European forces flex their Indo-Pacific reach

STUTTGART, Germany — For a long time France served because the European Union’s primary representative within the Indo-Pacific, and as the only member to take care of regional territories, conducting two to a few deployments per yr.

But up to now two years, the variety of allies and partners stretching their ability to launch long-distance, rapid deployments and maintain operational capability in the world has increased.

Each Germany and the Netherlands first deployed military vessels to the region in 2021 following the EU’s release of its first Indo-Pacific strategy. The Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen deployed for seven months as a part of a British carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth. The Dutch also participated in several exercises with Singapore, Japan and the U.S. Navy during that point, as outlined in a March 2023 report from the Hague Center for Strategic Studies think tank.

Germany published its first Indo-Pacific strategy in 2020, with a concentrate on security and defense, and has asserted itself since then with various services visiting the region every year.

“Today the Indo-Pacific is essentially the most strategically essential region on Earth,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said in a recent statement. “Essential decisions about freedom, peace and prosperity on the earth are made here. Germany can also be directly affected by this.”

The German Navy frigate Bayern spent six months sailing across the Horn of Africa, across the seas to Australia and Japan. Last yr, the German Air Force sent six Eurofighters, alongside tankers and transport aircraft, tasked with reaching Singapore inside 24 hours under the moniker “Pacific Readiness.” German Air Force assets also participated in Australia’s Pitch Black exercise in the course of the deployment.

This yr, it would be the German Army that heads to the Pacific, because the service will take part in Australia’s Talisman Sabre exercise, going down July 22-Aug. 4. The combined exercise may even include German naval and air warfare platforms, a spokesperson for the Defence Ministry told Defense News.

“The German exercise participation in Talisman Sabre 2023 offers a superb opportunity to practice interoperability in a high-intensity battle with land, air and sea forces and to send a transparent signal of Germany’s solidarity and willingness to cooperate with the worth partners within the region,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Next yr, the German Navy is predicted to send one other frigate to the region, this time with a supply ship. As well as, the Air Force may partake in a trinational air deployment between Germany, France and Spain, an Air Force spokesperson told Defense News. Because the three nations participating within the next-generation Future Combat Air System program, the deployment would function a joint message of solidarity with partners within the Indo-Pacific region, the spokesperson added.

As of this text’s writing, no plan for this joint deployment is finalized, however the hope is to have the three nations sign a letter of intent on the Paris Air Show, going down June 19-25, per the spokesperson.

Meanwhile, Italy launched its five-month naval deployment out of La Spezia Naval Base to the Indo-Pacific region in early April, as reported by Naval News. The crew of the second Thaon di Revel-class offshore patrol vessel Francesco Morosini will call in 15 ports of 14 countries, and can also be participating in several regional operations. This deployment marks the primary operational mission assigned to the ship and its crew, and is the primary time the vessel will operate out of the Mediterranean basin, serving as a test of its ability to perform a long-distance deployment.

The British Royal Navy will deploy a carrier strike group to the Indo-Pacific in 2025, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on the eve of the annual G7 summit meeting in May, held this yr in Hiroshima, Japan. The news got here as Sunak and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, signed the Hiroshima Accord, which entails commitments for closer economic, defense, security and technological collaboration.

The deployment might be the second to the region for Britain’s aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, and the strike group will include naval escorts and F-35 fighter jets partnering with the Japan Self-Defense Forces and other regional partners.

EU aspirations

Alongside individual member nations’ initiatives, the European Union has taken steps to strengthen its security posture within the Indo-Pacific region.

Security there was one in every of three primary topic areas on the second annual EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum, held May 13 in Stockholm, Sweden. About 60 ministerial-level officials from each regions were in attendance, sending a signal that the EU “is realizing that we have now a world theater where different regional challenges are interconnected, and we have now, due to this fact, also to have a world approach in cooperating with partners across the globe,” a senior EU official said prior to the forum.

While the official cited maritime domain awareness as a specific defense and security initiative, the person also described latest instruments meant to tackle “significant cyberthreats” within the region, in addition to “foreign information manipulation.”

The EU has developed maritime domain awareness through two lines of effort, said Frederic Grare, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia program.

This includes the Critical Maritime Routes Indo-Pacific project series, launched in 2015 as a capability-building exercise built around maritime domain awareness via the Indo Pacific Regional Information Sharing platform. The flagship initiative was built for maritime coordination and communications, coupled with extensive training programs on maritime data processing within the region, per the EU.

The second is the creation of a coordinated maritime presence within the Indian Ocean via joint patrols, exercises and joint port calls, which Grare described as an “embryonic” effort put forth in February 2022 just because the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

“We’re in very, very early phases of implementation, and it’s going to take time before anything really happens on the bottom,” Grare said.

Observers and analysts say it’s too early to evaluate the extent of the EU’s defense and security involvement within the region. Indeed, the Hague Center report noted that because the EU doesn’t operate the equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s seventh Fleet based in Japan, “it seems obvious that in case of an open conflict, its role could also be near negligible.”

Lots of the EU members’ navies are more structured for littoral and coastal defense, relatively than expeditionary warfare, analysts said.

Nevertheless, the reported added, the bloc’s expertise in crisis management, international maritime law, maritime domain awareness and multilateral cooperation toward piracy, crime, migration and illegal fishing helps address real-world regional needs.

“Capability constructing within the above issue-areas constitutes the majority of European efforts and primary contribution to regional maritime security. The naval presence could be the proverbial ‘cherry on top,’ whose primary purpose is so as to add visibility and credibility to its engagement,” the report stated.

One other challenge area lies within the EU’s efforts to pursue something of an intermediary approach between america and China. That is, nonetheless, becoming increasingly difficult to navigate within the era of great power competition, said Ben Schreer, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Europe office in Berlin.

While members of the G7 expressed strong convergence in pushing back against a lot of Beijing’s approaches to the war in Ukraine, tension with Taiwan, and economic coercion following their annual meeting in May, the repeated emphasis on “de-risking, not de-coupling” reflected the EU’s approach to China, in addition to that of major member nations like France and Germany.

These middle-man approaches run the chance of undermining the more constructive efforts on the military level, noted Schreer. France, for instance, has been energetic in organizing joint deployments through the Indo-Pacific with the U.S. and Australia, and has sailed its own military ships through the Taiwan Strait.

But French President Emmanuel Macron’s April comments on the necessity to avoid being dragged right into a confrontation between the U.S. and China over Taiwan has given some stakeholders within the Indo-Pacific pause, Schreer said. Macron’s comments also led to debate over whether European nations will proceed to prioritize their very own domestic interests within the Indo-Pacific, relatively than a collaborative approach from the entire union, Schreer added.

Regional interlocutors attending IISS’ annual Shangri-La Dialogue, held in Singapore from June 2 through June 4, aren’t necessarily expecting the EU to develop into “a serious player in defense terms,” he explained. But they might be speeches from defense ministers, in addition to the EU’s defense and security czar Josep Borrell, about “practical, concrete statements by way of strengthening the defense posture.”