Battle for the Atlantic

First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff General Sir Gwyn Jenkins delivered a speech at Admiralty House, Department of Naval Research

 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 

Thank you for joining us, and my thanks to the Department for Naval Research for organising today’s symposium.

As we gather here at Admiralty House, the importance of sea power will not be lost on any of you.   

That is because our history has been shaped by the sea.   

Because our prosperity, security and influence have for centuries depended on our ability to master it, protect what moves across it, and deny its advantages to those who threaten us.   

That’s why my speech today is focused on the Atlantic.   

Not simply as a vast body of water, or a theatre of past conflict, but as a foundation of Britain’s security. 

Eighty years ago, Britain and her allies fought the longest campaign of the Second World War at sea. 

It was fought by sailors, merchant seamen, aircrew, dockyard workers, engineers, scientists and codebreakers… 

By men and women who kept Britain alive as Europe fell under Nazi occupation.   

Convoys crossed a hostile ocean in atrocious weather, under air attack and constant U-boat threat.

They carried the food, fuel, raw materials, weapons and reinforcements on which our national survival depended.

In 1941, Churchill named this struggle the Battle of the Atlantic.  

It was the prospect of losing this Battle – not the Blitz, not the threat to the Empire in the East – that truly frightened him.   

As Churchill observed later in his memoirs, Britain’s ability to “carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive,” rested fundamentally “on our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports.” 

Churchill attached such significance to the Atlantic because he understood something important. 

The sea is not peripheral to Britain – it is existential. 

If those maritime arteries had been severed during the War…

Had Britain lost the Atlantic…  

Our life support would have been switched off.   

We would have struggled to cling on before the Americans joined the fight…

Europe would not have been liberated…

And victory would have been impossible.   

That does not diminish the role of our other services, whose contribution to the war was also vital.

Yesterday, we marked the 86th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, a campaign that denied the Luftwaffe air superiority and was also integral to our survival.

And as the son of an RAF crypto mechanic, I know how important air power was and remains to our nation.

But the point I am making is this: 

Without the Royal Navy and the RAF, who is to say whether Hitler would have abandoned Operation Sealion and switched his focus to invading Russia instead.

Who is to say whether the Army would have been able to campaign in North Africa, the Med or in mainland Europe.

Sea power not only sustained us during the War.

It arguably saved us.   

Lose the war at sea and you lose the war.

That was the warning of Admiral Pound, the First Sea Lord of the day – and it remains true now.

If we are to prevail in the Atlantic again, we must strengthen our warfighting readiness and rediscover what it means to be a maritime nation. 

Not because history repeats itself perfectly.

It doesn’t. 

But because the factors that made the Atlantic decisive eighty years ago remain decisive today.

The world may have changed beyond recognition – but our dependence on the Atlantic has only grown since.   

Almost all our trade moves by sea, and America remains by far our biggest trading partner.

Almost all our energy, food, raw materials and exports flow through maritime routes.

Beneath the waves, our nuclear deterrent protects the nation.

Undersea cables carry almost all data, transactions, and communications on which modern life depends.

In all these areas, the Atlantic is critical. 

During the war, the British people understood that a submarine attack on an allied convoy hundreds of miles away had direct consequences at home.

But today, we have reached a dangerous paradox… 

The sea, the Atlantic, has arguably never mattered more to Britain.

We are certainly much more reliant on it than we were in the 1930s.

And yet it has become increasingly invisible in the public’s mind. 

Supermarket shelves are filled, homes are heated, money moves instantly and the internet turbocharges our modern lives.

We have made this huge progress seem effortless.

But it was not effortless.

It was earned. It was fought for. We have continuously defended it.   

And if that defence fails, the consequences will be felt quickly in every household, every business and every department of state. 

Our adversaries understand that.   

They understand our dependence on the sea and the seabed.

They understand that the Atlantic is not empty space.

It is strategic terrain: the bridge between North America, Europe and with the world. 

The route through which NATO reinforcement would move.

The space through which our trade, energy, data and deterrence are sustained.

That is why the lessons of the War remain so important.

In the 1940s, the question was whether Britain could stay connected to the industrial, economic and military strength of North America and its Empire.

Today, in an age of missiles, cyber, space surveillance, and rapid technological change, we also face added challenges, because the seabed has become a new arena of contest.

Uncrewed systems are changing how we fight, advancing at a rate many nations are struggling to keep pace with.

Information is moving faster than it has ever moved before.

And yet, many of the fundamentals remain the same. 

The Atlantic is the same body of water…

We are still an island…

We still rely on it to move the goods, fuel and commodities we rely on…

And our most important alliances are still trans-Atlantic. 

