Many have criticized the Royal Navy for not doing more to assist the U.S. against Iran, even after Iranian missiles hit an RAF base on Cyprus. But Mark Felton tells us the reason why, just as he did last year with The Navy With More Admirals Than Warships: The Royal Navy is so radically shrunk that it’s already inadequate even for the tasks it’s already assigned to carry out.
“Currently the Royal Navy has 63 commissioned ships. But of this number only 25 are really fighting ships. That is submarines, aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. The balance are support patrol and survey vessels which, though armed, are not true fighting warships.”
“Britain is of course involved with a variety of defense tasks worldwide. But due to endless defense cuts, the Navy is hard-pressed to fulfill them. So of the fighting ships in 2026, Britain possesses ten submarines, two aircraft carriers, six destroyers, and seven frigates.”
“Such a small fleet might be sufficient for a small nation engaged only in self-defense. But Britain still has some 15 overseas territories, many of which, like the Falkland Islands, require naval protection.”
“30 years ago in 1996, the Royal Navy had 17 submarines, 3 aircraft carriers, 15 destroyers, and 22 frigates. And it is generally agreed that the Royal Navy should still be this large, as the defense commitments are basically the same as they were in 1996.”
“As Britain continues to be put through a process termed ‘managed decline’ by generations of politicians, the armed forces have likewise been decimated until we faced a situation recently with the outbreak of the war in Iran, when Britain was seemingly incapable of dispatching, at short notice, a single warship to the defense of one of her sovereign bases overseas, this one in Cyprus, recently attacked.”
“It is too small.”
“We operate four Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines and at any one time one is supposed to be on patrol, one is undergoing training, one is in refit and one is undergoing trials.”
“We do know that the aging V-bot are requiring more frequent and longer refits and maintenance to stay in service. This of course is common sense. These are highly complex but elderly pieces of machinery. Your car goes the same way after all.”
“In 2023, the oldest boat in the class, HMS Vanguard, was returned to service after a refit lasting seven years. So between 2016 and 2023, officially only three V-boats were doing the work of four. That must have meant that each patrol was extended from three to four months, adding enormous strain to crews running submerged for such long periods of time.”
“Currently, HMS Victorious, the second boat in the class, is also in long-term refit from 2023, for at least three to four years, perhaps longer.”
“HMS Vengeance, the fourth boat, entered a long overhaul period and reactor refueling between March 2012 and February 2016. All this means that the Royal Navy only has three V-boats in operation at any one time, not four as advertised, with one always out of service in refit at any one time.”
“The state of Britain’s inadequate flotilla of fleet submarines is truly shocking. We have six Astute class fleet submarines in the Navy, which is too few, and, incredibly, in March 2026, only one is operational.”
“HMS Astute is undergoing a midlife re-validation period that will last for years. HMS Ambush has been in long-term maintenance since 2022. HMS Artful has been undergoing regeneration and maintenance since 2023. HMS Audacious has been in refit since 2023. And HMS Agamemnon is undergoing testing and sea trials and won’t actually enter full-time service until March 2027.”
“That leaves HMS Anson as the only operational British fleet submarine at this time. One active hunter/killer submarine to cover the entire fleet. She is currently out in the Middle East after leaving her base in Western Australia. Which military genius thought it was a good idea to reduce the hunter/killer fleet to just six boats?”
“Britain currently has two enormous carriers, though insufficient surface vessels to protect them properly. Only one is actually operational, HMS Prince of Wales, held at high readiness to sail to support military operations in the Middle East. Though without a protective umbrella of destroyers and frigates, she could very well end up being a three billion pound target.”
“The other one, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is in dry dock at Rosyth in Scotland, undergoing extensive repairs to her extremely temperamental propulsion system.” The need for adequate carrier fleet coverage is why the decommissioning of the USS Nimitz has been delayed until 2027.
“Successive governments have seen fit to think that only six destroyers are adequate, which is clearly deranged and incredibly irresponsible. So, out of six vessels, how many are operational in March 2026? A grand total of two. HMS Dragon, a vessel recently in the news that was supposed to be sent to Cyprus to protect British interests there, and HMS Duncan. The other four are all laid up for one reason or another. The class leader, HMS Daring, is preparing to return to service after an absence of eight years under refit.” Given that it generally takes three to five years for a complete stem-to-stern overhaul and refueling for an American aircraft carrier, eight years for a destroyer seems beyond excessive.
