Category: Security policy

1TP5Understanding the sea: China's Silk Road Initiative - An Opportunity?

Posted by | 20 Sep 2017 | , , | 17

At the beginning of September, the special edition "griephan Edition 2017" - produced by griephan in cooperation with the Federation of German Industries (BDI) - was published with the theme "The challenge of global trade - setting standards creates markets". The issue includes articles on China's Silk Road Initiative, the G20's protectionist reflexes, free trade as an expression of free societies and the Port of Duisburg, the current starting and finishing point of the Silk Road. The Silk Road Initiative, consisting of the continental "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century", is Beijing's geostrategic concept to link Africa, Asia and Europe and the seas that connect them for trade. The Chinese approach can be described as "strategic synchronisation", meaning the integrated use of diplomatic, economic policy and military strategy instruments. The principle of "flag follows trade" applies here, meaning that the Chinese military initially plays a subordinate role, for example by participating in stabilisation missions at important hubs such as Djibouti. In Germany, the first question to ask is whether participation in strategic cooperation with China has been neglected for too long. It has become clear that China has taken the strategic initiative into its own hands and is successfully setting the agenda. The current Silk Road initiative has the potential to shift the existing balance of power and create long-term dependencies. However, this realisation should not lead to a fundamental defensive reaction. Anyone who opposes the Silk Road initiative for national or even...

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#me understand: Norway relies on Germany again for submarines

Posted by | 6 Feb 2017 | , , | 12

Ein Gastbeitrag von Raimund Wallner Am 3. Februar 2017 gab die norwegische Regierung bekannt, dass Deutschland und nicht Frankreich als strategischer Partner für das U-Bootprojekt zur Sicherstellung der Nachfolge der ULA-Klasse ausgewählt wurde. Ziel der Entscheidung sei die gemeinsame Beschaffung und das "lifetime management" identischer, auf der deutschen Klasse 212A basierender neuer U-Boote, hieß es in der Erklärung des Verteidigungsministeriums. Bei den nun folgenden bilateralen Verhandlungen mit dem Ziel einer Regierungsvereinbarung wird es darum gehen, für die in der zweiten Hälfte der 2020er Jahre zu liefernden 4 norwegischen und 2 deutschen Boote die anteilige Mitwirkung der jeweiligen nationalen Rüstungsindustrien festzulegen, Vereinbarungen für die Zusammenarbeit von Marine und Amtsseite beider Länder zu treffen und die Rolle Deutschlands als "lead nation" zu definieren. Erst dann werden die Verhandlungen mit der Kieler U-Bootwerft tkMS beginnen, um das im Wettbewerb gegen die Staatswerft DCNS erfolgreiche Angebot in technischer und finanzieller Hinsicht so weit auszuarbeiten, dass der Bauvertrag 2019 geschlossen werden kann. Vorher - im kommenden Frühjahr - beabsichtigt die Regierung "das Investitionsprojekt Neue U-Boote" dem Parlament "als Strategische Fähigkeit" zu präsentieren, was vermutlich die Einstellung in den Verteidigungshaushalt bedeutet. Unmittelbar nach Bekanntwerden der Nachricht schrieb die im April 2016 in Australien noch gegen die Deutschen siegreiche DCNS in einer Presserklärung, sie bedauere, aber respektiere die souveräne Entscheidung und sei bei einem Scheitern der deutsch-norwegischen Verhandlungen zu einem Wiedereinstieg bereit. Außerdem sei sie überzeugt,...

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1TP5Understanding the sea: Sea Blindness - How to spin a maritime narrative thread

1TP5Understanding the sea: Sea Blindness - How to spin a maritime narrative thread

Posted by | 16 Dec 2016 | , , | 2

by Patrick Mundstock, the winner of our essay competition: More than 95 per cent of global international trade passes through the world's seas and oceans. Every year, around 47,000 merchant ships from all over the world travel on them, transporting around seven billion tonnes of goods, and the trend is rising. Ever bigger, ever faster and ever more is the motto of the shipping companies. The harbours are becoming more gigantic and the volume of trade is growing every year. This means that the prosperity of almost every economically active nation is particularly dependent on maritime security policy. And yet maritime security is facing such far-reaching problems that even international organisations are now focusing on it.

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1TP5Understanding the sea: New US study on undersea warfare in Northern Europe

Posted by | 19 Aug 2016 | , , | 27

In July 2016, the renowned "Center for Strategic International Studies" (CSIS) in Washington D.C., founded by Admiral Arleigh Burke, published the study "Undersea Warfare in Northern Europe". Downloading and reading the almost 50-page work is well worth the time. In the acknowledgements, the attentive reader learns that "experts from Finland, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States" and their respective national institutes contributed significantly to the results. A final thank you is dedicated to the sponsor of the study, "Saab North America", and the authors express their deep appreciation for Saab's respect for [the team's] intellectual independence. This blog entry is not intended to be a review of the study, but rather to highlight some aspects of relevance to Germany's undersea warfare capability and place them in the context of today's German Navy. Any shortcomings in knowledge - if they are recognisable - are due to the distance of the retired author. A translation of the "Executive Summary" gives the hurried reader the gist of the work: "Russia is expanding its underwater operations as part of a broader strategy of coercion against its neighbours, NATO and the United States. Russia has a long history of expanding its maritime capabilities for strategic signalling purposes, including the use of targeted provocations. Suspected intrusions into territorial waters in the Baltic Sea and provocative operations in the North Atlantic have caused alarm among NATO and partner nations, especially as they have made it clear that Russia is in...

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German Navy - between quality and quantity

German Navy - between quality and quantity

Posted by | 22. dec 2015 | , , , | 7

Fleet shrinks to historic low Shortly before the turn of the year, the German Navy shrank by a further five units. Last week, two tankers, two speedboats and a minesweeper were decommissioned. This reduces the number of floating units in the German Navy to 62 - a new low in the history of the navy. - Kieler Nachrichten 21.12.2015 Kieler Nachrichten reports on the planned decommissioning of the aforementioned units, whose replacement is already planned but not necessarily visible on the horizon. In November, Inspector General Volker Wieker informed parliament in his "Report on the material operational readiness...

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