Not Good: The Royal Navy Is so Small It Can't Patrol the Entire Persian Gulf

David Axe

Security, Europe

Not enough ships to do a good job of it.

Key point: Years of budget cuts have hurt London's ability to credibly project force abroad.

The Royal Navy plans briefly to double its number of warships in the Persian Gulf following an attempted attack by Iranian forces on a British oil tanker on July 20, 2019.

But the temporary increase in British warships in the region, from one to two, underscores just how few ships the Royal Navy can deploy even in an emergency.

Iranian boats tried to “impede” the British oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, the BBC reported. HMS Montrose, a Type 23 frigate, “was forced to move between the three boats and the tanker,” according to the BBC.

The British government claimed the attacking boats belonged to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps militia. The IRGC also allegedly was behind several recent bomb attacks targeting oil tankers in the Gulf and surrounding waters.

Tensions have escalated in the Middle East following U.S. president Donald Trump decision unilaterally to withdraw the United States from the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program. After Trump restored economic sanctions, Tehran resumed stockpiling uranium.

The July 2019 tanker incident compelled the Royal Navy to accelerate by several weeks a planned deployment to the Gulf by the Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan. Montrose and Duncan together will patrol the Persian Gulf before Montrose returns to U.K. waters for maintenance.

Duncan sailed south through the Bosphorus on July 13, 2019. The destroyer had been in the Black Sea region for NATO exercises.

The previous plan was for Montrose to depart the Gulf before Duncan arrived. The destroyer’s accelerated deployment “will allow a continuous naval presence to be sustained in the Strait of Hormuz,” a British defense ministry spokesman told Jane’s.

The Royal Navy likely cannot keep two major warships in the Persian Gulf for more than a few weeks. After decades of deepening defense cuts, the Royal Navy possesses just 19 destroyers and frigates. Only a few of them are deployable at any given time.

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