Welcome to mid Rats with Sal from Commander Salamander and Egle One from Eagle Speak
at Seer Shore your home for a discussion of national security issues and all things
maritime. And welcome board everybody. I am the aforementioned Sal along with my
ever genial co host Eagle one Eagles Speak, who hopefully, uh the electrons
will find him. We dropped off for a second, but he's a pro.
He'll be back here in a minute. Really appreciate everybody who's joined us
for another edition of mid Rats, and if you happen to be joining us
live as always, we've got the chat room that we'd like to extend an
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you would like for us to direct to our guests, that is the perfect
place to go. And I always like to do the altar call at the
beginning. If you don't already subscribe to mid Rats, go ahead and go
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and find mid Rats and subscribe. That way, we will be ready for
you when things might be a little more convenient for your busy schedule, and
for today we want to go ahead and bring on board a returning guest on
a topic that for those who have been paying attention to the news recently,
it's not just the US Navy that's been out there in the Red Sea and
the Gulf of Oman helping protect shipping, but our friends in Europe have been
as well. And this is an opportunity to look at the European navies that
we see today, how they got there through the Cold War, through the
peace dividend years, through a couple of decades where most of the alliance was
focused on conflict in Central and Southwest Asia, and we're going to look at
how they got here today and returning to mid rats to do that is doctor
Jeremy Stroz, the co head of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and
Security Studies at the University of grots and a senior fellow at the Institute for
Security Policy at Kiel University, and he has most recently authored a book titled
European Naval Power from Cold War to Hybrid Wards Wars, and we'll be using
that as kind of the kicking off point for our conversation today, Jeremy,
welcome back to mid Rats. Thank you very much, gentlemen. It's great
to be back, and we really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
And when you have an author on who's just put out a new book and
this is a book and a half, and when I first look at yeah,
half a grand five hundred pages, like, oh my gosh. But
just like Whitlock's book on fat Letter, going through this, I got to
give you a compliment before I roll it to you. Is if somebody wants
to get hold of a topic and a subject and wants to dig into it
further, you can have a book. But when you have a book that
has over one hundred pages of footnotes and references, if one little subtopic you
cover a broad breadth of time and detail on occasion, they can grab those
footnotes and those references and they could dive deep. So it really is almost
a reference more than anything else. So congratulations on that. But to kind
of roll the ball your way, tell us what you're booking about. Yeah,
thanks very much. Also, thanks for everybody who's tuning in a little
earlier than usual. But over here in Europe it's of course nine o'clock in
the evening, and it just came back from a ten day road trip to
Italy and Switzerland, also discussing maritime security, with especially focus on the Mediterranean
or the why the Mediterranean region. So I'm very happy that we could move
this today's discussion forward a little bit. And thanks again again for having me.
It's my third time now on DRED, so three's a charmament and of
course I hope to come back in the future. However, probably not with
another book, at least not all too soon, because the one I just
published has been long in the making. For those who know my work,
I am an Austrian American, so both an Austrian citizens as well as an
American, and a little over ten years ago I realized, well, there's
this gap, there's this gap in research on contemporary naval forces, European naval
forces. Of course, historians have difficulties approaching the subject academically because of the
lack of you know, of resources that I have been declassified. So it's
very often up to political scientists like myself to try to get to get an
idea about how European navies have developed. And I have tried to take different
approaches in different forms of describing their their development, their evolution, if you
will. And my first book that was and I was happy to be invited
in mid Rats to discuss that as well was The Decline of European Naval Forces,
was published with Naval Institute Press in twenty eighteen. And then they are
really looked at European navies from the perspective of decline and how they declined after
the end of the Cold War. And already at that time I was already
writing my PhD. And and I wanted to take a different approach with my
PhD in and trying to really understand how European digital European naviies, so not
the European Union, but the individual nations, which naval policies they had,
how they shaped their naval forces, how they used their naval forces and tried
or I used a different methodology in that I looked at each country individually from
the end of the Cold War, so from the nineteen eighties until two thought
weelve, and looking not only looking at them through a three pronged approach morals
of three prisms, if you will. One is being strategy that documents the
Capstone documents, what the nations said about naval forces, how they wanted to
use them. The second prism. The second pillar was the structure, so
forces, how they were structured, what procurement policies they had, which chips
were being built, what the change from mandatory military service to professional militaries and
things like that. And the third was, at the end of the day,
how they applied naval power, so how they used those naval forces.
And I borrowed a lot of my methodology from Jeffrey tail which Meyer very much,
and he also wrote the introduction to My to My to My book as
well, so he can contributed to this in many ways. And I wanted
to really look at what they say, what they have, and what they
do, and actually to see also the differences in what they say and what
they don't actually do, or what they have and what they can do with
what they have. And I also use a different methodology in that I analyze
navies through either looking at them being and we can get into this in a
bit. The missions they should fulfill, so which missions are they tailored to?
Which missions do the documents layout? Are they more state centric competitive missions?
We can get into this and I can also provide, of course you
want the graph to get a better understanding of that, or are they more
focused on collaborative system centric missions? And tried to really does a navy ten
towards the one does it tend towards the other end? Do they do both?
