涉及伊朗的战争使英国武装部队暴露无遗，这给首相基尔·斯塔默带来了巨大压力，要求其履行投资国防的承诺。此前，英国军事将领多年来一直对该国不断缩减的军事能力发出警告。
今年3月初，当英国在塞浦路斯的一个军事基地被无人机击中时，曾在二战初期拥有世界最大海军的英国，花了三周时间才向东地中海部署了一艘军舰。相比之下，法国、希腊和意大利在几天内就向塞浦路斯派遣了军舰。
英国削弱的军事能力引起了美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的注意。他将英国的两艘航空母舰斥为“玩具”，而他的国防部长皮特·海格塞斯则嘲笑他所称的“所谓强大的皇家海军”。
斯塔默在周三为自己的武装部队记录辩护时表示，执政近两年的政府已经实施了自冷战以来最大规模的持续军事开支增长。然而，英国目前的军队规模只有冷战时期的一半左右，其陆军规模是自19世纪初以来最小的。
以下是关于衰退规模和该国当前能力的详细信息：
- 皇家海军：英国皇家海军现有38,000名人员。它运行着两艘航空母舰，以及由13艘驱逐舰和护卫舰组成的联合舰队。相比之下，1991年其拥有约62,000名人员、三艘航空母舰和约50艘驱逐舰及护卫舰。
- 派遣延迟：向塞浦路斯派遣军舰的延误引发了对海军可用水面舰队的批评。45型防空驱逐舰“龙”号直到3月23日才抵达东地中海。同时，皇家海军表示，自冲突爆发以来，正在升级“莱姆湾”号辅助舰，以提高其猎雷和自主技术能力。
EuropeBy Sarah Young and Andrew MacAskill, Reuters Apr 16, 2026, 01:34 PMCrew members board the HMS Dragon in Portsmouth Harbour, Britain, on March 4, 2026. (Reuters/Carlos Jasso/File Photo)LONDON — The Iran war has left Britain’s armed forces exposed, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to act on his promises to invest in defense, after years of warnings from military bosses about the U.K.’s shrinking capabilities.When a British military base in Cyprus was hit by a drone early on in the Iran conflict in March, Britain, whose navy was the largest in the world at the start of World War Two, took three weeks to deploy one warship to the eastern Mediterranean.France, Greece and Italy sent warships to Cyprus within days.Britain’s diminished military capacity has registered with U.S. President Donald Trump. He has dismissed Britain’s two aircraft carriers as “toys” while his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, mocked what he called the “big, bad Royal Navy.”Defending his record on the armed forces, Starmer said on Wednesday his government, in power for nearly two years, had put in place the biggest sustained increase in military spending since the Cold War. Britain’s military now is about half the size it was then and its army is the smallest it has been since the early 19th century.Below are details regarding the scale of the decline and the country’s current capabilities.Royal NavyBritain’s Royal Navy has 38,000 personnel. It operates two aircraft carriers and a combined fleet of 13 destroyers and frigates.This has shrunk from about 62,000 personnel, three aircraft carriers and about 50 destroyers and frigates in 1991.The delays in sending a warship to Cyprus prompted criticism of the navy’s available surface fleet.HMS Dragon, a Type 45 air defense destroyer, arrived in the eastern Mediterranean on March 23, while the Royal Navy has said since the outbreak of the Iran war that it is upgrading RFA Lime Bay to improve its mine-hunting and autonomous tech capabilities.That deployment compares to the Gulf War in 1990-91, when the Royal Navy sent 21 surface ships and two submarines plus 11 Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships to the region.The smaller fleet comes after decades of cuts to defense funding since the early 1990s, when about 3.8% of gross domestic product was spent on the military compared to the 2.3% spent in 2024.Britain until December 2025 had a warship present in the Middle East for decades but that ended when HMS Lancaster was decommissioned in Bahrain just weeks before the start of the Iran war.The Royal Navy’s aging frigates need to be retired before replacements become available, while its destroyers are undergoing maintenance work. A fleet of 13 new Type 26 and Type 31 frigates is due to enter service in the coming years.The Royal Navy is also being stretched by Russian threats closer to home, with British warships recently spending a month in the North Atlantic tracking Russian submarines.About a fifth of Britain’s defense budget is
