Now, I just, a minute ago, said they were quite good value for money. Okay, fine, that's the hulls. But everything else, the supporting infrastructure, refueling, airborne early warning, solid support ships, tankers,

All of that is just two rungs below what it should be if it was to be a fully configured fighting force like the US carriers, because we can't afford it. We can't afford it. Now, does that mean we shouldn't bother? No, I don't think it does. I think we just need to resource the whole business properly, frankly. We've become so depressed and so used to managing decline.

that the idea of turning over the money taps to actually configure this force properly is almost an alien concept to us. To your second question about Indo-Pacific versus Europe, there is no doubt that the NATO area and the Europe area, the North Atlantic, the high north, is where we should be focused.

And it's where, as a maritime nation, we excel. If we really break it down to defeating the Russian submarine threat in the Greenland-Niceland-UK gap, that is something we have deep history in and are very, very good at. That doesn't mean you can't send your strike group around the world once every four years. These are separate entities. And besides, we can always get that group back. If we need it back, bring it back.

and they'll come back ready, you know, much more worked up and ready to intervene in whatever is required. Can I ask quickly about the F-35?

One of the F-35s from HMS Prince of Wales is currently sitting, I think, in an air hangar on the tarmac in India somewhere for some reason. What's going on there? Yeah, that's awkward. I mean, before we flew any of my helicopters off a ship, you always had a conversation about downbird. What happens if you go into a foreign country, it lands, it shuts down, and it can't restart? Right.

That's what we're talking about here. And that's with a helicopter, which is a vastly simpler beast than the F-35. So the F-35 has diverted. I think initially it claimed bad weather. It might well have been that. And then on shutting down, it either had a fault or it's developed a fault.

that is proving technical to fix. And I mean, it is beyond comprehension how difficult those jets are to fix. Now that's partly because jets are complex. It's partly to do with the way the F-35 itself is built. So we need to spend money getting the right people and the right equipment out to fix it.

then there's a trade-off about when can we get that jet back to the ship? Is it then cost-effective to get it back to the ship now? If the answer to that's no, then maybe leave it there and wait. Wait for the ship to come back and pick it up or put it into a heavy lift

plane and bring it back. All these options will be discussed. The thing that frustrates me is the lack of communications out of the Ministry of Defence on this. Why don't they say these things? Why don't they tell us what's going on? Because at the moment, we've got a jet that's now a subject of tourism memes.

Looking like no one really cares too much about that. I mean, it's a very advanced aircraft and there's been all these kind of talks about whether it's the right plane and so on. I mean, it raises questions if it won't start. I mean, the ignition is just not turning on. But this backs my point about cars and iPhones. There is a perception, partly led by Hollywood, that that's how military equipment works. Everyone in the military now chuckles when the expression military grade is...

is used in order to indicate that something's absolutely first class because it's not the case. We have been under-resourced for decades. And you don't get, unlike millions of phones and thousands of cars, you just get dozens of these things or two warships. So when a warship breaks, it's because it's the first time you've ever done it. It's like the first iPhone ever.

And no more follow. So there's a mindset issue here where people assume these things will just work. As an ex-military guy, I always assumed that they just wouldn't and had contingencies in place all the time to work around it. I'm not sure when you would say there was last a peer-on-peer naval war. Maybe the Falklands. Do we really grasp what it's going to be like if there is...

you know, a maritime war with China over Taiwan in the Pacific, you know, or I know the Royal Navy has to go head to head with the Russian Navy in the North Atlantic. Can you tell us just what that would mean and what, you know, the kind of thoughts that would go through your head as a naval officer or someone on those ships in that scenario? Yeah, we are not cerebrally, you know, ready for what you've just described. And navies historically, when...

When the balloon goes up and all your attempts to stop the fighter fail and you end up going toe-to-toe with another Navy, you lose a lot of ships very quickly. That is a historic norm.

And we are not ready for that. I mean, a friend of mine was in Afghanistan in 2009. They lost, I think it was 12 people in one day, 12 soldiers in one day. And that elicited a phone call from the prime minister to the brigade commander, a sort of sympathy phone call. So that's 12 people in a day. Now, that's not to say that's not awful.

But that same day, we saw a presentation from the captain of HMS Conqueror who had sunk the Belgrano. And that was 286 people in a couple of minutes.

We as a country are not ready for that. We wouldn't know how to cope with it. The furore would be off the charts and the questions of our political system that have allowed us to get into the state that I've described would be off the charts and deafening and rightly so. The problem I have as a defense commentator is trying to convince people to do this beforehand.

You know, to spend X percent now so that we can still deter and stop the fight. Because if we don't stop the fight and it comes to us, and there was a war game recently done by Sky News, which really, and I was part of that, that talked about the Russians firing missiles into the UK mainland. And there was a palpable sense in the room when a missile hit Oxford Street, you know, there was a real sense of, Christ, you know, we are not prepared for this.

intellectually, psychologically as a country. We are not prepared to come under attack. We're not prepared to lose a huge number of sailors in one massive hit. So we need to be, and education like this is very much a part of that. Do you think the Royal Navy is therefore, for that scenario, still living off the lessons of the Falklands in a way? And what were those lessons? And what are the unknowns that we might

we might face this time. The Navy has a reassuring amount of intellectual horsepower looking at the future character of conflict. What might it look like? And they'll be learning lessons like fury from places like the Black Sea where Ukrainians without really a Navy have defeated the Black Sea fleet. To all intents and purposes, that Black Sea fleet is out of the game. Now,

There are a lot of lessons we mustn't learn from that. One of which is the vulnerability of warships to drones. It's the Black Sea, it's small. Ukraine have used them really well. Russia have defended very poorly. So you've got to learn the right lessons. It's not that warships are now obsolete.

