What if the UK has to defend the North Atlantic alone: Lesson from the game of soccer

Introduction

One sport I enjoyed in high school was football. This was because of the necessity of teamwork to succeed. My ability to sprint and execute clinical fouls without conceding fouls made my teammates trust my defensive abilities. Crisis, however, brewed when my teammates started leaving me alone to cover the defensive duties of the team.  Due to the inability of my team to retain possession, the opposing team started exploring counterattacks. Since I was often left isolated, neutralising onslaughts was always a difficult nut to crack. This made us lose many games. After evaluating our flaws, we started implementing collective defending, which reduced our losses and made our team a force to reckon with.

 What might happen?

From the soccer analogy, I possessed excellent defensive skills similar to the Royal Navy, but as a lone defender, opposing teams exposed my weakness through counter attacks. With Artificial Intelligence powered cyber-attacks becoming rampant, leaving the defence of the North Atlantic to the United Kingdom (UK). alone may exponentially lead to an increase in attacks on infrastructure, and communication networks despite boasting of a strong cyber defence system.

Secondly, among the nations defending the North Atlantic covering roughly 20% of the earth’s surface, ¹ the United Kingdom’s modern fighting machinery sets her apart. Despite this, she leverages division of labour with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to carry out patrols and depends on support in the form of intelligence, reinforcements and research sharing to safeguard the region. Failure to perpetuate this relationship makes her vulnerable to multifaceted threats.

The UK currently spends approximately 2.3% of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence, ² and leaving her to defend the North Atlantic alone will strain the limited resources available and increase the national debt.

The North Atlantic plays a vital role in global trade as it connects trading partners like America and Europe. If the defence of the Ocean is left to the UK, which is a leading trade nation, she will be forced to channel her resources to defend the region. This will impede traffic, increase cost of living and slowdown international trade.

What should be maintained in the Royal Navy?

According to a GLOBE study, ⁵ the extent to which the Royal Navy encourages individuals to be confrontational and aggressive when relating to others is low. This in addition to her medium rating, which encourages and rewards members to be kind and fair are laudable attributes needed for the maintenance of a conducive working environment.

Unlike the United States or France navies, which face greater infighting over funds, the excellent institutional collectivism culture³ of the Royal Navy should be cultivated going forward.

The power distance in the Royal Navy which pushes decision making further down than in many comparators is an admirable asset, needed to avoid authoritarian approaches.⁴

To defend the North Atlantic alone, Britain needs to do the following:

*Innovative investment  

The Royal Navy needs to invest in nuclear powered attack submarines (SSNs), strategic nuclear submarines (SSGNs), sophisticated cyber security warfare systems and advanced sonar systems to provide stealthy defence that enhances capacity to track enemy submarines.

To cover the large expanse of the Ocean, counter missile threats and defend sea-lanes, drones and long-range aircrafts can be leveraged to provide early warning signals, report real time intelligence and conduct air strike missions to protect shipping lanes.

Aster 30 ships designed to destroy threats at long ranges will be needed to withstand the harsh Atlantic environment.

Many adversaries on the Atlantic use mines to block vital sea-lanes. With the Ocean crucial for global trade, the Royal Navy needs to deploy robust systems for countering mines to ease navigation.

*Practice cultural shifts

The Royal Navy's determination to deliver current operations excellently at high speeds makes her fail in the area of future orientation. For instance, the Royal Navy command four years earlier observed that the propulsion system of Type 45 destroyers needed significant time and money to be fixed since they were failing too often.⁶  Instead of the leadership pushing for investment to correct the issue, they kept mute and delayed until there was a reduction in the submarine's serviceability in Devonport Dockyard.⁷  Cultivating future orientation is an effective way to overcome obstacles and create competitive advantage.

The Royal Navy's constant drive to get more sea time out of people makes many personnel complain about high deployment frequency.⁸ With the Navy currently experiencing low retention rates, balanced work schedules is a necessity.

Collaboration among researchers, think-tanks and manufacturers needs to be stimulated. This will lead to multiple breakthroughs in the security world and re-project the UK as a force to reckon with.

A 2011 Atherton report found that gender egalitarianism still exists in the Royal Navy.⁹ This could be resolved through appointment of more female heads, updating the current career progression pattern that’s biased against family women who wish to have children, and enforcing stricter anti gender-bias laws.

Uncertainty avoidance through many rules and inspections impedes progress. With the UK ranking higher on the GLOBE rating,¹⁰ Granting autonomy and reducing unnecessary inspections can help FastTrack defence projects.

*Smart recruitment

Every young graduate should serve in the Royal Navy for two years before moving on to other professional endeavours. This will address workforce supply deficits.

In 2024, the Royal Navy scored lowest of all the services on the “engagement index”, when the question, “how strongly do you agree … I am proud to be in the service” was asked.¹¹ This shows that in-group collectivism is declining. Going forward, courses that build esprit de corps together with personalized management is needed to groom a new generation of officers.

Out of the 2.73 billion people in the Commonwealth¹², the youth employment rate of 22.9% persists¹³. Going forward, these untapped talents should be wooed into the Royal Navy.

Conclusion

Since my teams’ performance turned around through collective defending, the UK should leverage investments, cultural shifts and smart recruitment to defend the North Atlantic effectively.

References:

1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration How big is the Atlantic Ocean? https://rb.gy/h9bwz4
2. House of common Library https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/
3.  Jagdeep S Chhokar, Felix C Brodbeck and Robery J House (eds), Culture and Leadership Across the World: The GLOBE Book of In-Depth Studies of 25 Societies (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007), p. 1088.
4.  Chhokar, Brodbeck and House, Culture and Leadership Across the World, pp. 342, 348 and 1,086; Hoffstede, Cultures and Organisations, p. 26.
5.  Chhokar, Brodbeck and House, Culture and Leadership Across the World, pp. 1091 and 1093.
6.  HMS Daring, the first commissioned Type 45, was having total electrical failures, with the ship going completely dark, daily in 2009, but Navy Command only raised the issue to the Ministry of Defence in 2013, and both denied there being problems until 2015. The author sat beside the Type 45 desk officer in Navy Command, 2008–11, and knew people onboard the ships. See also, Navy Lookout, ‘Putting the Type 45 Propulsion Problems in Perspective’, 3 February 2016, <https://www.navylookout.com/putting-the-type-45-propulsion-problems-in-perspective/
7.  Navy Lookout, ‘Trouble in the Docks – Fixing the Infrastructure Issues Impacting Royal Navy Submarine Availability’, 8 December 2023, <https://www.navylookout.com/trouble-in-the-docks-fixing-the-infrastructure-issues-impacting-royal-navy-submarine-availability/
8.  Ministry of Defence, ‘Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics 1 January 2024’, 29 August 2024, <https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-january-2024
9.  Defence Committee, ‘Protecting those who Protect us: Women in the Armed Forces from Recruitment to Civilian Life’, 25 July 2021, para. 28, <https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmdfence/154/15402.htm
10.  Chhokar, Brodbeck and House, Culture and Leadership Across the World, p. 1085.
11. Livsey, A. (2024). Royal Navy Culture: What to Keep and What to Change. The RUSI Journal, 169(7), 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2024.2433468
12. https://www.worlddata.info/alliances/commonwealth-of-nations.php
13. https://rb.gy/jkmy0u