The transit of a Russian submarine from the Mediterranean took an unusually long time. It turned into a communications drama for no good reason. The redeployment of the Russian submarine NOWOROSSIJSK from the Mediterranean in October 2025 attracted unusual attention in the media, security policy circles and political commentary. According to everything that optical reconnaissance, Russian shipyard signals and movement data...
At the beginning of 2026, the Bundestag decided to take the first step towards reactivating compulsory military service. Once again, buzzwords were more important than arguments in the political debate. It was cannon fodder versus war fitness. It wasn't just the opponents of compulsory military service who were using manslaughter arguments, the other side didn't argue much more differentiated either. After the student demonstrations, all sweeping judgements were...
New challenges await the German Navy in the far north. Even China is now emphasising its interests in the region. While 50 per cent of the Arctic clearly belongs to Russia, China also justifies its claims in the Arctic by claiming to be a "state close to the Arctic". The northernmost city in China is Mohe in the...
Germany's maritime dependence. The deputy inspector and commander of the fleet did not hand over a printed report to the German Maritime Institute at the end of the Maritime Convention, but a 5 x 5 centimetre QR code. That is modern, but not yet progress. The Department of Naval Shipping Management under the leadership of Frigate Captain Steffen...
The Maritime Convention is one of the most important meetings of the maritime security community. This year, it also made a shore leave. On 11 November, the annual conference of maritime experts traditionally took place at the Representation of the State of Schleswig-Holstein to the Federal Government in the Ministerial Gardens in Berlin. The German Maritime Institute and Griephan...
After an evacuation operation in the 1990s, the idea of building multifunctional support ships was raised. An idea that is finding supporters again today. A gloss. And once again a report on a famous Bavarian who wanted to improve the navy. Retired General Dr hc Klaus Dieter Naumann (*25 May 1939) served as...
Even 80 years after the end of the war, German waters still harbour masses of old munitions. But there is still no master plan for disposal. Over 1.6 million tonnes of conventional and chemical munitions are rusting at the bottom of the North and Baltic Seas - a legacy of two world wars and a time bomb in terms of both ecology and security policy. While Europe is...
For many years, we have been discussing the structures and necessary change processes in our defence industries, both before and after the "turnaround". This also concerned the maritime sector in particular: How should things proceed here? More or less state? National consolidation or European integration? More specialisation and niches or sticking to the claim...
1 The security policy problem situation Soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic Sea also came under increased scrutiny. A tough, essentially security policy confrontation is once again dominating events in this part of Europe. This is being expressed in a variety of ways, with the recent increase in the number of high-profile but...
Status and developments in the Baltic states The Baltic Sea remains a troubled sea and is the focus of security and defence policy issues. Since the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in autumn 2022, the damage to Maritime Critical Infrastructure (MarKRITIS) in particular has brought the Baltic Sea into the public eye. Primarily submarine cables laid on the...
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