COLOGNE, Germany — The German air force is planning an exercise tour through the Asia-Pacific region in 2024, accompanied by aircraft from France and Spain, the partners within the trinational Future Combat Air System, in line with defense officials.
The weekslong deployment next summer, which also involves a minimum of one German navy ship, follows Berlin’s logic that Germany must help stabilize an economically necessary region as China looks to grow its influence.
“We recognize that the region’s interests touch on ours, a minimum of, and even are the identical as ours,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Nov. 16 at event in Berlin organized by the Women in International Security network. “We’re coming to remain.”
Also a part of the federal government’s calculus is that any German engagement on the opposite side of the globe will save the US from having to get entangled there, freeing up American forces to stay focused on Europe, Pistorius added. “You possibly can see the cascading effect.”
Next yr’s deployment of aircraft can be “much, much larger” than the air force’s initial foray to the Asia-Pacific region in 2022, service chief Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said in an interview. That deployment aimed to prove that a smattering of aircraft — six Eurofighters, 4 A400M multirole aircraft and three A330 tankers — could reach Singapore in 24 hours and join various training activities from there.
The upcoming trip will take the wrong way, flying across the north Atlantic to Alaska for a primary stop. In keeping with Gerhartz, the thought is to indicate up within the region with a “European face,” consisting of the three FCAS partner nations and possibly also involving aircraft from the U.K. and Italy along the way in which.
Air National Guard Director Lt Gen. Michael Loh, whose pilots will train with German counterparts in the course of the Arctic Defender drill in July, lauded the Europeans’ exercise plans. “It’s critically necessary that Europe comes over to the Pacific to indicate interoperability and support with the U.S. and other members of the region,” he said in an interview.
As of last month, the next contingent of European warplanes was set to partake in various drill elements in the course of the summer: eight German and 4 Spanish Eurofighters, 12 German Tornados, six French Rafales, 4 German and 4 French-Spanish A400Ms, and 4 German and three A330s, in line with a Luftwaffe briefing slide.
Parts of the formation will aim to take part in the Hawaii-based Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, exercise in late July, following a pit stop in Japan for a couple of days of what the German air service dubs “local flying” with Japanese crews there, the slide states. While in Hawaii, the German air force goals to rendezvous with a Germany Navy frigate, the plan goes.
Next on the calendar is exercise Pitch Black in Australia in late July, followed by a stop either in Indonesia or Malaysia before ending the deployment in India, a rustic defense and foreign policy leaders in Berlin have been eying as a selected anchor within the region.
In India, the European contingent will aim to partake within the country’s international Tarang Shakti exercise, if the timing works out, or perform “local flying” activities outside of that drill, in line with the Luftwaffe.
Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market within the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He relies in Cologne, Germany.