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5 hours ago
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The Royal Navy of the future will be dominated by robots, drones and uncrewed vessels, leading chiefs to conclude there is no need to try to recruit extra sailors as part of the forthcoming defence review.
Adm Sir Ben Key, the first sea lord, believes the navy has to focus on recruitment and retention rather than seeking more personnel numbers because crew sizes are inevitably falling as military technology evolves.
Though a fully automated warship may be a long way off, last month the navy tested an uncrewed inflatable rib in the Solent for a week. The Pacific 24, used for interceptions and rescues, autonomously carried out a set of preprogrammed tasks during rough seas and a period of snowfall.
Naval insiders acknowledge that the UK’s future maritime force will be “a hybrid of crewed and uncrewed systems” and that those without sailors or crew would at some stage be “likely to be the default”.
During its war with Russia, Ukraine, a country that began the conflict without a navy, has repeatedly shown it can inflict damage on Russia’s Black Sea fleet using uncrewed sea drones, which have been able to sink enemy warships and successfully attack the naval base at Sevastopol.
All parts of the armed forces are in the process of putting forward final bids to a five-year strategic defence review. Though the review team is expected to complete its report within the Ministry of Defence in February, the government has only said the exercise will conclude in the “first half” of 2025.
Naval recruitment has missed its target each year for the past five years, as has the army. The number of trained sailors and Royal Marine commandos total 28,125, according to government figures, below a target of 30,450, which was set in the last two defence reviews in 2015 and 2021.
“We can ask for all the numbers we like but the government don’t keep fully trained sailors in the cupboard ready for issue,” one insider said, acknowledging that the navy’s spending bids had to remain focused.
An report in the Times indicated that the British army also does not expect to increase in size as a result of the strategic review. Troop numbers are expected to fall below 70,000, under the current target level of 73,000, to levels not seen for about 300 years.
When he was in opposition, the Labour defence secretary, John Healey, repeatedly criticised the then Conservative government for allowing personnel numbers to fall.
Defence sources also told the Times that one alternative could be to create an extra reserve “homeland defence force” for deployment in the UK in the event a major international crisis meant the regular army and reserves had to fight abroad.
The review takes place against a backdrop of wider pressure on the public finances, caused by rising borrowing costs – while the incoming US president, Donald Trump, is demanding that Nato members dramatically increase defence spending to 5% of GDP.
UK defence spending is now at 2.33% of GDP and Labour has only promised to lift it to 2.5% at some point in the future. But it is unclear how far Trump’s comments are serious, not least because US defence spending, while the largest in Nato in cash terms, is at 3.38%.
A government spokesperson said leaks relating to the defence review were “purely speculation”. The spokesperson described the UK’s armed forces as “among the best in the world” and said ministers would announce a path to lifting defence spending to 2.5% “in spring”.
