The UK and Spain want international influence. No one important cares about your opinion if you can't project power.

Certainly "everybody important" is likely to discount the value of soft power. But that is, I would say, the Important People's problem, not ours. When Egypt starts making noises about joining the EU (and, not to put too fine a point upon it, thus giving the Union complete control of the access ways to the Mediterranean), maybe they'll realise the error of their ways...

Big ships are very vulnerable to small fast craft. And pirates are dealt with by destroying their base of operations, something for which you need - that's right - amphibious assault assets.

The problem is that destroying a fishing village pirate base here and there isn't a permanent solution any more than destroying individual pirates. Political stability and a functioning government in the country they're operating out of is the permanent solution. And somehow I don't see an amphibious assault task force running in and out of - say - Somali territory promoting stability in the area.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.