UK Defence
This is the legacy of a decade’s worth of operating at a very high tempo, despite the fleet being quite old. The older a fleet gets, the more significant the impact on maintenance and readiness,” said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior researcher in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute. “It has really worn on the navy, particularly its older hulls.” ... A naval presence in the Middle East remains important to enforce freedom of the seas, maintain energy security and strengthen diplomatic ties, according to Kaushal. “Naval presence lends itself to missions other than war,” he said. “This is one of the areas the United States will pivot away from — the ability to backfill American capabilities in an area they can no longer allocate resources to represents a rather useful foreign policy offer.”
