Britain is having problems putting together a carrier strike group:
Britain’s Royal Navy took delivery of two new aircraft carriers, but a government report on the ships achieving operational capability has laid bare some obstacles toward making a fully effective carrier strike group. ...
The Ministry of Defence is making slow “progress in developing the crucial supporting activities that are needed to make full use of a carrier strike group, such as the Crowsnest radar system and the ability to resupply the carriers. In addition, it has not established a clear view on the future cost of enhancing, operating and supporting carrier strike, which creates the risk of future affordability pressures,” the NAO said.
I've worried about this aspect of British defense spending priorities:
The F-35B should be the least of Britain's problems, I'll say. Unless they are vulnerable to hacking, they are turning out to be good planes despite the long Russian propaganda effort to paint the plane as a waste of money.
But it is true that the 2 ships have soaked up so much money that there seems like there is too little of the rest of the Royal Navy to even escort the ships.
And the marines and army the carriers will support ashore are fading away.
This path was perhaps defensible when the Royal Navy was for power projection in the absence of serious naval opposition. In the era of great power competition that puts control of the seas in doubt, it is kind of nuts.
Or a failure to distinguish between those two types of missions.
