欧洲。作者：Sarah Young 和 Andrew MacAskill，路透社。2026年4月16日，下午1:34。2026年3月4日，船员们在英国朴茨茅斯港登上“龙”号驱逐舰（HMS Dragon）。（路透社/Carlos Jasso/资料图）伦敦——伊朗战争使英国武装部队的短板暴露无遗，在军事首脑多年来就英国国防能力萎缩发出警告后，这给首相基尔·斯塔默施加了巨大的压力，要求其履行投资国防的承诺。当塞浦路斯的英国军事基地在3月伊朗冲突初期遭到无人机袭击时，在二战开始时曾拥有世界最大海军规模的英国，花了三周时间才向东地中海部署了一艘战舰。
法国、希腊和意大利在几天内就向塞浦路斯派遣了战舰。英国军事能力的削弱已引起美国总统唐纳德·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·海格塞斯则嘲讽他所谓的“庞大而糟糕的皇家海军”。斯塔默在周三为其武装部队的表现辩护时表示，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费增长。英国目前的军事规模约为冷战时期的一半，其陆军规模是19世纪初以来的最小水平。
以下是关于衰减规模和该国目前能力的详细信息。
皇家海军：英国皇家海军拥有3.8万名人员。它运营两艘航空母舰，以及由13艘驱逐舰和护卫舰组成的联合舰队。
这一数字已从1991年的约6.2万名人员、三艘航空母舰和约50艘驱逐舰及护卫舰大幅缩减。
派遣战舰前往塞浦路斯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”号于3月23日抵达东地中海。自伊朗战争爆发以来，皇家海军曾表示正在升级“莱姆湾”号辅助舰（RFA Lime Bay），以提升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
