The post-Falklands Royal Navy included HMS Ocean, Fearless and Intrepid, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious, RFA Argus, and several landing ships. Its spread of hulls made a capable task group regularly available without concentrating every role in one platform. Force structure then contracted through the 1990s and early 2000s as governments emphasized wars of choice and counter-insurgency over peer conflict. Deterrence rested on NATO and especially American military superiority, so declining Western capacity and misread resolve increased the risk of dangerous misunderstanding.
Notable Point · 1:04:19-1:09:46
Post-Cold War fleet contraction weakened visible peer deterrence
A force once able to generate several aviation and amphibious ships contracted around counter-insurgency assumptions even though peer conflict had not disappeared.