Strategy first, because wars consume the fleet already built

The discussion contrasts strategy-led debate with arguments centered on individual weapons such as supposed carrier-killing missiles. A weapon's value depends on the strategy, force structure, and operational system that can employ it. Major warships also take too long to procure for a short conflict to generate replacements after fighting begins. The Falklands example shows that the fleet at the end was essentially the fleet available at the start, reduced by weather, damage, and combat losses. Britain's 1980 inventory of about seventy major warships and twenty-five conventionally armed submarines therefore reveals how much capacity existed to absorb attrition. Comparing those figures with the far smaller modern force makes procurement a prewar strategic choice rather than a wartime remedy.