The Strategic Importance of Admiral Thomas Cochrane

El Líbero, May 29, 2024

Today, the relationship between the United Kingdom and Chile takes many forms, but by far the naval relationship is the main component, a relationship between inherently maritime, trading, and open countries.

In memory of Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald

As a fitting way to conclude the Month of the Sea and to honor the heroes of the Chilean Navy, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, the traditional commemoration ceremony for Chile’s Naval Glories was held at Westminster Abbey, an event that has taken place for several years in the United Kingdom.

Buried in the abbey is Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, who was also the first Vice Admiral of the Chilean Navy, serving from November 1818 to November 1822, during which he not only achieved spectacular victories over the Spanish and secured dominance over the Eastern Pacific, allowing for the expulsion of the Spanish from the region and the liberation of Peru, but also established the Chilean Navy as we know it today. He built upon the initial efforts of Blanco Encalada and left his mark that has characterized it for over 200 years.

Thomas Cochrane, also recognized for his work in the liberation of Greece, Brazil, and Peru, as well as for his successful British naval career, culminating in the rank of Admiral of the Red, is remembered each year in Westminster at a ceremony presided over by the head of our embassy in London, which has recently been led by Ximena Fuentes, a successful and experienced lawyer specializing in international law, who was the director of the Border and Limits Directorate and Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Fuentes has the advantage of having lived in the United Kingdom as a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, and all indications suggest she will be as successful as David Gallagher, who served as ambassador under Piñera 2.

The ceremony is always attended by one of the British admirals from the leadership of the Royal Navy, as well as members of the Cochrane family, led on this occasion by the current Earl of Dundonald, who is also the honorary consul of Chile in Scotland.

Chile and the United Kingdom do not have a formal strategic partnership or alliance, but I would dare to say that we have a two-century-long ‘strategic friendship’ characterized by naval and maritime elements, something that those in charge of the embassy quickly understand, protect, and nurture, and which is further strengthened by the fact that they are also ambassadors to the International Maritime Organization based in London, of which Chile is a council member, a noteworthy recognition stemming from our status as a maritime nation.

The importance of the ceremony held at the abbey since 1901, initially intermittently, and becoming an annual event since 1979, lies in the fact that it is an annual reaffirmation of the strategic friendship that unites both countries, particularly their navies, and in practice implies that Chileans have access to training, courses, ships, and equipment, and that they have a friend at the southern tip of the world, a friendship they know exists and is steadfast despite occasional complications from our trans-Andean neighbors.

Cochrane, the admiral who unites Chileans and Britons, is remembered in Chile in various ways, including a Type 23 frigate—built in Yarrow, Scotland—and previously the HMS Norfolk, as well as a marine infantry detachment located in Punta Arenas. In 2018, as part of the bicentennial of the Navy and Cochrane’s arrival in Chile, and in the presence of the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, a statue of him was inaugurated at the Naval School.

In April 2019, the United Kingdom named the headquarters of the flotilla based in Portsmouth, and more recently, just last week, again in the presence of Princess Anne, Ambassador Fuentes, and distinguished guests from both countries including the Cochrane family, the ‘Royal United Services Institute,’ a prestigious and bicentennial research center founded by the Duke of Wellington dedicated to national security and defense, named one of its main rooms the ‘Admiral Lord Cochrane Room.’

On this occasion, I did not want to discuss current events, but rather this significant topic, the strategic importance of Admiral Cochrane, which fosters a strategic friendship that has lasted over two centuries and, based on the efforts of the embassies and the respective navies, will likely continue to have that character for a long time to come. Today, the relationship between the United Kingdom and Chile takes many forms, but by far the naval relationship is the main component, a relationship between inherently maritime, trading, and open countries. A relationship that remains strong regardless of the political colors of the current governments, a relationship that is solid because it is in the national interest of both countries to maintain it.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President AthenaLab

Source: El Líbero