{"id":864913,"date":"2026-04-01T13:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/864913\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:18:18","slug":"us-jibes-at-royal-navy-are-uncomfortable-because-they-have-substance-royal-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/864913\/","title":{"rendered":"US jibes at Royal Navy are uncomfortable because they have substance | Royal Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he singled out the \u201cbig bad Royal Navy\u201d in a recent press update on the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s sarcastic comment was only the latest in a long line of jibes against the capabilities and readiness of the British Royal Navy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But less political figures have also warned of the perilous state of the UK\u2019s naval warfare force \u2013 with the First Sea Lord, the highest-ranking officer on active duty of the Royal Navy, sounding alarm bells about its preparedness.<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump<\/a> has dismissed the UK\u2019s aircraft carriers as toys, compared with their American counterparts. He reportedly told UK prime minister Keir Starmer to not \u201cbother\u201d sending them to the Gulf.<\/p>\n

In perhaps more scathing comments, Trump told the Daily Telegraph: \u201cYou don\u2019t even have a navy. You\u2019re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegseth and Trump\u2019s comments should be viewed through the political lens \u2013 both are under pressure at home and abroad for launching an offensive against Iran that many say has no clear motive objective. Starmer \u2013 like many European counterparts \u2013 has refused to be drawn into the conflict and Trump is clearly angered.<\/p>\n

But the uncomfortable truth for the UK prime minister is that many British lawmakers and military officials and experts suggest that there is some substance behind the US administration\u2019s political barbs.<\/p>\n

On 10 March, the House of Commons Defence Committee expressed grave concerns over whether the Navy has the \u201ccapacity and resilience\u201d to respond to the crisis in the Middle East. Just last month, the former general Richard Barrons, one of three members of Labour\u2019s strategic defence review team, said the \u201carmed forces we have ended up with at the end of the post-cold war era \u2013 a military right-sized for an era free of threat\u201d was behind our lack of military readiness.<\/p>\n

A recent report by the Center for European Policy Analysis, a US-based non-profit, described the Navy as being \u201con course for national embarrassment\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most serious intervention has come from Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the First Sea Lord, who has admitted the Royal Navy is not yet ready for war.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet<\/a> on Monday, he said: \u201cAccording to the defence investigation that was completed last year, I will be ready for war by the end of this decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to clarify if this meant the navy was not \u201cready for war\u201d at present, he confirmed he did not think the navy was.<\/p>\n

The flurry of criticism was initially triggered by what critics said was the slow deployment of the first British warship to the coast of Cyprus after the US and Israel attacked Iran. It took more than three weeks to get HMS Dragon to the eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

At the end of the cold war, the UK had 51 destroyers and frigates after a period during which Britain spent 3.2% of its GDP on defence. The number had halved to 25 by 2007 and is now at just 13, with much of that smaller fleet ageing. The UK spends 2.4% of GDP on defence, a figure that Labour has promised to lift to 2.5% by April 2027.<\/p>\n

Britain had maintained four minehunters and a mothership in Bahrain for 20 years, in the belief that Iran might, in a crisis such as now, try to mine the Gulf and the strait of Hormuz. But the final three were removed in the past year, two to be retired, including HMS Middleton, which was towed back to the UK in January.<\/p>\n

The government says that its Atlantic Bastion programme, a UK-led defence initiative unveiled in December, aims to transform the Royal Navy into a hybrid navy, integrating autonomous vessels, AI-enabled sensors, warships and aircraft to safeguard the security of our fleet.<\/p>\n

An MoD spokesperson said: \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cAs the First Sea Lord has repeatedly said, the Navy is absolutely ready to fight, including on advanced operations above and below the sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur nuclear deterrent protects us every moment of every day and Royal Navy personnel are deployed across the world keeping Britain secure at home and strong abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is providing a generational increase in defence spending, with an extra \u00a3270bn across this parliament, ensuring no return to the hollowed out armed forces of the past, and the Strategic Defence Review sets out our path to increasing warfighting readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite refusing to be drawn into the conflict in Iran, which is politically unpopular in the UK, increased UK military spending amid global uncertainty has reportedly been accepted by Starmer and at last summer\u2019s Nato summit he agreed to lift defence budgets by about \u00a330bn to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.<\/p>\n

But unless Starmer completely changes tack on Iran, it is unlikely that the jabs and jibes from the increasingly isolated Americans will end any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he singled out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-864913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116329650963825457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}