“And what about the frigates, the workhorse of the fleet? Here things have improved slightly. The Royal Navy has a fleet of seven type 23 frigates and in March 2026, five are active. Two are not. HMS Richmond is due to be decommissioned this year after 31 years service with no replacement. And HMS Kent is undergoing deep maintenance at Devport since 2024. But only five operational frigates is still a shockingly low figure. They are all old vessels as well.”
“If we compare today’s active fleet with the fleet that retook the Falklands in 1982, the sorry state of the Navy is plain to see. If another Falklands type crisis was to emerge today, could we deal with it? Probably not.”
“In 1982, the Royal Navy was quite large. Britain at the time had 3 aircraft carriers, 12 destroyers, compared to 6 today, and 43 frigates, compared to just 7 today.”
“In 1982, the Royal Navy deployed the Falkland’s task force, which was 2 aircraft carriers, 8 destroyers, and 16 frigates, plus an assortment of other vessels, and still managed to fulfill its other worldwide obligations.”
“If the Falklands kicked off today, the Royal Navy could at a stretch deploy one aircraft carrier, two destroyers, and five frigates, but only if it stripped all active vessels from all other duties worldwide.”
“If you look hard enough, you will find that another class of warship is actually doing most of the work in 2026, while the bigger warships remain largely out of action, the River-class Offshore Patrol Vessels.”
“At a little under 2,000 tons each, this class are really corvettes or sloops, the type of small warship that existed in earlier Royal Navy fleets, but they don’t have that designation today due to not being armed with anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, just guns.” That sounds like a political rather than military decision.
“Retrofitting these vessels might be a good idea to make them more like little frigates or corvettes to fill out the Navy’s pool of warships. Currently, there are seven vessels in service, and, incredibly all seven are currently operational. From protecting the seas around Britain to protecting the Falkland Islands and also deploying to the South Pacific, these insufficiently armed vessels are really doing the jobs of frigates and destroyers, which is an alarming indictment of the state of the Royal Navy in 2026.”
“A tiny navy with lots of commitments and too few ships and personnel, crippled by decades of political mismanagement, and now barely able to send to sea a single submarine or destroyer, let alone a fleet.”
It’s been a sad decline for what was once the biggest and best navy in the world. But Britain’s political class has made the decision that they were rather hand out generous welfare benefits to unassimilated Muslim illegal aliens than fund an adequate navy…
Another would-be Trump assassin dirtnapped, Mexico burns, more leftwing fraud uncovered, disturbing news of taxpayer-funded child mutilation here and horrific rape overlooked in the UK, and some financial heavyweights are shedding their irrational social justice policies. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
I went out and early voted today, and voting was very heavy. (I was planning on going Thursday, but that the day the guy dropped off my new (used) dryer.) Because of redistricting, no voter registration cards were sent out, so just vote using one of several forms of official ID. (Gee, what an easy system! Just think how easy things could be if congressional Republicans made that their top priority!)
An armed man was shot and killed by the Secret Service in the early hours of the morning after unlawfully entering the secure perimeter at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Austin Tucker Martin, 21, was holding a shotgun and a fuel can as he tried to enter Trump’s Palm Beach residence near the north side around 1.30am on Sunday, the Secret Service said.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were in Washington, DC, last night attending the Governors’ Dinner.
Two Secret Service agents and one deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office ordered him to drop his weapons.
Things got pretty spicy in Mexico. “Mexico Kills a Drug Kingpin, and the Cartels Set the Country Ablaze.”
The good news is the cartel kingpin, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, a.k.a. “El Mencho,” is no longer with us. From the New York Times:
Mexican security forces on Sunday captured Mr. Oseguera in Tapalpa, a town of about 20,000, in the western coastal state of Jalisco, where his cartel was founded and based, the government said in a statement. Mr. Oseguera was injured in the operation and died while in transport to Mexico City for medical attention, according to the government. At least nine other cartel members were killed.
