The Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines of the French navy are named after Adm. Pierre André de Suffren, an 18th-century nemesis of the British Royal Navy. All three of the excellent Suffren-class submarines, the newest in the French fleet, are named after French naval officers or privateers who spent their careers fighting the British. A number of other French warships are named after others who made their names fighting the Royal Navy. Put simply, France has no qualms about celebrating its centuries of military rivalry with the United Kingdom.

King Charles III takes the opposite approach. This week, the nominal commander in chief of the U.K. armed forces directed that the Royal Navy’s newest upcoming nuclear attack submarine be renamed. HMS Agincourt will now be christened as HMS Achilles. The erstwhile HMS Agincourt is an Astute-class attack submarine expected to enter service in 2026. The final Astute-class submarine to be built, these submarines are secondary in capability only to the U.S. Virginia-class attack submarines. They are designed to deter enemy action against the U.K. and hold at risk keystone adversary capabilities such as Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile and cruise missile submarine forces.

Both the BBC and the Times report that Charles directed this name change over fears of upsetting France over an homage to the Battle of Agincourt. That battle 610 years ago pitted an English force under King Henry V against a far larger French force in northern France. The English force wasn’t simply outnumbered approximately 2-to-1 by the French — it was also exhausted and riven with disease and hunger. But unlike the current English monarch’s surrender to woke political correctness, Henry refused what would have been a far more justified surrender.

Instead, defending a narrow but highly defensible position, Henry’s forces were able to bottle up and eliminate the larger French force. The English strategy successfully denied the French the mobility and utility of their superior numbers. English archers rained havoc down upon the advancing French force, which struggled to maintain its footing on the muddy ground. The French were cut down, losing a very large number of nobles. Henry’s against-the-odds victory is fondly remembered in English military history and immortalized in Shakespeare’s best play, Henry V.

This submarine name change might seem a peripheral concern. The problem is that by neglecting proud military history in favor of a delusional sense that France will be outraged by the remembrance of it, Charles does his military and the U.K.’s foreign policy no favors. After all, the Royal Navy’s Astute-class submarines have three primary purposes, all of which are anathema to wokeness.

First, these roles are to hunt, shadow, and, if necessary, sink enemy warships silently. Second, to protect aircraft carriers and other high-value assets. Third, to deliver or extricate personnel from enemy territory covertly. Again, these missions are very ill suited to the subsuming presence of political correctness, equivocation, or doubt.

Sadly, Charles does not understand that it is more important that a future enemy fear the maximal risk of silent annihilation than to risk a close ally being upset by medieval history. On that point, would the French really care about the name HMS Agincourt?

I think not. For one, jesting between France and the U.K. is part of both cultures. Second, France eventually won the Hundred Years’ War of which the Battle of Agincourt was a part. It’s not as if Agincourt tells the totality of Anglo-French military engagement. Third, and most important, the U.K. and France are close allies. Their submarine forces cooperate very closely. London and Paris are also engaged in ever-increasing coordination in efforts to deter and, if necessary, defeat Russian aggression against NATO. These efforts now entail deliberations about sending ground forces to help enforce any future peace settlement negotiated by Ukraine and Russia.

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Warships named HMS Achilles have a proud history of service in the Royal Navy. But there are few prouder names for a British warship than HMS Agincourt. It would have been fitting for the name to carry onto the final Astute-class submarine. Keeping that name would have sent two messages. First, the British military remains focused on its raison d’être: the delivery of maximal lethality. Second, being vastly outnumbered doesn’t always mean defeat.

That second concern bears a special note in light of China.