Are they more balanced? And I found that really for myself very insightful.
Yeah, I'll leave it at that, maybe to give you an idea.
And it's really from the nineteen eighties up until now, and it tried
to cover all the naval forces danced why it's also five hundred page book,
and of course there would be so much more to write about every single lady.
Yeah, it's a it's an interesting book. I think one of the
things that got me was that you identified kind of the the effects of the
end of the Cold War as the when we said history had gone away,
and then regrouping a different as history has moved along, regrouping of all these
militaries into different into different structures to deal with the current situation. But not
every country kept an eye on the long, a longer game where Russia or
China might reappears threats. Can you kind of talk about how that color the
way your book was was formatted. Yeah, absolutely, I mean I drew
a lot already from my from my first book that I that I had written,
the Decline of European Naval Forces, but of course it dived much deeper.
Also got a lot of helpful comments from the community, you know that
also you know, criticized me for not going into looking at the at the
at the different sources from the individual states. So I really tried to get
as much information both from from naval leaders, politicians, people involved in each
individual country in those processes, as well as of course the documents that they
publish and you know, journals and so on. So we're rented to get
a better idea of what each country is up to. And of course then
I can only do so much with the time it was given. But it
is interesting if you look back and of course currently with this strong focus also
in our defense community, great partition and war fighting and all that. If
you put yourself, you know, if you just think about what twenty twenty
five years ago, what we were actually most people were thinking about. Not
everybody was thinking about, but most people. You definitely not Russia and it
definitely was not China. Or their two really saw those risks or they thought
they had those those a period of time until they could you know that putah
sometimes some warning time that you will and to a certain extent, we had
that warning time and it was roughly ten years and we just didn't see it.
We didn't act upon that. But what is very interesting is just that
of course, in a time of peace, naturally, and that is not
not something that is unique to the nineteen nineties. For example, relative peace,
I have the same and we had the wars in the Balkans, you
know, desert storm, Somalia, you know, Sierra Leone. There were
a lot of conflicts, but those were very different conflicts than the big one
against the Soviet Union and the warsaw Pack. And it is natural that then
nations cash in the peace dividend and you know, spend money not in gray
halls but in you know, other things, and especially also in Europe,
where we have, of course a bigger focus on welfare on a social stage
and on providing people means to have good access to to cheap housing or also
you know, medical services and so on. So that was natural to a
certain extent for many states to buy into this and it was also in what
I find very interesting, for navies that were under budgetary pressures. Also many
of them bought into this notion of okay, we have to you know,
hunt pirates and conduct anti piracy operations, not only because our big brother,
the Americans, are doing it, but also because we can justify spending billions
still and and millions on very advanced, advanced kit. And the problem maybe
not so much even is the technological aspects, because in terms of technology,
many European naval forces were actually caught up to other powers, also the US
in certain areas. And you know, they can hold their own in certain
areas of technology propulsion technology, gum technology, certain missile censures and so on.
But it just was the amount of money available for building ships, operating
ships, keeping the readiness for high and war fighting. And so it is
a very very mixed it's actually a mosaic if you will, if you look
across Europe, because there's just very different trends. And tried to pee to
to tease the different developments apart in my book and giving you an idea of
what the Germans said at a certain point in time, what they did at
a certain point in dime and what the green structure looked like and which missions,
especially which missions they focused on. And I think that is a very
good indicator of where a navy is heading in acts of which navy which missions
it focuses and prioritizes. And my argument is that there was a naval paradigm
naming this system centric collaborative idea of naval forces, which epitomized by the US
and it's a CS twenty one, a corporative strategy document and the thousand ship
eighty concept of the two thousands. So the US also had this idea and
the Europeans, many of the European nations followed suit. There's a common theme
and you just mentioned half of it. That kind of weaves in through the
book as you're trying to look at wise nations made the decisions that they made
and what was the background of the thinking. And one of the concept the
larger concepts that come up is that collaborative versus competition outline for everybody how those
two concepts exist and contrast each other, and how that can impact fleet design
well in general, my argument would be in that of others as well.
I mean, there's nothing I came up with, but it is actually the
twenty first century or the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty
first century is unique in many ways, and that prior to that, every
navy was built with primarily the idea of competition in mind, you know,
states fend for themselves. We have a security dilemma. You build navies.
If you think of ten booths triangle, that the basis of this triangle is
actually war fighting. So the military function of naval forces is the foundation.
And you could argue even throughout this period of over the last thirty years,
it always was the basis of why you had naval forces. But I just
found that it really was a break from the past in terms of the threat
perception. The principal threat perception for many countries change from another state being predominantly
formerly Soviet Union and in Russia, to proxies to terrorism, so share threats
and challenges that weren't necessarily states, and that globalization linked nations together to such
an extent that the protection of you know, by sea was essential to all
the states, and that had become more or less the principal function of naval
forces protecting seaborne trade, protecting the global maritime comments against any possible you know,
threat. And you see this especially in the anti piracy operations, anti
terrorism operations that all of a sudden had China and Russia cooperating to a certain
extent in combating combating these these threats and challenges. And at the same time,
also these challenges were further afield. They weren't in the NATO formerly you
know, NATO's area of responsibility, but they were out of area. They
were somewhere else. Because of the idea if there's a crisis that rupt somewhere
far away, it has ripple effects that cause damage at home. Eleven the
tacks of nine to eleven, of course, vindicating this idea that somebody plotting
a terrorist attack in Afghanistan could strike terror at the center of the United States.