Reuters reports the raid was a result of combining U.S. intelligence-gathering with Mexican law enforcement:
The U.S. official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not offer further details on any information that the U.S.-military-led task force may have offered Mexican authorities. The official stressed the raid itself was a Mexican military operation.
A former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity without referring specifically to the task force, said the U.S. compiled a detailed target package for El Mencho and provided it to the Mexican government for its operation.
This detailed dossier included information provided by U.S. law enforcement and U.S. intelligence, the former official said.
The former official added El Mencho was very high, if not at the top, of a list of U.S. targets in Mexico.
Virginia Democrats are advancing two bills to extend deadlines for receiving and counting mail-in absentee ballots several days after Election Day.
Delegate Adele McClure and State Senator Barbara Favola, who represent Arlington, have introduced companion bills, HB 82 and SB 58, which will extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots in Virginia from noon to 5 p.m. on the third day after Election Day, reported ARL Now.
These bills are being presented as the White House seeks to curb voter fraud in Democrat-run states, particularly in regard to mail-in voting, which President Donald Trump claims is prone to widespread fraud.
Trump has vowed to sign an executive order to eliminate mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, allowing absentee ballots only for the seriously ill and military personnel overseas to restore election integrity.
“Mail-in ballots are corrupt. You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots,” Trump said on social media.
McClure and Favola said that their legislation to allow mail-in ballots to be counted well after the election will address delays caused by the U.S. Postal Service.
In June, a Pennsylvania woman appeared in federal court in connection with a $1 million-plus home care fraud scheme. Hemal Patel was charged with wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to violate the federal anti-kickback statute. The 59-year-old Bucks County resident, according to the U.S Attorney’s Office for Pennsylvania’s Eastern District, pocketed payments for referring patients to home care agencies. Patel and others schemed to fraudulently bill Medicaid for ghost home care services.
The scam targeted Pennsylvania’s Community HealthChoices, which uses Medicaid funds to pay for home- and community-based personal assistance services for individuals with disabilities to help keep them out of nursing homes, according to court filings. Patel was one of hundreds of people charged in the Department of Justice’s National Health Care Fraud Takedown, the largest sweep of its kind covering some $14.6 billion in intended Medicaid losses.
Payouts to personal assistance services have ballooned nationally. Between 2018 and 2024, Medicaid cash in the category grew by 144 percent, from $9.6 billion to almost $23.5 billion. But payments have absolutely exploded in Pennsylvania — by more than 10,000 percent over the period, according to an analysis of new data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The massive data dump, reviewed by public spending tracker Open the Books, shows Medicaid-funded payments to Pennsylvania’s personal assistance services shot up from $5.6 million in 2018 to $583 million in 2024.
More homeless industrial complex fraud: “S.F. Homeless Nonprofit CEO Charged with Nine Felonies for Allegedly Misappropriating over $1M in Public Funds.”
The former CEO of a San Francisco-based homelessness nonprofit was charged Monday with nine felony counts after allegedly misappropriating more than $1.2 million in public funds.
Gwendolyn Westbrook, 71, is the former CEO of the United Council of Human Services. Charges against Westbrook include misappropriation of public funds, grand theft, and filing four years of false tax returns.
According to prosecutors, Westbrook misappropriated the $1.2 million through unauthorized payments to herself, improper cash withdrawals, and fraudulent reimbursements from 2019 to 2023. Prosecutors also claim Westbrook directly stole $91,000 from the United Council of Human Services.
Things that make you go “Hmmmm“: “FBI Raids Los Angeles School District Headquarters, Home of Superintendent.”
Federal agents executed search warrants Wednesday at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the home of Superintendent Albert Carvalho, significantly escalating the Trump administration’s fight against the nation’s second-largest school district.
The FBI conducted the raids on the 24th floor of LAUSD’s headquarters and Carvalho’s home in LA’s San Pedro neighborhood, a vibrant waterfront area, according to Fox 11. The nature of the investigation is currently unclear. LAUSD and Carvalho have yet to address the situation.
