Episode 682: Seablindness, from the Mother Country to her Children

The “Five-Eyes Nations” is the intelligence-sharing partnership that for decades served as shorthand for the core of the Anglosphere; Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Any quick look at the globe will tell you that, with slight considerations given to the USA and Canada, all these are island nations. They also share a history and baseline culture deeply connected to the sea.

For the vast majority of their histories, it was assumed the military leaders, politicians, and the general population understood that they were island nations and that their security and prosperity depended on a strong navy and civilian maritime commerce.

As we’ve seen with the recent events in the Red Sea where the once great Royal Navy could barely provide the HMS Diamond to the international effort, Australia was a no show, and no one even considered ships from Canada or New Zealand - what happened?

Focused primarily on the core of the issue with the Royal Navy, our guest for the full hour to discuss the scourge of seablindness will be Dr James WE Smith, the Laughton-Corbett Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

He completed his PhD in ‘War and Strategic Studies’ that focused on studying the organization of defense and defense unification in the UK and US and how that impacts strategy and strategic thought. This has complemented a broader research effort which has taken nearly fifteen years about the devaluation of sea, navies and maritime strategy in nations and strategic thought from seabed to space.