So and you had to do something against that. You couldn't wait until
those threats came home. And I think this is the principle of the main
idea between this competitive state centric navies that are built to defend your own territory
or maritime approaches, and then also the naval forces are shaped to do this
and operate also in this way or if they are actually built and designed to
conduct system centric collaborative missions, which for example, would be antipiracy operations.
And you could argue those couple pirates, okay, that you know, didn't
really oppose a significant threat to let's say the United Kingdom or the and the
Royal Navy. That did not necessarily mean the Royal Navy would have to deploy
its most advanced destroyers of the off the coast of Somalia, for example.
So this is just where I'm trying, where I tried to go with the
book, to contrast those different missions according to either your competitive state centric and
of course, or system centric collaborative collaborative system centric and of course the issue
is it's both in many ways. It's very often still focused on both things.
So it's more a tendency. Do they lean more towards that one end
or towards the other? Am I making myself clearer anyway? In any way?
Of course? Super super super Yeah, So that's where I wanted to
go with it. And I also think that that is a new approach,
approach, a new methodology that nobody else has has has applied. Jeff Till
writes about that and others have, but nobody applies it to the development of
up navies over a thirty year period. Yeah. One of the things I
found interesting too was a discussion of what happened to NATO's naval forces and of
the EU not being a defense force necessarily, although they participate in anti piracy
activities in at Atlanta. But I'm looking at the Libya campaign and thinking one
of the lessons we should have learned from that was somebody's not Somebody's got to
pick up the slack on who's providing all the munitions and stuff. And I
don't know if that's a problem, because if you're if you're state centric,
you you have enough munition, do you think to defend yourself. But if
you're going to be cooperative, somebody's got to pick up the load and say,
you know, if this happens, we're going to have to have X
number of missiles or whatever. Is that a concern in this and I mean
I cover this, I also cover this in my and you mentioned missiles and
effectors, and then you know the thereof especially among European armed forces, not
only navies, but armed forces. Speak about that in my study that also
was invited to you know to you guys and mid rats as called the future
of how high the future of European maye power were actually a European navies are
far too few missiles and missiles inventory is insufficient conduct sustained operations in any you
know, largest inarian weed and saw now in the Red Sea that it is
you know, those those vls cells of tubes are are emptied quite quickly against
let's say, not the most threatening of let's say, in all things considered,
not the most threatening environment, despite it being a difficult environment to operate.
So yes, I addressed that the lack of of if you will,
the lack of foresight, and also the lack of the ability to actually,
if it's a medium a high intensity area of operation, to hold their own.
And yes, one would actually argue, one could argue that even if
you are focused on collaborative systems centric missions, you should have enough means to
conduct them. Of course, it was quite comfortable for Europeans and has been
to free ride on American taxpayers money and on the US military, and me
living in Austria, I'm not afraid to say quite frequently that we are you
know, three riders par excellence here with our neutrality, but being happy that
everybody else is picking up the slack for us. So that is an argument
just in times of you know, economic difficulties, especially at the end of
the thousand Sweden with the economic crisis, that was a topic that didn't really
hit home with decision makers in the various capitals. And it is of course
for small estates quite difficult to entertain and to maintain large arsenals of advanced weaponry.
I mean, that is something we just have to always from a US
perspective, something you have to keep in mind that some of those European navies
are very small. You know, they might have a total of five thousand
personnel, a ten thousand personnel, maybe three to five ships and a couple
of vertical large systems, and having missiles for you know, is also expensive.
So this is just something I would agree with you that was overlooked.
And also maybe if you look at the collaborative element of it, I think
many of the decisions that were made people were happy with that if something really
would turn sour, the US would come to bankroll them or come come come
to their aid anyway, and to a certain extent that still is the case
of place. Yeah, it was up a habit, generations made in the
making. And I like how in the book he broke the post Cold War
era really into three different periods. There was nineteen ninety one to two thousand
and one, the peace I'm calling the peace divenent era. Then you go
from from two thousand and one to twenty fourteen, that's you know, nine
to eleven to the Russians invasion of Crimea and the two provinces of Ukraine,
and then twenty fourteen to now. You can all almost break it from twenty
twenty two on. But one thing that dominated, especially that first period,
and we experienced that here. That in the US as well, the last
Supper period where our military industrial complex shrunk significantly and consolidated. And I always
encourage people to look back at the figures that are available. NATO keeps the
figures. You can find it a few places that during the Cold War even
nations such as Belgium would spend over three percent of the DP on defense,
but a lot of capabilities were lost in that peace dividend era. Then you
had the error where we focused land combat in Central and Southwest Asia, and
we find ourselves looking again, and I would also encourage people that look at
the defense spending, especially in the Baltics and Central Europe right before the invasion
of twenty twenty two. This is all very recent the underspending, but as
a byproduct of that, significant capabilities, both industrial and institutional were lost.