FBI agents could be seen going in and out of Carvalho’s home carrying items in boxes. Carvalho has been LAUSD superintendent since 2022 and was re-appointed to the role this past September. The affidavit for the search warrants are currently under seal, so it is unknown if Carvalho is personally a target of the investigation.
Last week, the Trump administration moved to intervene in a civil rights lawsuit against LAUSD for alleged racial discrimination tied to a program that prioritized funding for schools with lower amounts of white students. The lawsuit was brought by the 1776 Foundation, a conservative group active in K-12 education policy and school board races.
The district has also clashed with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement efforts in the area.
The defining issue of our country, powerfully visualized in 20 seconds:
“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens not illegal aliens."
Our inquiry panel has heard extensive and deeply distressing testimony from a survivor detailing prolonged and extreme abuse, exploitation, and trafficking beginning in childhood and continuing over a number of years across multiple locations in the United Kingdom.
The panel wishes to place on record that we regard this testimony with the utmost seriousness. The survivor has provided detailed, consistent, and specific evidence over an extended period of engagement with our inquiry. She will remain anonymous and she is safe. She has made it abundantly clear that she wants the country to know her story. This is her decision, and her decision alone. Elements of her account have been independently corroborated through presented documentation and vast evidence.
The panel is also aware of additional material and supporting information that strengthens the credibility of the survivor’s account and warrants urgent and comprehensive investigation by the relevant statutory authorities.
Given the gravity of the allegations, we have thought long and hard about whether to release the following information. We believe, as does she, that the public deserves to know the truth about the rape gangs.
The survivor’s violent gang rape and abuse began at the age of 12, she was raped multiple times per day over many years. The rapes were filmed and were used as blackmail. The survivor has stated that multiple police officers were active perpetrators – money was exchanged openly and this destroyed her ability and willingness to seek help. Police vehicles were used to traffic her and some of the abuse events were called “cop nights.”
The extreme pain she suffered included filmed torture in places called ‘red rooms’.
The torture included waterboarding and strangulation by rope. Distressingly, she was raped by a dog, filmed, and forced to rewatch the footage as the men placed bets.
The co-ordination of this specific type of abuse was predominantly perpetrated by Pakistani-heritage men.
Also this:
Our rape gang inquiry is only just starting to scratch the surface – there is so very much evil among us.
Do not kid yourselves. This is happening, now. Today. All over Britain. It is an organised criminal network of rape and slavery.
China’s fishing fleets are clearing the sea out. “The People’s Republic of China (PRC), having drained as much as she can from nearby seas, has decided to strip-mine life from the most remote corners of our shared oceans.”
So scared of your own population and your inability to keep them fed and employed ashore—today—that you will knowingly strip mine life from the world’s oceans, regardless of its impact on everyone—tomorrow.
Once an ecosystem is ripped out from its foundation, there is no guarantee it can recover. They don’t care. That will be someone else’s problem. No one will do anything, as they either lack the will, or they have been bought off.
How remote and how far down the food chain is the PRC willing to go? The wholesale harvest of krill in the Antartic is as difficult to imagine as it is to see, and as such is hard to get people’s attention. It is a foundation species. If you harvest it below a certain level, the entire ecosystem will collapse.
What they are doing in South American, though?
Here’s your video.
The red are Chinese fishing boats crossing to the other side of the Pacific, rushing right up to Peru’s EEZ, before switching off their AIS and entering Peru’s territorial waters. They are doing the same off the Galapagos and Argentina.
Sounds like China is the actual existential threat to global life greens liked to claim global warming was. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
How many fingers, Winston? “Canadian tribunal fines man $750,000 for believing there are only two genders.”
“Deep penetration: Ukrainians spearhead Russian defenses in Huliaipole.”
The Ukrainian offensive near Huliaipole has developed a second axis, retaking still more territory from the Russian invaders.
This is a glorious story: Ukrainian covert cyber units set up a sting to secretly restore Starlink access to Russian units…as long as they “submit detailed information, including personal data, terminal identifiers, and geolocation coordinates.” Results: 2420 Russian control points droned and bombed.
I suppose I need to cover the weirdness of the 31st Texas congressional district race. “Congressman John Carter Faces Valentina Gomez, ‘ShamWow Guy’ in Crowded GOP Primary.” Carter was formerly my congressman until the 2020 redistricting.
