Royal Navy retires HMS Invincible

Johnathan Pearce links to information on the Royal Navy's impending retirement of the Falklands War veteran carrier HMS Invincible:

The oldest "mini-aircraft carrier" used by Britain's Royal Navy, HMS Invincible, is being retired from service. The vessel, from which Sea Harrier jets can operate — as well as helicopters — is more than 20 years old and was used in the Falklands War, among other theatres of operation.

As I said a while back, I have no ideological issue one way or the other about the exact composition of our armed forces, which must change with the times and respond to different threats to this country. Coming from a bit of a navy family myself and being an enthusiast over our island's naval history, I am nevertheless the first to realise that sentiment must not trump hard calculation when it comes to manning our defences. But it bothers me that our navy has been reduced to a level that makes independent military action by this country a logistical impossibility. It is probably quite unlikely that we could mount a Falklands-style operation on our own again.

I moan on about the state of Canada's remaining armed forces, but clearly the continued shrinkage isn't restricted to this country. The current British government is talking about building some new fleet carriers (bigger and more capable than Invincible), but no contracts have been awarded and there is no prospect of the new vessels joining the fleet for years yet.