People forget that Denmark used to have a small but highly effective submarine fleet.
That's gone away. The Dutch used to have a sovereign capability to build their
own submarines, that's gone. So when we look across Europe over the course
of the last two years and change since the Russian invasion and kickoff of the
war and fall of twenty twenty two, what in the European military industrial complex
from a naval point of view, do you see evidence of being fairly robust,
rickety or something that's seeing some investment that people should be happy about seeing.
Any maybe push back on this notion of or on the on the idea
of the nineteen nine being this cashing in on the peace dividend. I would
argue that was something interesting that I found in my research is that for some
states, or for actually a number of states, this dramatic decline in defense
spending and in capability is respective to other nations, because of course that's always
you only have a decline or increase in capability respective to others. Really happened
in the two thousands, and that has several reasons. First of all,
because several states in Europe did not buy into this peace dividend or this idea
of that the threat had threats had gone away in the nineteen nineties. You
specifically see it in of course Northern Europe, Finland, Sweden and Norway still
very much also in those strategic documents being focused on Russia, unlike other European
states that quickly shifted towards okay, we'll you know, have a more more
friendly relationship with Russia. You see it also in defense spending of states like
Turkey and Briefs quite famous being known for also regional tensions. So the security
dilemma is a slightly slightly different one if you look at southeas Eastern Europe and
also in states is, particularly those that had nuclear forces the UK and France,
you also still have not so much change in either what their strategic documents
say, what their force structure is concerned, and even in terms of their
operational patterns. Yes, of course the Royal Navy was released back into its
more traditional role of being a global actor, if you will, at least
in theory, they were released into being a more global actor, and not
only um submergings in your North Atlantic. But if you look at the defense
spending, if you look at the force structure, and whether the documents say
actually there was still this period, especially the early nineties, but something even
into the late nineteen nineties that were I would still argue, were quite competitive
minded, quite state centric minded, and still focused on territorial defense. And
then you have of course also some states already that very much, you know,
we're happy to be to gain much more freedom of action, especially small
states. If you look at the Danish Navy, that changed dramatically and only
more or less a period of a decade, and I would argue that actually,
this big, this real decline happened during the two thousand because there were
no more or far fewer Cold War holdovers in terms of munitions, in terms
of a block obsolescence of surface combatants still from the Cold War. And then
really the dramatic and draconian budget cuts that then took effect, especially at the
end of the two thousand, So that is maybe something where I would what
this this period's brought to light. And one thing, of course, this
is very Yes, nine to eleven was dramatic moment in history and you know
also a watershed moment. But for some navies it didn't really play a role.
So, for example, for the Dutch Navy, two thousand and one
did not necessarily changed their pattern. There were other other dates for the for
the Dutch Navy that played a more important role. But I have, of
course, I had to, you know, choose certain sections in how to
how they analyzed the military industrial complex very interesting to to to study the development
of especially the naval industry, and of course it's not only naval industry,
but in general the military industrial complex complex. I would agree with you.
I mean, just the lack of funding took to catol on most most areas,
there was you know, the wholesale of equipment of capabilities many states.
You mentioned the Danish submarine flotilla which saw its last and final operations in during
in two thousand and three in the Iraqi Freedom where it was deployed to the
Persian Gulf. And then there were ideas of a trilateral submarine program together with
war Wind and Sweden which never came to fruitioning and more or less and that
the Danish underwater capability at least in terms of having submarines to their disposal.
But that really depends to a certain extent also from state to state. Some
states, for example, Spain is a very good example of actually bourgeoising a
growing naval defense industrial complex, from initially building or actually getting ships from the
US gearing class destroyers and things like that, to actually building in license some
of according to all that has a parier class of building in license and surface
combatants and then being able with of course US assistance, but still having an
industrial complex with Navantia as the big ship builder to not only build state of
the art surface combatants, but I actually also export their surface combatants, for
example to Norway. Turkey is a similar example of this growing industrial complex,
but of course there's a majority of In more cases we actually see a decline
as you mentioned the consalidation workers being laid off because there aren't just aren't enough
orders. We have certain time a systems like the NH ninety helicopter, which
is not called NH ninety you know, for or it's called for a reason,
but only seeing it's being introduced into service, you know, in the
last couple of years, and some states actually have moved away from it again
and said that that doesn't have the quality we need. So there is some
of the procurement projects took forever, some of them really, you know,
of the number of units initially detailed in the strategy papers, for example,
calling for we need twelve surface combatants, and then it was scaled down to
eight. Then it was scaled down to six, and it you know,
takes so much longer to bruise that. So this is all the development that
you see not only in the US, because of course you are from very
much familiar with the same trend, but also in many areas of Europe,
which, as you know, with naval forces, makes it much more difficult
thinking in long term in twenty thirty forty years. Then actually when things get
more testing, which they will and are already than to have those those capabilities
yeah to your disposal. So that that's what I would say. In regard
to the Mayiar industrial conflicts, Well, one of the examples you gave of
a country which seems to have lost as well. It was Germany and development
of their brigands. Could you talk a little bit about about the reasons why
some countries just kind of lost the strategic picture of where they want to go
with their names. Yeah, I mean I'm very critical with the German Navy
because it's maybe the closest to my heart. So you know, you're very
often, you know, something that means a lot to you than actually you're
more critical with. And that goes for me with the German ava just because
you know, I studied in northern Germany. I have very good context.