Congressman John Carter (R-TX-31) is facing nine Republican challengers in the 2026 primary election for his seat, which he has held for 23 years.
Some of the contenders in the Republican primary have entered the race with unique backgrounds — including Offer Vince Shlomi, also known as the “Shamwow Guy” infomercial pitchman from the early 2000s, and social media sensation Valentina Gomez Noriega, formerly a candidate for Missouri secretary of state and best known for her unfiltered, brash tone in short videos posted online.
Other candidates in the crowded running include U.S. Army veterans William Abel, Steve Dowell, and Elvis Lossa; physician David Berry; Ed Ewald; entrepreneur and millionaire Abhiram Garapati; and businessman Raymond Hamden.
Shlomi has garnered nationwide attention after announcing his bid for CD 31, due to his familiar infomercial branding and signature voice. His campaign motto is “make America grow some balls again,” matching similar branding as seen from Gomez.
Carter is Texas’ third longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having been the first member elected to the seat following the district’s creation through redistricting after the 2000 census. Carter cites the September 11 terrorist attacks as an event that encouraged him to run for Congress in 2002, thus leaving his prior role as district judge for the 277th District Court in Williamson County.
Carter currently serves as a member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations while also serving on both the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee and the Defense Subcommittee.
He’s been endorsed for re-election by both President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott.
The top three fundraisers per the end-of-year campaign fiscal reports in the Republican primary were Carter, Gomez, and Garapati. Carter came in with $114,252 raised and reported $462,022 in cash on hand (COH). Gomez followed the incumbent with $56,175 in receipts and $22,196 in COH, while Garapti touted raising $30,000 with $39,000 in COH.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has admitted he had two affairs with Russian women while married to his now-ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, and issued a groveling apology for his links with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates, 70, told staffers at his foundation on Tuesday that he flew on a private plane with the disgraced financier and spent time with him in the US and abroad, but didn’t participate in any crime, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates said in the town hall meeting. “To be clear, I never spent any time with the victims, the women around him.”
He lied about one thing. How do we know he’s not lying about all of it?
Speaking of Epstein: “World Economic Forum boss quits after review of Epstein links.”
The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Borge Brende, has resigned after a review into his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The forum ordered an independent review into Brende over his ties to the disgraced financier following the release of Epstein files by the US Department of Justice.
Brende has acknowledged he dined with Epstein three times between 2018 and 2019 and communicated with him by email and text, but said he was “completely unaware” of his past criminal activity.
“Illinois official got more than $300K from trucking industry while his agency gave illegal licenses…Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat who is reportedly considering a run for Chicago mayor, is facing scrutiny over his role in improperly issuing CDL licenses after a series of high profile big rig crashes across the country.”
There were also fireworks after Middleton accused Roy of undermining a bill that would have imposed a national ban on transgender surgery for minors.
“Chip Roy had an amendment that would have allowed it to continue,” said Middleton. “It would have rewarded the transgender lobby; it would have rewarded Gavin Newsom and allowed these private transgender surgeries to continue in those blue states.”
Roy pushed back, saying the legislation was dead anyway but that his proposed amendment was to facilitate passage.
Days after the firm announced that they were scrapping DEI requirements for new board members, and six years after the death of George Floyd that ushered in institutionalized virtue-signaling, the bank’s head of DEI is leaving.
Megan Hogan, who’s been at the firm 12 years, is taking her shtick to Morgan Stanley according to Business Insider, which Hogan confirmed via email, telling the outlet that Morgan Stanley had extended “an amazing opportunity” to her in talent development.
She will report to Morgan’s head of talent development, Susan Reid, the firm’s global head of talent, and will begin in April.
The move comes after Goldman’s hard pivot away from DEI following Donald Trump’s second term – retooling its diversity program, known as One Million Black Women (oh god), a multibillion-dollar commitment to invest in black businesswomen and nonprofit leaders.
The bank also ended its requirement that companies it takes public have diverse boards, and stopped highlighting specific DEI targets in annual reports.
