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UK's 'sea soldiers' readied for a new world disorder
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| 22 August 2001 |
By JNI Reporter Philip Sen
With the separation of their likely operational environment from the home region, the UK's armed forces have now re-awakened to the unique military value afforded by their amphibious capabilities. While the US Marine Corps (USMC) is still in a league of its own in terms of financial and technological investment, the UK's Royal Marines and their grouping, 3 Commando Brigade (3 Cdo Bde), maintain a worthy 'second place' despite the fact that just 20 years ago the very existence of the corps was under grave threat. Then came the Falklands (Malvinas) conflict, and the rest is history.
Although far smaller and leaner than its US counterpart, the 6,700-strong 3 Cdo Bde is the only other amphibious formation capable of mounting an independent amphibious assault and lodgement, a capability that has recently been proven in peace support operations (PSOs) in Sierra Leone: a decisive employment of the 'implied use of force'. With similar joint projection of forces from the sea to the land set to become the norm, UK amphibious forces must now adapt to the 21st century's unpredictable mixture of potential high- and low-intensity war, PSOs and Operations Other Than War (OOTW) scenarios. Add to this today's predilections for force protection and these circumstances mean shedding the Cold War ethic and looking to new ways of approaching the post-modern era's military obligations.
Commandant General of the Royal Marines (CGRM) Maj Gen Robert Fry is overseeing this renaissance of the UK's amphibious policy. "We've come through quite a long period… almost 15 years of sustained debate… about the continuing existence of a national amphibious capability. This was a debate that went right the way up to and including the period of the Strategic Defence Review [SDR]," he says. "I think that we survived all that scrutiny, and within SDR we got a very clear endorsement for the continuing existence of a national amphibious capability at formation level."
The 1998 SDR, coupled with the Royal Navy's (RN's) new operational concept of The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations, has laid the ground for an amphibious renaissance. The SDR gave a clear commitment to: maintaining a brigade-sized landing force as a pivotal element of the UK/Netherlands amphibious force (UK/NLAF); continued existing investment in specialist amphibious shipping; and making optimum use of existing platforms in a joint training environment. Most crucially for the Royal Marines, the SDR pledged to "expand the role of the amphibious force as a key element within an enhanced maritime capability, in order to conduct and support land operations with other services and allies". This endorsement has now begun to bear fruit in the shape of a variety of new platforms and systems designed to complement 3 Cdo Bde's role into the new millennium, and the Brigade is also beginning a major revision of its force structure and doctrine.
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