The First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference 2018: Maritime Strategy in the Twenty-First Century

After a long strategic holiday, the security community is once again engaged with maritime strategy. As the opening remarks of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson made clear, a changing threat environment has made sea power a focal issue to a degree that has not been matched in the recent past. Within this context, the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference represented an effort to bring together decision-makers and leaders from across the academic, military and think tank domains in order to provide a forum for cross-domain discussions regarding the future of sea power and the ramifications of a twenty-first century threat environment for maritime strategy.

Major observations from the conference include: 

• There has been a lack of analysis regarding the long-term future of naval warfare. A compelling narrative was lacking as to what the range of futures might look like, without immediate reference to legacy platforms.
• The absence of discussion regarding the mix of high and low warfare, and the efficacy of capital ships in an era dominated by information and technology was a significant concern.
• The inability to come to terms with potential trade-offs between efficiency and resilience in military industrial policy requires more work from government and industry.
• In common with discussions in the land environment, the aspirations for collaboration with industry in order to share scarce human resources was never grounded in sufficient detail to warrant optimism.