Hogan is being replaced by Lauren Uranker, another managing director who has been with the firm for 14 years who will become the new sole head of talent, development, engagement and management, according to the report.
But it’s not all good news.
Her mandate will be to concentrate on the transition to AI-supported work, team growth, and finding ways to keep top talent from fleeing.
Meet Karl Jacobson, the now-former police chief of New Haven, Connecticut. For virtually his entire career in police administration, he’s been a dedicated crusader against the pesky Second Amendment we mere mortals dare to exercise.
For years, this guy was a face of “gun violence” prevention, cozying up to anti-gun groups like Connecticut Against Gun Violence. He preached about treating gun ownership like a public health crisis, all while pushing programs to disarm the little people under the guise of safety. Because guns are icky and he has his.
But lo and behold, safety crusader Karl has been slapped with first-degree larceny charges for (allegedly) swiping almost a hundred grand in police department funds. Some of the money was for earmarked for…wait for it…youth programs for “at risk” kids. Thanks, Karl.
As with many of these big theft cases, there’s usually sex, drugs, or gambling behind the embezzlement. In this case, our fearless police chief was funding a gambling habit, racking up literally millions in wagers. Now the gun control crusader has been arrested, has resigned in disgrace and is facing prison.
Netflix isn’t getting Warner Brothers, as the Paramount Skydance offer was deemed superior. This is probably good news from both political and artistic standpoints, and may give movie theaters chances to survive longer.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that his office has reached a settlement with investment giant Vanguard, resolving part of Texas’ multistate lawsuit accusing major asset managers of manipulating the coal market through environmental investment strategies.
The agreement marks the first settlement in the case Paxton filed in 2024 against BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, in which he alleged the firms conspired to suppress coal production in pursuit of environmental goals—actions he argued drove up electricity costs for consumers.
Under the deal, Vanguard will pay $29.5 million to the participating states and adopt new restrictions on how it uses its shareholder influence. Paxton’s office said Vanguard agreed not to pressure companies to adopt environmental, social, or governance (ESG) policies that could reduce profitability, and pledged not to direct corporate strategy or threaten to divest holdings to force policy changes.
A win for investors and energy sanity.
Here’s a case like Breaking Bad if Walter White were a Texas Tech supply chain professor dealing fentanyl. “Daniel Taylor, age 50, has been charged with federal crimes and is no longer employed by the university.”
Rural Texas residents claim that a Muslim city is being built in their backyard and accuse local officials of being very secretive about the deal.
Kaufman, Texas, residents didn’t think much of it when Kaufman Solar LLC bought a massive parcel of land in 2022. However, now that a mysterious buyer from the Middle East is looking to purchase an estimated 2,000 acres of land right next door to the planned solar farm to establish a sustainable city, they are worried about the impact.
Snip.
The Kaufman County Commissioner Court meeting Jan. 20 confirms that a buyer, through a Dallas, Texas, law firm, is seeking to purchase the land, contingent on the county approving three new municipal water districts for a potential sustainable city. The lawyer verified that the potential developer is SEE Holding, a UAE-based, privately held global holding group headquartered in Dubai, apparently focused on sustainability and spearheading a net-zero emissions future.
Republican Rep. Lance Gooden also told the Daily Caller that the buyer is based in Dubai, which he says raises serious concerns that need to be addressed before any approval for the city is potentially granted.
Right now the “Islamic City” aspect is all hearsay, but it does look, at the very least, a little funny…
Given the Epstein-based charges against Prince Andrew, Mark Felton examines his service in the Falklands campaign to determine if he actually came under fire and served honorably. The answer to both seems to be yes.
Good: Richard Hammond drives a 3,000 horsepower electric hypercar. Bad: It’s made in China. Ball’s in your court, Elon…
In the midst of debate in America and Europe over European adequately funding their NATO defense obligations, historian and YouTuber Mark Felton has put up a couple of videos that question the United Kingdom’s commitment to fielding an adequate military.
First up: The Navy with more Admirals than Warships
“New US president Donald Trump has made it very clear that America’s NATO allies must increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP in order to shoulder more of the burden of their own defense.”