I know many people I hold in high regard, many people working in the
German Armed Force and of course also in the in the German Navy. But
the German Germany is unique in many ways, of course as being in an
industrial powerhouse, and you know that as much as I do. And at
the same time, you know with the shared history that Austria and Germany have
due to the Second World War. But there's aversion to anything remotely you know,
remote and and and the strong you know, opposition also in certain parts
of the population to the armed forces. Uh. And then of course also
very much more than many other countries caching in the peace to evident several structural
reforms which were really dramatic for the German armed forces in general. If you
lived at the number of you know, main battle tanks Germany had in the
nineteen eighties compared to the lowest point when they think they had one hundred and
forty six or something like that, you know, it's one of the as
the fifth largest, the fourth largest economy in the world, to have one
hundred and twenty six battle tanks is you know, laughable. But that's this
is you know, just shows also the myopia and the short sightedness of this
generation of politicians, which is actually very interesting because many of those politicians were
actually you know, knew the Cold War firsthand and should have understood also,
you know, the terrems long term thinking, strategic thinking. And there's an
interesting podcast by my colleague and professor as Unfortunate in German, but he also
refers to this lack of strategic thinking in Germany, especially what armed forces are
concerned and if you look at and one of the things, of course the
German is unique, and that's other German Navy is unique, is that they
always refer to NATO planning, so they always consider themselves a MATO navy and
that is different to some other European navies live are quite happy with, you
know, both their national duties that they have and at the same time,
yes, we are NATO, but you know, we do our own thing
anyway. So and Germany always and I don't think it's actually healthy for also
for the German armed forces over the German Navy to always point to NATO and
the NATO Capability Plan and saying that's actually what NATA expects from us, and
that's why, that's how we will build our armed forces in our navy,
because if you're in all seriousness, then NATO does not tell Germany to build
more corvettes that were designed in the nineteen eighties now. But Germany still has
industrial industry interests and has other interest interest group that then and think, okay,
that might plug the hole that we have. So I do think that
the Germany it would be better served and not reverting always into this idea of
an alliance armed forced. But we are a strong national armed force, a
strong national navy of course as part of NATO. And they will very often
argue we will never fight alone, we will never be alone. But you
know, you meet a certain amount of capabilities because you never know what you
know, even in an article five scenarios, you never know what other nations
will bring to the table and what they will be able to bring to the
table. So having this critical masses I call it is really important to have
across the board. And that costs money. And you know that costs three
four five percent or you know, you know gross domestic product, that's what
it costs. And currently not still many countries are not willing to pay paying
death and with their frigates, I mean, you know, the Germans are
very proud of their frigates and to a certain extent, you know, some
of them, you know, are still Cold War holdovers or at least designed
at the end of the Cold War. But maybe the major challenges that they
don't have a continuation. They don't have a continuation in building naval vessels,
like Japan for example, has and I would argue Japan is a good case
with a similarly troubled history of the Second World War. It's it's also economically
strong. Of course, it has a stronger maritime focused in Germany. You
know, that's clear as an island nation, but I think they're very good
example of how you can have a continuous, continued, steady stream of procurement
of platforms, which really helps this you know, evolution of the platform really
helps of course the shipyards, the industrial base, all the sub companies that
work in subcontractors that work in that field. And Germany and this epitomized this
idea collaborative system centric, a German collaborative system centric navy. And as you
can guess, I come to the conclusion that Germany, the German Navy very
much tended towards this collaborative system centric and during the Chosenes Wars that they then
came up with the idea that they will do they will be an out of
area operation navy. They will be able to deal with expeditionary operations, so
they will be able to deploy far afield. They want to to also have
a concept of sea basing similar to what the US Navy also has and was
quite was quite prominent a couple of years back, but without without the big
logistic ships because they didn't afford them. So we have actually a frigate that
at the end of the day they should fill their role of expeditionary seat basing,
peace support operation, constabulary operations, and all of a sudden, this
very large frigate, very likely lightly armed frigate finds itself in a security environment
that is very much a demand for a different kind of ship. And you
wouldn't deploy probably that vessel even to an area like the Red Sea currently because
the lack of its armor. So this is just an example of the German
frigate more or less being the pinnacle of this idea of we're heading towards the
collaborative future, and that is the ship and the capability we need down the
line, which it is not one of the more interesting things this year.
