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Good morning. A few hundred yards from the end of the road where I live, just opposite Portsmouth Cathedral, I can see the slope of the curved runway on HMS Prince of Wales and sometimes behind it, the Queen Elizabeth. Portsmouth is the home of two thirds of the Royal Navy’s fleet and when one of the great carriers leaves or returns, hundreds of people come out to watch and wave and I can’t help feeling a surge of pride. Our naval history is a core part of our identity as a city. Our historic dockyard contains the Victory and the Warrior and we have museums of the Mary Rose and of the D-Day landings. Yet, as we have heard recently, the Royal Navy is finding it hard to recruit. Many also claim it is badly underfunded – worrying when politicians are warning of a possible Russian offensive against Nato in the next few years. Our navy is so much part of our history, all the way back to Alfred of Wessex and his attempts to defend his fragile Christian kingdom against the Danes. I have always admired the way the armed services try to create an ethos of corporate discipline, based not on raw pride or brutality but on respect for each person, and a readiness to sacrifice self for others. And if, tragically, they do become involved in violent conflict at least everyone is in it together. I know there is a respectable case for pacifism. But there is also a moral case for preparedness and a readiness to display armed strength. No one wants the ghastly wastefulness of war but any responsible government has to ensure its people are defended. Christian teaching insists that our world is tragically fallen. I only have to look within to see that I am capable of aggression, generally verbal in my case, but anyone who knows me well would be aware of it. What I see in my own soul is the seed of that self-assertion which, when worked up and magnified, can drive nations to war. The strong man must be disarmed, as Jesus remarked – an ambiguous observation that is true for both aggressor and defender. At best, we arm to disarm. Every day in our cathedral we pray for those who are at sea, including those deployed in our defence. They are the ones who stand between us and those who see us as enemies. They are the ones who stand ready in the worst case to deploy force to disarm any greater evil that might do us harm. But they also help model how we might learn to restrain our selfish instincts and care for one another.