That is why this issue reaches beyond uniform.

The Atlantic is a military, industrial, diplomatic and economic challenge – and an opportunity.

That is why we need a whole-nation effort if we are to continue to defend it. 

History shows us this.

The original Battle of the Atlantic was not won by one decisive action.

It was won by cumulative advantage: better intelligence, faster shipbuilding, improved tactics, effective air cover, convoy discipline and a willingness to learn under pressure.   

 It was won by leadership, the spirit to fight and the urge to win. 

The same approach is required today, but with different tools and in a different context.

We should not allow the complexity of modern technology to muddy what is a simple task. 

We must know what is happening in the Atlantic, protect what matters, keep open the sea lanes, and convince any adversary that the cost of coercion or aggression would outweigh any possible gain. 

That is the test of warfighting readiness. 

Can we fight tonight? Can we sustain the fight tomorrow? And can we adapt faster than our adversaries? 

That is the standard by which the Navy must be judged. 

The Battle of the Atlantic demonstrated another enduring lesson.

There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them. 

No nation secured the Atlantic alone in the 1940s, and no nation will do so now.   

Victory depended on Allied integration: navies, merchant fleets, air forces, intelligence, scientists and industry working to a common purpose.

That same principle underpins NATO today.

In any major crisis, NATO’s ability to reinforce Europe depends upon secure access across the Atlantic.

It remains central to collective defence.

That is why the Royal Navy’s role in the Atlantic cannot be separated from NATO’s wider mission.

Our task is to contribute to collective deterrence, support the movement of Allied forces, protect critical infrastructure, maintain awareness and ensure freedom of manoeuvre.

This is also why partnerships matter.

Whether through NATO, bilateral relationships or the Joint Expeditionary Force, our security is strengthened when we operate alongside allies who share our interests and values.

For the United Kingdom, this is both a responsibility and an opportunity.

We are a nuclear power, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a founding member of NATO and the framework nation for the JEF.

We are still one of the most powerful navies in the world.

Our geography, history and alliances give us both a particular stake in the North Atlantic and the ability to act with others at scale.

Which leads me onto the third lesson of the War: our northern flank matters. 

The Atlantic cannot be understood without understanding the High North, because control of the ocean has always been closely linked to control of its northern approaches.

The consequences of losing control were painfully evident in 1940, when Norway’s defeat gave the Nazis control of the coastline and deep-water fjords from which they were able to threaten allied shipping lanes in the Atlantic.

Later, the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap became integral in the Cold War.

And today, its relevance remains undiminished.

The Norwegian Sea, the Arctic and the northern approaches are not distant theatres.

They are the gateway to our backyard; they form our open sea border with Russia. 

They are where British security, NATO and European stability come together.

And it is also where the JEF makes an increasingly important contribution.

For more than a decade, the UK has led ten like-minded nations that are able to respond quickly to threats in the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic.

It complements NATO, but it also gives us the speed, political alignment and geographic focus to seize the initiative early.

As First Sea Lord, I have been determined to make that partnership stronger.

That is why we have been working with the JEF members on a new Northern Navies agreement, which we will finalise this year. 

It will move us beyond episodic activity to a persistent, integrated maritime force.

Navies that train together, exercise together, plan together and, if necessary, fight together. 

It requires common systems, shared digital networks, common doctrine, shared logistics and stockpiles…

This isn’t just about fighting together. It’s about building a common British and Norwegian frigate force. 

It’s about ensuring a Danish frigate can seamlessly takeover from a British warship in the Atlantic, while also taking control of our flotilla of uncrewed ships and sensors that will remain in position for months on end.

This is how we turn collective strength into credible deterrence.

This is how we create a Vanguard for NATO. 

A family of Northern Navies, led by the UK, stronger than the sum of its parts.

Making the Hybrid Navy real, with allies. 

The reason why we need this is simple: the greatest threat to our security today is Russia.   

That threat is felt most acutely in the maritime domain – in the North Atlantic, in the High North.

Russia retains advanced submarines that are increasingly difficult to track, long-range precision weapons, and specialist systems designed to operate deep underwater.

It is increasingly active in our domain, and we are spending increasing amounts of time and resource monitoring Russian vessels and the shadow fleet.

On average, two Royal Navy warships are now being deployed every week for this purpose.

Russia is probing, testing, and mapping. 

It seeks advantage in the grey zone, particularly around the critical undersea infrastructure on which modern societies rely.

And among Ukraine’s western allies, Russia considers us to be one of its greatest foes.

We know that Russia is probing us for weakness.

And we are facing threats…in a way we have not been since the Cold War.   

That does not mean we are returning to the days before the Berlin Wall fell.

