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.