Sealift shortfalls set to drive opportunities across NATO navies
The number of British militarily useful vessels has diminished by nearly half over the last 15 years, falling from 841 in 2009 to 495 in 2023, based on data referenced in the primer. (Photo: Crown Copyright)
A new Council on Geostrategy primer warns that NATO cannot defend its own supply lines. As the alliance faces a sealift and logistics escort deficit, a wave of unawarded procurement is beginning to take shape.
For three decades, NATO moved equipment and personnel across Europe with near-total impunity. That era, according to a new primer from the Council on Geostrategy, is over, and the alliance’s failure to invest in the logistics tail that sustains its fighting forces has left it acutely vulnerable to Russian interdiction.
The paper, entitled Sustainment under strike and sabotage: Contested logistics in the Wider North, was co-authored by William Freer, research fellow in national security at the Council on Geostrategy, and Charlotte Kleberg, a director at Wallenius Lines and adjunct fellow at the same institution.
Its core argument is that
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