Since February 2024 the European Union has run a naval operation to safeguard freedom of navigation in relation to the Red Sea crisis, alongside an older operation created in 2008 to deter piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast. Both have been renewed rather than ended, both have gained tasks, and the newer one, originally set to end a year after its launch, now runs to the end of February 2027. Yet the High Representative has said twice in 2026 that the newer operation does not have enough ships, and in September that merchant vessels were waiting for escorts that the available frigates could not provide. That combination of an enduring legal mandate and an uncertain supply of escorts is the problem. A mandate can be adopted by the Council in a day; a frigate able to defend a convoy against missiles and drones has to be built, crewed, maintained, refuelled and released by a national government that has other uses for it. The question is therefore not whether Europe has warships, but whether European states can generate recurring, mission-suitable armed protection of merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean, and what in the public record determines how much of that protection their fleets and support systems can sustain.