Same with hypersonic missiles. The great fear that hypersonic missiles will render warships obsolete. I don't understand that at all. Warships are in harm's way by definition. I would fear a heavyweight torpedo far more than a hypersonic missile.

Because it's much more likely to hit you and sink you. And they've been a threat for over 100 years. So why is no one talking about that and everyone fixating on hypersonic missiles? My point is we have teams within the Navy who I occasionally am lucky enough to talk to, who really look at lessons from the past, what we think we might do today, and what we might have to face in the future, of which autonomy, of course, is a huge part of this.

Do we have the resources to make – it's almost back to the very thing we discussed with American influx of money. Great. So what? You can have all the good ideas, all the plans you like. If it's not resourced and the organization is not in place to convert those good ideas into actual thought and heat and light, then you might as well not have had them. And again, I think that's just where defense in the UK –

And the business of funding defence in the UK still needs to turn a corner. Labour are saying lots of nice things about percentages, but none of it's real yet. In your deepest private thoughts, when you're alone in the captain's cabin and you're suffering from the loneliness of command and you're kind of, you know, like we all do, I suppose, you kind of...

you think about yourself and your ego and, and, and what other people think about you and also your own self conception of what you think about yourself. Do you ever think, do you ever kind of think of yourself as bloody hell? I am Jack Aubrey. Yes. And then, and then you quietly as quickly as possible, put that thought to one side and get on with running the ship. I mean, not to, I don't want to de-glamorize ship command because,

Outwards looking in, it's kind of a glamorous business perhaps, but when you're inside looking out, you just see 200 young men and women in very close proximity all trying to hurt themselves at various points of the day by falling down ladders or falling over the side of the ship or firing missiles or firing guns. The capacity just internally to cause havoc is high on your list of things. So

And then you're very, very busy running serials or flying or whatever it is that needs the captain's attention, signing signals. So there's a mechanics to running a ship that keeps you pretty consumed. I mean, the officer watch has to report to you every time another ship comes within two miles. That's just constant. So I would say the loneliness of command is an interesting expression and not to put a little pin in that either, but you're not alone.

You've got 200 fairly well-trained people around you and a pyramid and a system and a way of doing business that's been configured over decades, centuries. Centuries, which is why I mentioned Jack Aubrey. Yeah, and it's designed to allow you to fight against

in isolation. But it doesn't mean you as the captain are necessarily... I never felt in isolation. I've had leadership scenarios since leaving the Navy where I felt far more lonely because there's no system around you. The Navy has built this system around you. And by and large, it works very well. So I would pinch myself coming back... I mean, this sounds trite, but coming back to the ship in a taxi, let's say, in a foreign country when the ship's all lit...

You've been out for a couple of drinks with the sailors or with the wardroom or whatever, and you come back to show. I would have to pinch myself at that point and go, okay, this is quite cool.

And then you get on board and immediately you're into the mechanics, right? When are we sailing tomorrow? What do we need to do to get ready to sail? The leadership of taking your heads of department through their next career stage and so on. It's an all-consuming business. And if you let yourself, this is my view, if you let yourself get ahead of the sort of how cool it is, you're going to start probably making poorer decisions because you're not going to be in the level of detail you need to be in

You're not going to be delegating to the correct level. These all need to be in balance. So for me, I was never a naval romantic, I'm afraid. It was a very, very good way to earn a living. I loved it. I loved every second of it. But I never yearned for the sea. Again, you can be on the bridge weighing in the Caribbean with a gin and tonic, about to go into port the next day and go, this is quite cool.

But most of the time you're just busy. Right. Do naval officers read Patrick O'Brien?

I was never a great reader. I would rather spend my time reading the C-Dart manual or the four and a half inch gun manual. So it was more important for me that I knew how that worked in combat. And having been hit, I could keep making it work. That was my reading. Again, friends of mine who are naval historians, some of whom served, that would be their escape. Their escape would be a good book in the evening. Yeah.

But no, I mean, again, I would rather, I would put the book down and go for a walk around the ship. What's your favorite movie about ships and the Navy? Well, it's The Cruel Sea. I mean, that's an easy one. That sort of...

you know, slightly melancholic capture of the pointlessness of maritime warfare and the way it's acted and the way it plays out, I think is a fantastic movie. But, you know, Master and Commander, of course, is always going to be in the top 10. Former Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharp talking to me about the future of War at Sea.

That's all for today. I'll be back on Monday with our next episode. Until then, that was Battlelines. Goodbye. Battlelines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Roland Oliphant, and Venetia Rainey. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battlelines on your preferred podcast app.

And if you have a moment, leave a review, as it helps others to find the show. To stay on top of all our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter, or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can also get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin and the executive producer is Louisa Wells.

Ready to level up your everyday? Quince makes premium essentials without the premium price tag. From quality clothing and stylish accessories to travel staples and high-end home goods, Quince has it all. And by partnering directly with top artisans and ethical factories, Quince delivers high quality at half the cost of similar brands.

Shop elevated essentials without the markup at Quince. Go to quince.com slash level up for free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash level up.

Looking for the perfect podcast to sponsor? Meet Smart Recommendations, your AI-powered media planner. Just describe your target audience in your own words and ACAST Smart Recommendations will pinpoint the perfect podcast in seconds. Want to reach women aged 25 to 35 interested in film? No problem. Millennials living in big cities who love true crime? We've got you covered. Get started now at go.acast.com slash ads.