Nor am I saying that war is inevitable. There are strong parallels, but this is not the 1930s. 

The circumstances are different, the technologies have changed, and the context is more complex.

But many of the underlying challenges remain.

That is why the Royal Navy continues to invest in anti-submarine warfare, underwater surveillance, maritime aviation and Allied integration.

This is why we are building the Hybrid Navy.

This is not about seeking confrontation.

It is about preventing it through credible capability, strong alliances, presence and the ability to respond immediately when required. 

During the Second World War, German U-boats sought to isolate Britain by attacking the merchant shipping.

Today, the form of the threat is different, but the significance of the underwater domain has grown rather than diminished.

Critical undersea infrastructure is now part of the strategic landscape. Cables, pipelines, sensors and energy networks connect nations, markets and command systems.

They are difficult to monitor, hard to repair at speed and increasingly integral to national resilience.

The day that the UK declared war on Germany, the allies severed its transatlantic telegraph cables.

I pray it does not happen, but were we to go to war again, we know our enemies will try to use the same playbook against us. 

That is why protection of the High North, the Atlantic, and of our underwater CNI is not just about naval capability.

It also rests on intelligence, industry, law enforcement, commercial partnerships and close allied coordination.

It is a national endeavour. 

The Royal Marines Commandos also play a crucial role in that effort.

The Atlantic campaign was never fought at sea alone.

Its outcome depended upon control of key geography around the wider Atlantic basin, and that lesson remains directly relevant to the northern flank today.

The ability to monitor, secure and influence activity across the maritime domain requires more than ships and submarines.

It requires forces able to operate where sea and land intersect, to work with allies in difficult terrain, and to create advantage before a crisis becomes a conflict.

That is where the Commandos make a uniquely important contribution. 

Tough, resilient and resourceful, honed for some of the toughest environments on the planet, they are the tip of the spear when it comes to NATO’s strike forces. 

And it is through them that we help create conditions for maritime operations to succeed.

The strategic logic would be familiar to the Commandos of the Second World War. 

In May 1940, the Royal Marines led the pre-emptive occupation of Iceland, denying Germany a potential Atlantic base and enabling Allied ships and aircraft to support the convoys.

At St Nazaire, in March 1942, Commandos destroyed the dry dock that could have supported Tirpitz and other German warships raiding those convoys.

And months later, Royal Marines paddled by night into occupied Bordeaux during Operation Frankton, damaging vital Axis shipping and disrupting the blockade runners that sustained Germany’s war effort.

Today, the Commando Force may have undergone a generational transformation – but it remains just as important to our success.

The Royal Marines are part of an integrated fighting system. They have also evolved over the past decade because modern warfare demands adaptation.

The more we integrate, the more we adapt, the greater our advantage over our adversaries.   

That logic also sits at the heart of the most radical and far-reaching reform we are undertaking currently: the move to a Hybrid Navy. 

The maritime battlespace is becoming increasingly distributed, connected and data-driven.

Our future advantage will come from integrated networks combining ships, submarines, aircraft, autonomous systems, sensors, data and people.

Ukraine has shown how quickly maritime warfare can change.   

In the Black Sea, uncrewed systems and long-range strikes have destroyed a Russian fleet that once seemed dominant.

In the Gulf and the Red Sea, drones and missiles have shown how quickly global trade can be disrupted.

The lesson is not that traditional platforms no longer matter.

It is that it is no longer possible to defend a vast, contested ocean with crewed warships alone.   

A ship operating alone is now vulnerable. 

But a ship commanding a network of large uncrewed escorts, drones and autonomous sensors…that is a different proposition. 

That’s why we must blend old and new. Crewed and uncrewed.   

We need a connected fighting force.

This is about changing how we generate combat power.

It will make the Fleet bigger, more lethal, harder to target and knock out of the fight, while also allowing us to adapt faster and impose more dilemma on the enemy.

That is the Hybrid Navy in a nutshell. 

Unsurprisingly, we are shaping it around the Atlantic…

Through our Atlantic Series…

Atlantic Bastion is about defending the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent and the critical national infrastructure on which our country, economy and allies depend.   

It is the creation of a defensive net across the North Atlantic: crewed and uncrewed ships, drones, sensors, artificial intelligence and weapons working above, on and below the sea to detect, deter and, if necessary, neutralise hostile activity.   

Atlantic Shield is about protecting the homeland, the Fleet and our allies from drones, hypersonic weapons and ballistic threats through modern air and missile defence. 

And Atlantic Strike is about giving us the ability to hit harder, from greater distance, if an adversary attacks us. 

These are the practical building blocks of a new way of fighting.

A new Atlantic Fleet. 

