Bishop Hill The redundant rear-admiral
Apr 2, 2012 Climate: WG2 Climate: WG3 The UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has a guest post from Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, who is "the UK Government’s Climate and Energy Security Envoy".
Britain famously has more admirals than warships and one often wonders what all these highly paid people actually do all day, so it is good to have this clarification that the Ministry of Defence is setting up "jobs for the boys" schemes to keep redundant sailors up to their necks in our tax money.
Hague's decision to allow Morisetti a guest post on his facebook page rather seems to endorse the corruption too.
Morisetti's article is largely content-free, but he manages to demonstrate an almost complete ignorance of how business works, suggesting that supply chain disruption for businesses needs to be addressed by government policy.
That a redundant sailor doesn't understand that this is the kind of thing purchasing managers worry about on a day-to-day basis is understandable. That he should be paid a huge salary to advertise his ignorance is not.
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O/T: We may be a tough group here but at least Admirals today don't have to worry much about meeting the fate of Admiral Byng after the Battle of Minorca (1756). Admiral Byng underwent court-martial and then execution for failing* to relieve the besieged British garrison on Minorca.
This gave inspiration to Voltaire for his famous quip in "Candide" that "Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" (in this country, it's good to execute an Admiral now and then, to encourage the others).
*I believe there was considerable dispute about whether he was blameworthy but the claim that prevailed was that he failed to follow orders and do his "utmost" to break through and relieve the garrison.
The 41 Admirals verses 40 warships is one of those nice snippets of information journalists love because it makes it so easy to spin out a story that has good odds of catching the reader's attention.
Whether it really means anything is another question.
Maintaining a fleet is expensive. To be a modern blue water navy you need to be capable of performing the following tasks:
Control of SLOC's
Projection of force ashore
Forced entry ashore
At sea repleanishment
one could also add strategic deterrence.
Performing these tasks generally means a fleet of carriers, nuclear submarines, amphibious assalt ships and oilers/supply ships. Surface battle groups subsequently require force protection, which means destroyers & frigates.
One can argue whether naval aviation is still required for force projection or if cruise missles and UAV's can fullfil that role. When the opponent has a modern air force, it is pretty hard to support no naval aviation. For the RN, its choices are to surrender fleet air activities to the USN or try to maintain a fleet air arm capability. The cost of carriers and their air wing are huge, as is the cost of maintaining a nuclear submarine fleet. Great Britain has chosen that route. The result will be a smaller navy, but one capable of meeting most of the missions projected for it.
Morisetti is doing his job. found this amusing...
August 1996: U.S. Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
A Research Paper Presented To Air Force 2025
by Col Tamzy J. House
Lt Col James B. Near, Jr.
LTC William B. Shields (USA)
Maj Ronald J. Celentano
Maj David M. Husband
Maj Ann E. Mercer
Maj James E. Pugh
Efforts are already under way to create more comprehensive weather models primarily to improve
forecasts, but researchers are also trying to influence the results of these models by adding small amounts of energy at just the right time and space.
http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch15.pdf
Jack Aubrey eventually became a Yellow Admiral.
Why shouldn't today's Royal Navy have Green Admirals?
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:13 PM Dave Bob
What about a Red Admiral?
"one capable of meeting most of the missions projected for it"
Well, maybe when the carriers and aircraft are finished and in the same place. It's a good job the Argentinians have largely de-militarised...
Mahan tosses uneasily on the swells.
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