Page 565 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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against Syria has illustrated. Even a limited form of intervention is difficult to sell
to the public. In this context the Navy continues to emphasise the utility of flexible
and mobile joint maritime forces able to project limited power overseas without a large
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footprint ashore. This continues to cause debate and controversy as the government
seeks to identify priorities in a time of financial hardship and the three services compete
for resources. Only the most generous commentator could suggest that they have made a
good job of this. The two carriers approved in 1998 are slowly approaching completion,
although the muddle over their design, air group and role might offer to future historians
a perfect case study of incompetence within defence planning. On a more positive note,
the 2011 campaign against Libya provided yet another illustration of what maritime
forces can achieve in limited conflicts. In this case they did so in cooperation with land-
based air-power, creating the kind of synergies that the Royal Navy of the 1960s described
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in the JSSF. If we are indeed entering an ‘era of declining access’ such capabilities are
likely to remain important. The JSSF, or its equivalent, would offer options as useful to
a medium power in the twenty-first century as they were to the British in the 1960s. It
remains to be seen whether these options will be taken.

30 ‘Cameron loses crucial vote on military intervention in Syria’, The Guardian, 30 Aug 2013 available online at
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2013/aug/30/cameron-loses-syria-vote-video
31 For example, see the Future Maritime Operational Concept, 2007 available online at http://www.da.mod.uk/
colleges/jscsc/courses/RND/supporting-documents/20080122_FMOC07_U_DCDCIMAPPS.pdf/view
32 Geoffrey Till and Martin Robson, UK Air-Sea Integration in Libya 2011: A successful blueprint for the
future?, Corbett Paper No.12, July 2013.