In the Keynote speech for the 2026 Combined Naval Event at Farnborough, First Sea Lord General Gwyn Jenkins delivered his sharpest challenge yet to the concept of building ever more expensive warships, Naval Lookout reports. His insistence that the RN must move away from the need for “ever bigger, ever more expensive platforms”carries pointed implications for significant warship programmes still in the planning pipeline.
Jenkins’s formulation, “crewed where necessary, uncrewed wherever possible, integrated always” is more than a slogan: it is a statement about scale and affordability. He was explicit that resources will always be constrained and that the task is to generate mass and lethality from a wider, more survivable mix of assets rather than concentrate investment in a handful of high-value hulls. Although subject to usual caveats, wargame analysis has shown a threefold increase in missile capacity under the hybrid model, his remarks amount to a direct challenge to programmes built around small numbers of very large, very costly ships.
He was more assertive then ever about the future direction of the RN. “I accept that there are still some hybrid sceptics, but here’s the hard news: we have no time to pander to cynicism or traditionalists, because autonomy is already demonstrably changing the nature of warfare, as evidenced in Ukraine and in the Middle East.”
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