As we saw in January and then February, speaking of collaboration, we had
a Dutch frigate that went through the South China Sea and I actually did a
Taiwan Strait transit. And then about a month later we had the German frigate
Bayern went through the South China. He did not do a taiwand straight transit,
so you know, a little bit of presence, but that came to
mind when in your book there's figure two point one from nineteen eighty four that
shows the nominal view of the world's ocean, oceans, and something that I
want to mention them for the second podcast in a row that will trigger our
friend John Conrad, the naval control and protection of shipping. And there's you
know especially you know, Canada caught my eye, Australia, New Zealand,
France, Japan. It's back when the navies are much larger. You could
make a viable argument that yes, the British Royal Navy can cover this much
of the globe, so can the French, and the others can handle these
other parts. But if the US Navy, at least numbers wise, is
no longer the world's largest navy, the people's are publics in China numbers wise.
But when you look at it from a strictly a regional name, maybe
those teeth are a lot sharper than they look at in the global sense.
And we are reaching a point of greater concern about the lack of a better
phrase, international order at sea that greatly benefits Europe. One could argue even
more than the United States. This is a planet that's it's seventy percent plus
water. Uh. When you look at that glow that chart from nineteen eighty
four and then you look at the capabilities and maritime strategies of today, do
you see some large holes? There are? Are there other ways that we
could try to recapture some sense of security should the present trends for the next
decade or so about relative power balance ballance on the high seas continue the way
they've been. Yeah, yeah, thanks for bringing it up. It's this
actually this map from Competer Sports and John Haasendalarf and the Newport paper the Maritime
Strategy in the nineteen eighties and the documents that were released back in the days
and then circulated back in the days to the decision makers. You know,
it's a very different world nowadays. So I especially because maritime security has become
so much more important than Maritime security is so much more than you know,
warships, and so many more states have a stake in maritime security. Even
Austria has has a soldiers deployed on German vessels in the Mediterranean as a neutral
state in the UNIFOL mission in Lebanon for capacity building. You have small,
really small navies that didn't play any role during the Cold War really, and
that's why I actually added this this first chapter in my book on cold the
Cold War roots. Just to give you an idea that back in the day
it was really bolt hard power. And if you're at the bottom of the
totem pole you have osay. And I think that has changed a little bit,
just because our world has become we're more connected and interconnected. You know,
if you look at you know, the relations between the Soviet Union and
US economically are entirely different. We're entirely different back then than the US and
China as nowadays. So there is a new dynamic in the areas wall so,
and of course the US Navy is not as dominant as it arguly was
at the time. Of course, and especially these are you the People's Liberations
Army, Navy and the Russian Navy, you know whereby I can't speak much
on the Russiannavy because there are people better, better read and who know much
more about that night. But I get a sense there is a certain sense
of urgency, and there has been for a couple of years now. You
see trends across Europe, you know, to invest more long term investment,
investment in high end capabilities. We discussed it in our podcast on my study.
A couple leaves back or two or three years back. But the challenge
remains that you can't build navies quickly. And even despite all these uncrewed platforms
that are only very slowly being integrated into naval forces, and Europeans are having
the hardest time integrating anything uncrude apart from mind clearance into their navies, you
will still be you know you now you now have the forces you designed ten
fifteen years ago, and there is no quick fix for that. And then
you have the additional challenges of personnel that is incredibly difficult now where all the
most nations have switched to professional armies moving back, but still to get you
know, people to join the join the military. So there are those compounding
pressures and I don't see any easy fixes. What I do see what has
been working better, I would argue in the last in the last let's say
years, is that interoperability and the interchangeability is better than it was and probably
ever was. If you you know, see if you look at the pacificate
and see American F thirty five's landing on uh Japanese, I'll call it a
carrier, which has the same if I'm not mistaken the same name as a
carrier that attacked per Harbor several decades ago. You know that that says something.
And also, you know, if you look at how interchangeability in their
operability works across Europe, there is a lot to say. And even if
we get into a little bit of more of this political discussion, let's not
they like today too much of that. But even during the Trump presidence presidency,
which was perceived very differently, very often across Europe maybe than it was
in the US, but the US military was very present across Europe. Some
of the biggest exercises that were held during this period. So it's not like,
you know, there there is a real sense of abandonment in the US.
Of course it's focusing on China, but it's also very present in Europe
and you do see that, especially operations like the one in the Red Sea.
Now they're you know, they're they're reaching new goals, they're reaching reaching
new overcoming certain hurdles that they that they haven't faced before. Germany for the
first time deployed its frigate in a combat mission, you know, and really
destroying and shooting down drones. That was the first time it has done.
So, you know, so that is for an American might seem some somewhat
peculiar, but that is the case. And they also re armed those and
reloaded these vertical launch systems in Jibouti, so for deployed if you will,
the capability. So there are those incremental changes to where I would say there
is more of a sense of urgency. Of course the military, many of
the military leaders do understand there are a sense of urgency, but the difficulties
I mean convincing politicians and of course population that that is necessary, and it
is as difficult to do that in Europe as it is in the US.
Is there a sense that it would be possible? I think you've discussed this,
probably not, probably not happened, But is there a sense that one
of the things that the European could benefit from some kind of coordinated effort.