“This is particularly pertinent in my country, Great Britain, which has seen defense spending decline massively over the past three decades, from 4.1% in 1990 to only 2.3% today, reflected in 30 plus years of shrinkage and reductions, but plenty of fresh conflicts to manage with less equipment, less investment and less personnel.”
“The Royal Navy is a brilliant example of the managed decline of Britain’s Armed Forces…presenting a hollowed out shadow of the force that, even in 1982, at the height of the Cold War, still managed, on its own, a brilliant Naval campaign in the Faulklands those days are well and truly over.”
“In 2025, the Royal Navy has 62 commissioned ships, but only 25 of those vessels are real warships designed to fight battles at sea. The rest are lightly armed patrol vessels, transport ships, and survey vessels and so on.”
“Breaking this figure of 25 warships down, the Royal Navy currently has two aircraft carriers, six guided missile destroyers, eight frigates and a grand total of just two classes of submarine totaling nine vessels.”
“But the Royal Navy also has 40 serving officers at the rank of Rear Admiral and above.”
“The personnel strength of the Royal Navy in 2025 is, including reserves, only 32,225 men and women. This means that there is an admiral for every 805 sailors.”
“Britain can no longer deploy large numbers of warships to sea, as we simply don’t have large numbers of warships. What we do have are a small number of warships, with quite a number of them currently in refit, mothball or lacking sufficient crew due to the dire state of Royal Navy recruitment.” Sounds similar to U.S. armed forces recruitment woes under Biden.
Only two destroyers are currently ready for active duty.
“How would our Royal Navy cope in the event of another Falklands crisis? For example, in 1982, the Falkland’s task force consisted of two aircraft carriers, eight destroyers, 16 frigates, and six submarines, plus many other Royal Navy vessels and auxiliaries, and still the Navy maintained its presence around the rest of the world.”
“[With] the current number of ships and their readiness, I think we’d struggle to put together a task force even half as big, and even then we’d have to send virtually every surface asset we have stripping vessels from all other tasks globally.”
Next up: The Army with more Horses than Tanks.
“2012. Number of main battle tanks: 334. Number of horses: 501. 2015. Number of MBTs: 227. Number of horses 494. 2024. Number of MBTs: 213. Number of horses: 497.”
“The number of main battle tanks in, this case the Challenger 2, has been steadily reduced over the past decade while the number of horses in the Army has remained constant at slightly under 500 animals.”
In 1991, Britain had 1,200 MBTs.
“In 2025 investigations by journalists and the Ministry of Defence’s own figures revealed that, despite the conflict in Ukraine, a very tank heavy war, Britain’s armored backbone is consistently decreasing year on year. We currently have 213 Challenger 2s, but only about 157 actually combat ready, or able to be activated within 30 days for combat deployment.”
Naturally the horses are used extensively in ceremonial duties, the details of which I’m skipping over.
“The British Army is the smallest it’s been for centuries, reduced by endless amalgamations and cuts numbering today only 78,500 personnel, plus just over 25,000 in the volunteer reserves.” That’s half the size of Japan’s armed forces.
“The British army is now too small to effectively perform its tasks.”
By the way, the U.S. army now has 176 horses…and 4,650 Abrams tanks.
Tune in next week, when Felton will no doubt note that the Royal Air Force has more tubas than aircraft…
Welcome to the final week of traditional summer. Of course, it used to be that everything (school, football, the new TV year, etc.) started after Labor Day Weekend, but that’s not the case any more…
Oh, and he wants to give the Falkland Islands to Argentina. Why, it’s almost as if the hard left yearns for nothing so much as undoing every conservative foreign policy triumph out of spite…
And he also called Osama Bin Laden’s death “a tragedy.”
Margaret Thatcher has died. With Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, she made up the trio of moral leaders in the West who understood what a great evil communism was when so many wanted to appease it, paving the way for the West’s ultimate triumph in the Cold War. Her free market polices reinvigorated a strike-wracked UK economy many thought moribund. She arrested the British military’s decline and retook the Falkland Islands while Tory “wets” were quitely pushing to let them go.
She was hugely influential, smart, capable, and exactly the sort of leader the UK needed in the dark days of the late 1970s. The UK shall not see her like again.
