Us criticizing them is pretty funny considering their capabilities are still substantially greater than ours.
What do we have for a navy again? Oh 4 subs that basically don’t work, 12 frigates which are in very questionable shape and past their intended lifespan, a leased resupply ship, some helicopters which are of dodgy quality and potentially worse than what it replaced, and we lack the bodies to even run most our stuff.
Those who live in glass houses…
Well it's an apple vs oranges comparison...
The UK is a nuclear power with a nuclear deterrent constantly at sea & has 2 aircraft carriers to help execute on their foreign policy (whatever that may be these days)
The British Army alone is larger than the entire CAF reg force.
So yes, they
can operate at a strategic level that we simply can't & have capabilities that we don't.
...
That being said...
The RN's current readiness seems pretty low, despite what their published numbers seem to indicate.
That isn't so much a criticism as it is a simple observation.
I realize they are in the midst of recapitalizing their fleet also (9 ships under construction at the moment?) and how things seem today aren't necessarily reflective of their overall capability in general.
But the fact is they didn't have any ships available to deploy to Cyprus that had the capabilities needed (even a Type 23 frigate would have been able to engage whatever errant drones that flew towards their facilities there) while other European nations with similar fleet sizes
were able to. (Re Italy, France)
And as a country that is
entirely surrounded by water it just seems curious they have so few maritime platforms ready to go.
...
As of December, 2025, the MoD claims that just over 50% of their surface fleet is in an enhanced state of readiness, and their surface fleet stood at 53 ships. But in reality they didn't have a single platform available - old or new, to respond to an unexpected crisis.
Their entire attack submarine fleet is tied up, and only a single nuclear missile submarine is deployed as part of their year round deterrence.
No air defence destroyers were available. Apparently no Type 23's were available.
Neither carrier was immediately available
(Understandable, you can't just yank a carrier & air wing off a shelf and flick a switch...but they literally JUST came back from their tour which was intended to show off their new capabilities. Not to mention we're going into Day 16 here...)
(I'm not throwing rocks really. Just pointing out what is. I know we have our own issues, but this isn't a great look for an island country desperate to show off their active middle power ambitions)
I don't know why I didn't realize this before now, but this really starting to feel like just the Americans version of the vaunted "3 day special military operation".
What's wrong with still fighting the enemy on Day 1241 of Putin's 3 Day Special Military Operation?
According to fictional Vlad, "everything is going exactly as we planned..."
said in Putin's voice
(I dunno wtf I'm even saying right now, just ignore me for a while lol)
And what
And what happened in September of 2008?
Hint, the collapse of a number of large US financial institutions and the crash of the stock market….
But what happened back in 2003 when America shut Iraqi oil production down?
Prices went WAAAAYYYYY UP!! And plenty of people at Chevron, Exxon, British Petroleum, etc got RICH RICH RICH...
I have been harping on my roomie/best friend to invest in oil for the last 2 weeks - he's FINALLY listened to me
Let me rephrase- all of the population of the UK is responsible.
Just like all Canadians are responsible for our current abysmal state.
100%
www.latimes.com
www.instagram.com
www.independent.co.uk
www.cnbc.com