The objective is clear: to create a force that can detect threats earlier, respond faster, strike more precisely, survive in the most contested conditions and integrate better with allies.

Yes it is radical, yes we are early adopters, and yes there are sceptics.

But let me be clear: the Hybrid Navy is not opional.   

And nor is the need to change our relationship with industry.

During the War we did not just outfight Nazi Germany; we innovated faster and built ships and aircraft at a pace the Reich simply could not match.

The same must be true again now if we are to prevail.

That means we have to move at the speed of the threat.   

Software can change a system overnight. Commercial technology can reach the battlefield in days. Our procurement, testing and adoption cycles must reflect that reality.

That means more experimentation, more courage to fail quickly, and the ability to scale what works.

Yes, that creates more risk.   

But as First Sea Lord, the only risk that really keeps me up at night is being asked to go to war – and losing.   

That is the one risk I will not accept – because my job is not to lose.

My job is to win. 

So, as we look to the future, what more must we do? 

First, we must not lose focus on the here and now.   

We must keep the Atlantic open.

We must continue to protect shipping, reinforcement routes, subsea cables, energy infrastructure and the deterrent.

We are recapitalising the entire nuclear enterprise for the first time since its creation.

We are growing the fleet, with 13 new frigates..

Six command ships for the Hybrid Navy…

Fleet solid support ships…

Four amphibious transport ships for our Commandos…

Two new Astute-class boats, four new Dreadnought-class submarines, and up to 12 next generations SSNs.

We have a Defence Investment Plan, unlocking our uncrewed systems and the Atlantic Series.

But there are plenty of obstacles that risk slowing us down.

We must be relentless in identifying and removing them.

Second, we must invest in people.   

Technology changes the character of warfare, but it does not win wars.

Our people remain decisive – and it is leadership, leadership excellence, that wins wars.

War will always remain a contest of human will. That is why we must equip our people with the skills and leadership tools to enable them to win at all levels.

They will have to command distributed forces, fight with uncrewed systems, and make decisions under pressure.

Third, we must act with urgency.   

The generation that won the Battle of the Atlantic did so because they learned faster than the enemy.

We are seeing Ukraine do this right now on the front line – and we must do the same.

Perhaps most importantly of all, we must reconnect with the public.   

The Battle of the Atlantic still resonates because people understood the connection between events at sea and the war writ large.

We are a maritime nation, an Island Nation – and it’s time we remembered it. 

We should make that case with confidence, because many of the qualities that made Britain a maritime power remain.

London is still the global hub of maritime services, insurance, law and finance.

British expertise still shapes the rules and contracts on which global trade depends.

And our ports, shipyards and maritime businesses remain part of an ecosystem that few countries can match.

From the frigates being built on the Clyde and at Rosyth…

To the new Dreadnought submarines at Barrow…

The fleet support at Birkenhead…

Marine engineering at Tyne and Wear and advanced manufacturing in Cumbria…

Investment in the maritime is helping fuel our northern powerhouse.

Across the country, we have a thriving maritime sector worth £224 billion to the UK economy.

It supports 1.7 million jobs and 8,000 businesses….

And that’s before you consider the untapped potential.

That is why we must also reject any idea that the only future for the Royal Navy is one of decline. 

Of course, the United States and China operate at a scale others cannot match.

But that does not mean Britain should lower its sights.

We can still be the greatest naval power in Europe, and one of the world’s most powerful navies.   

We should not forget just how important our capabilities are, nor the influence and credibility that gives us among our allies.

From aircraft carriers to F35s…

To SSBNs and SSNs…

From frigates and destroyers to the Royal Marines.

Through the Hybrid Navy, we also have a chance to lead the global maritime autonomy race, creating military advantage while generating new economic growth.

We must match this with a serious shipbuilding strategy: ships built in Britain, for us, and exported from Britain, for our allies.

That must surely be the vision: a stronger Navy, a stronger economy, and a stronger maritime nation. 

The Battle of the Atlantic was a battle for survival.   

It proved that Britain’s ability to determine its own future depended on our naval power, on our ability to remain connected to the wider world.

That lesson endures.

The threat has evolved, the High North has regained strategic prominence, and the seabed has become contested.

New vulnerabilities have emerged, and so have new opportunities.

But one truth remains constant: we depend on the sea. 

The Royal Navy’s task is to ensure that, with our allies, with industry, and with the whole maritime nation behind us, Britain is ready. 

Ready to lead. Ready to fight. Ready to win. 

The Battle of the Atlantic is one of the most important chapters in our history.

And when our own history is written, I am certain the Atlantic will prove decisive once again. 

Thank you.

From: Ministry of Defence and General Sir Gwyn Jenkins KCB OBE ADC RM