I know when NATO was on with certain nations specialized in certain things, so
my worker was was a big deal. Is there a sense that that could
happen again, there'd be a coordination. So if the Royal Navy and the
French Navy want to have their SSBNs, that's fine, that helps all of
this. But we'll do this, will do that you know, we'll specialize
in a sw like you know the old days. But again there were asw
people in the Baltic and all that specialties mine and as I said, min
worker, is there a sense that could happen again? Is there accordant enough
effort, either NATO or in the EU that people can actually get together and
say, let's do this right, you know, let's try it, just
try. We don't necessarily have to have a common navy, but we got
to at least talk about structure that makes some sense. I mean I would
put it, I would put it to you differently. I would argue that
that there is, at least in the European theater visa the Russian military currently
not maybe not necessarily the need for niche specialization to that extent. That's put
it carefully. I'm not the biggest fan of niche specialization because that is has
been something that has been going around here for a very long time, and
it is something that you just mentioned. In the mine warfare. The Americans
have relied on their allies, you know, to specialize in mine warfare,
and you know, in a very contested environment. I think even the US
maybe it would have it's hard time dealing with with with the threat of minds.
So and there is the continuation of that in for example, you know,
the Germans, the Dutch, the Dutch, the Belgians and some states
like that that really still continue to focus on mine warfare to a great degree,
Turks and so on. And there is a niche specialization to a certain
extent also in who can provide carrier combat capability with you know, now Italy
Spain, it's more or less still the same as Italy, Spain, the
UK and France that could do that. Turkey maybe sometimes in the future,
but that is just extremely expensive for small nabies to do. What my argument
would be is that actually rather than niche specialized to that extent, would actually
be to gain a greater critical mass of capabilities that you can integrate with other
naval forces, especially with the US Navy, which is not easy at times.
Jason Lencaster's article on SIMSEAC for that, and you know his experience in
many of your experiences probably interoperating with the US Navy with allies that is not
always that easy to communicate and be on the same page with things. But
my argument would be that just European navies, even small navies, need a
certain lethality and need a certain critical mass and capabilities, and that doesn't necessarily
have to be especially in the European theater and naval forces. It can be
land based because just land sea intradiction through technology has become more potent, more
prominent, and to be I think the strategic the strategic argument and the strategic
aim should be that the Europeans should be able to hold their own even if
the US were tied down and somewhere in the Pacific, and would be able
to hold their own in the European theater and at the same time be able
to deploy at least some token capabilities to the Pacific to complicate Chinese strategic you
know, calculations in the case that they, for example, tried to invade
Taiwan, that they couldn't be sure that the Spanish or the Italians of the
Germans wouldn't deploy with the Americans and make it even more complicated. So I
think that should be the wrong goal, rather than try to emulate this Cold
War Niche specialization, which was a totally different issue because of geography, because
of you know, the Russia being in the Soviet Union being somewhere so much
more potent at sea as well. Our discussion rightfully has been Europe's association and
performance and utility and a NATO context. But though it's usually French, though
not exclusively French, on occasion you will see a comment or a stress about
the EU vice NATO, and the EU has a military structure, and back
in my prior life I worked with them on a couple of things. So
when you say EU the big pixel concerns is from the listener's point of view,
that spins off North America, i e. The US and Canada,
that spins off now the UK, and that spins off Turkey. When you
look at if people are strictly looking at the EU naval requirements and emphasis,
how much of an overlap is there about EU maritimes strategy and focus versus a
NATO maritimes strategy and focus. Yeah, that's interesting that you has a maritime
strategy, huh since two thousand and fourteen. And also of course Alliance paradigm
strategy. I mean might couldmit dates mixed uff, but you as one.
And of course the Alliance maritime strategy is still you know, it has still
not been updated so it had we could argue it has a you know,
has held its its own during you know, or the health the test of
time. I should say, the EU is is just a different it's a
different body, you know. It's it's primarily an economic and political union and
not the defense you know union as NATO. You could argue is and you
just correctly pointed to one of the major difficulties. Of course, there is
a call for Europeans to do more, especially from the US government and the
US perspective. But at the same time, if the Europeans would say,
well, we you know, we will build our own ships and deploy our
own capabilities and won't buy American radars and missiles and what you have it f
thirty five, we will develop all that by ourselves. Of course the US
would also not be too keen on that. Procurement policy across Europe is always
also alliance policy in terms of NATO, and that is just something there are
a lot of discussions about does NATO still have irrelevance and you know all that,
and it can the EU substitute to know it cannot and I don't see
any scenario currently even beyond the US election that that would would indicate that to
that extent. So my argument would be that and what I found, of
course also in my research is that the YOU maritime missions have grown in relevance,
but they're important because of course the YOU is not seen as by some
actors as problematic as NATO because it is does not involve the US for example,
it has of course a strong focus in maritime security, which might also
be a you know, beneficial to NATO to say okay, that we can
we can focus low end operations in this European theater are a little bit beyond
we can do via the europe Union and everything that is more you know,
standing NATO and naval forces and then operations such as against Libya we have to
do via by a NATO because nobody, because EU doesn't have the command and
control a network set up to do that. And you for example also with
its new battlegroups Maritime Battle Group being Spanish Italian, and to this force,
they because NATO is the prominent, they have not come into any form you
would say, okay, that is a credible EU force that could supplement to
substitute NATO's NATO or a correlation of the willing as part of NATO or something
like that. So I would still argue that currently there's no not that kind
of role in terms of a hard defense, or they can substitute certain areas,
but they can't substitute standing NATO standing forces or the structures that NATO has
put in place. Nor is there really a necessity, because of course we
also have the duplication of efforts usually cost more money. And as you've mentioned,
the UK is not part of it, the Turkey is not part of
it, which opens up a whole Norway as well, So that opens up
a whole discussion about that as well. What you do see among the EU.
