In accordance with Nelson’s timeless dictum, Britain’s armed forces are engaging the enemy more closely. Not the Queen’s enemies this time, but the only enemy that can threaten each

Service’s continued institutional survival: its rival armed Services. And this against a background where the two major political parties are vying for the electoral financial incontinence

award; billions are promised for everything from potholes to fixing the travails of the Waspi dispossessed, but if you can spot any cash being splashed on defence, you’re paying more

attention than me. The proximate cause seems to be a threat to reduce the army to a peacetime total of between 60,000 and 65,000, some way below the 2015 Conservative manifesto pledge of

better. But at least the Royal Navy and the British army can agree on one thing: their contempt for the Royal Air Force and a view that sees the future of military aviation invested in

pilotless drones rather than over-priced, over-indulged aircrew. So far, so normal. When not involved in wars of national survival or a little light liberal intervention, the armed forces

are seldom happier than when falling back on their traditional recreational pursuit of mutual defamation – all part of the Darwinian process of institutional advantage that every Service

chief knows their incumbency will be judged by. But rather than risk the charge of trivializing a serious business, perhaps it’s time to turn this article’s attention to a closer examination

of the issues, starting with those contentious aircraft carriers. An animated debate has been going on for some time about the pros and cons of carriers. Typically, this has been the

province of military specialist publications and websites, but, once _The Economist_ weighs in (November 16 edition), you know it’s entered the public realm and engages both economic policy

and national strategy. At $13 billion a copy, the latest generation of US fleet carrier could hardly be anything less. Yet even at the level of sophistication that comes with that price tag,

critics of carrier air point out that the _USS Gerald R Ford _is vulnerable to the latest generation of anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles that will be fired in land, air, surface and

sub surface salvoes at ranges that exceed the operating radius of the aircraft flying from the carrier and at speeds in excess of Mach 2. Indeed, an entire Anti-Access/Area Denial

operational architecture now integrates Russian and Chinese weapons, sensors and command facilities in space, on land, in the air, on and below the sea in order to preclude carrier

operations from areas like the South China and Baltic Seas. The advocates of carrier air will counter that the capabilities of the ships, submarines and aircraft making up the carrier task

force are up to the challenge, but at this level of investment an alright on the night approach to campaign decisive engagement might appear a little cavalier. Overall, and based on current

trends, it is difficult not to conclude that cost and technology will confer more advantage in the medium term on the side trying to deny sea access rather the side trying to gain it, and,

within specific geographies and at the highest levels of warfare intensity, a question mark must now be placed against the continuing utility of carrier air. Those with an eye to history

might be reminded of the loss of the _Repulse _and _Prince of Wales _– the pre-eminent capital ships of their day – in December 1941, described by Churchill as his darkest moment in the

entire Second World War. That describes the general condition; the British condition needs a little more elaboration. The Royal Navy has a highly developed sense of its own celebrity. As

inheritor of the Nelsonic tradition, guarantor of imperial power and the military instrument that supplied Britain and throttled Germany in successive world wars that is entirely justified.

As with other leading navies, it has regarded aircraft carriers as a matter not only of military utility but also institutional and national prestige and it felt the loss of the _Invincible

_Class carriers – along with the_ Harrier_ aircraft they operated – acutely. So when naval ambition and pork barrel politics conspired to create the opportunity for a new generation of ships

it was seized with alacrity. But it was a decision that brought its own complications. Aircraft carriers can only operate alone in the most benign conditions and need the protection of the

destroyers, frigates, submarines and aircraft that comprise a standard carrier task group to operate in even a semi-permissive environment. By opting for two expensive carriers, the navy was

taking the calculated risk that room would have to be found in a pinched defence budget to provide the other platforms to make up a viable carrier group as well the ships and submarines

required to discharge its wider global responsibilities. Without the supporting ships, the capability risked the cardinal defence planning sin of incoherence; more than that, its critics

would claim, it came with the contingent risk of bending both the Royal Navy and wider defence out of shape by creating a top heavy, one-trick pony naval Service capable of either carrier or

wider constabulary operations, but not both at the same time. With only 19 destroyers and frigates in the wider Royal Navy inventory, that risk has now come home to roost and provoked the

creative response that, as British carriers would only ever be used in an allied context at the higher levels of warfare intensity, the escort role could be performed by other nations.

Creative but not convincing; other than the nuclear deterrent, aircraft carriers are the ultimate sovereign capability and sub-contracting their defence to itinerant foreigners rather

compromises the entire idea of nationalautonomy that grants them totemic significance. This interrogation of the case for carriers could equally have been made of the army’s next generation

of armoured fighting vehicle or the RAF’s stewardship of the F35 programme, all serve to illustrate a more general point: that the individual armed Services are slaves to equipment

programmes that grant a rear-view mirror image of national strategy. This has always been the case and always cheapened a debate that should have at its heart a clear-eyed view of national

interest and not single Service advantage. What has not always been the case is that a capacity to deliver bombs and bullets no longer defines national strategy. As the_ Fusion Doctrine_

authored in the National Security Council makes clear, kinetic military force is only one dimension of capability, and must take its place alongside cyber and information operations in order

to compete in a world where organised crime and climate change will pose as many problems as traditional inter-state conflict. While the armed Services indulge themselves in the pantomime

of briefing against each other in a parochial contest, a wider debate is underway about the place of military force within national strategy. By concentrating on the former they forfeit a

role in the latter and fail in a wider responsibility of making a mature – and indispensable – contribution to the defining security issue of the day. It’s time to abandon the rear view and

look ahead.