If you would have told somebody what do you in the maritime realm has
all been doing? If you would have asked somebody thirty years ago, they
probably would have not believed you what they are realizing. Also, you have
to make it as easy as possible foreign nations to buy into missions that they
have. Also the cooperative maritime presence, of coordinated maritime presence, I'm sorry,
more or less a plug and play or plug and fight, or plug
and operate scenario where you can much easily transit force thiss in and out because
there's relatively little interest in long and during large EU operations. So I leave
it that that maybe if that answers the question, that's a whole big aspect
that I cover in my book to a certain extent as well. Also this
native EU aspect and and and divisions across European nations. Well, I think
you've covered it, and I think one of the interesting parts of your book
is the stress on the global nature of trade, which you know, to
go back to my hand and some other folks. Does the EU I mean?
And I guess what we're seeing is it that're beginning to divide and maybe
maybe I'm wrong with the EU is willing to participate in clearing some of the
choke points, the Red Sea right now being a good example. They'll they'll
go play there, uh choke points which are important. They played in the
Straights o her moves. They've gone down to the Indian Ocean for stuff.
But then we also see the Indian Navy and the Japanese Navy and some of
the other Southeast Asian countries beginning to participate too. Is this as you view
this on a greater scheme of things, Because a lot of what you say
about the European arias it is true from her navies all over the all over
the world. Is this a trend where we're going to see the people are
really interested in the global trade line to communication all playing together, whether it's
coordinator or not, it's it's kind of like a division of labor. But
my default rather than by three D or whatever. Yeah, that's a good
that's a good point. You raise them, and I I'm my little hesitant
on this point because I just find the answer to the threat that the hoodies
poses is, you know, not our best moment in many ways. Would
would a similar threat have been dealt with that way thirty years ago? Or
would the collective West n their US leadership have been able to really deal the
hooth is a decisive blow? I would argue probably they would have. Of
course this you know, nobody wants boots in the ground and Yemen thirty years
ago that might have deployed ground forces to deal with that kind of threat and
or pressure Iran to reduce their support. That would be interested in your opinion
on that, because I find yes, there is a Europeans European navies deploy
within these operations. If they're more kinetic. It's a certain number of countries
than do it, especially if it's land strike. You know, the Britz
will came up with Americans and maybe one or two others. But then you
run into the problem that European navies have very few land strike capabilities. You
know, shooting harpoons at targets are war is maybe not the best option.
And then you have all the other namings that say, okay, we might
do less, a little less kinetic, more defensive operation, which more countries
and more governments are willing to buy into because they kind of show you,
hey, we're doing something. We're not getting rid of the problem, but
we're at least, you know, trying to protect as many ships as possible,
and whoop, see, well you know we can't protect there all the
ships. So I think that's a very very difficult I just don't see the
Europeans having enough capabilities to deal with those threats, which are absolutely in their
interest to deal with, more so than even the US to your point,
by themselves, you know, you, Jeremy, you triggered a flashback to
the national caveats and matrix. I lived in the mid double zeroes, like
the various cliches go. You know, coalition warfare is the worst thing,
but it's better than not having a coalition. And that's the full hour.
And for those that may have joined us late, we've been with doctor Jeremy
Shrow's discussing his latest book, European Naval Power from Cold War to Hybrid Wars.
Jeremy, I know you're you're a busy guy in all and you've this
is was a heck of a project. But for the listeners if they wanted
to keep track of what you're working on, where's a good place for him
to keep their eyeballs? And is there a project you're working on right now
that we could look forward to giving a good read. Well, I just
published an article on war and the Rocks together with my good friends about stan
Bruin on the Mirror on the Mediterranean, so you can check that one.
We'll have a podcast coming up next week on that as well. And I've
been still write on an article on the Mediterranean for fall that you can follow
me on LinkedIn currently you can still follow me an x mostly because of the
very positive defense community I have there. Everything else I'm not so sure about
there. So who knows how long it will be. You can find me
there, but otherwise if you google be you will find me and you happy
to start a discussion, answer any questions you have, and thanks for having
me again. And then a great to grin job and great work you guys
are doing. I'm furthering in the discussion on everything maritime. Absolutely appreciate your
time. Jeremy. Yeah, thanks you, and thank you everybody for joining
us for another edition of mid Rats and until next time, I hope everybody
has a great Navy day. Cheers. I'll cut that part up. Want
to marry me and a friend of Godily for you being to blame for the
on me SI folding your theame. It's a alway. It's a long way
to go. It's a long way to dipperary, to the green all about
think on a fair well the not well, it's a long long way to
dipperate. But my life, my