Sea Control - Sea Control 170 - Clausewitz, Corbett & Corvettes with Sascha Rackwitz

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Link: Clausewitz, Corbett & Corvettes

Hey folks, it's Jared. Thanks for tuning in. I think you're going to enjoy today's episode, not least due to the quality of my guests. I am bringing my old boss, Captain Sascha Rockwitz, of the German Navy aboard to discuss an article he's written for the German political science journal Sirius on the role of navies in deterrence. The article is entitled Clausewitz, Corvette, and Corvettes, and you can find it on SimSec.org. I also wanted to highlight SimSec's Project Trident. If you don't follow SimSec on Twitter, go do so now or visit the website at simsec.org. If you're interested in shaping the future of international maritime security, this is your opportunity. Our first call for essays is out. We've partnered with Marine Corps

University's Brut Krulak Center of Innovation and Creativity to address strategic choke points and littorals. More information on questions and content can be found on our website at simsec.org. Submissions are due by May 25th and can be emailed to content at simsec.org. With that, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today we're talking with the German Navy's own and my former boss, Captain Sasha Rakowitz. Sasha recently published an article,

Clausewitz, Corvette, and Corvettes in Sirius, a German political science publication. We're hoping to publish an English-language version on SimSec here in the next couple weeks. Sasha, welcome, and thanks for coming on. thanks for having me before we start would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners yeah as you said um sasha rakowitz i'm a active navy officer german navy 29 years of service now my background is in submarining i was a captain of a german submarine and commanding officer of the german submarine force until quite recently as you said i was a military professor at the German Command and Staff College in Hamburg, teaching naval strategy and operational art.

And there I have the privilege of working with you. Thanks. And as a reminder, our opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we may be associated. So did I understand that correctly? Have you moved on from the Führungsakademie? Actually, I'm in between jobs, so to say. I just left the Staff College, the Führungsakademie, and I'm about to pick up my new job, which

will be the Einsatzflotilla 1, the Flotilla 1 in the Baltic Sea, as Deputy Commander Chief of Staff there. Well, this article fits perfectly with your new job then. What I ask you too is, so it's March 29th, we're recording this topic on Everyone's Mind is COVID-19. How has that been for you over in Germany? Are you on lockdown as well? Yes, we very much are in Germany. So I personally, due to some early occurrences of COVID-19 at the Commander Staff College. The whole college was in lockdown for more than two weeks and had just resumed duties last week. But saying that everybody in the armed forces, as well as in Germany, is pretty much in social distancing. Home office is what we are trying to do. The armed forces are trying to limit presence as much as it can. So

We're working in shifts. We're working in what we call eased up formation, so to say, trying to have as little people, as few people in the actual commands as possible and still keep up our overall presence and readiness. And how's it been for your family? I'd imagine this is a lot more togetherness than you've experienced given your naval career. Yes, absolutely. I think I've never spent as much time with my family as I have in the last couple of weeks. Schools have closed down in northern Germany already a couple of weeks ago. So we have three children. Our two boys have been home for more than two weeks now. Now we just started Easter holidays, so they will be home for the coming weeks again. And even our daughter had returned home.

My daughter's in the Navy as well, and she had returned home for most of the time. So, yes, we have spent a lot of time together, only leaving the house for the absolute urgent shopping and long walks and spent a lot of time playing board games and watching movies and all those things. Yes. Thanks. So we'll start in on the article here. And I don't know if we'll have published in English by the time this goes to print, so to speak. And unfortunately, only a small part of our audience is German speakers, though it's growing every day. So before we do anything, I want to step through the article with you. You present a number of theses here, But I'd like to start with the premise that the U.S., Chinese and Russia actually view the world through a similar prism here.

Why do you say that? Yeah, but before this is actually really the premise I stop, I think it needs some explaining before somebody gets a heart attack and saying he's comparing United States policies with Russian and Chinese policies. What I'm trying to get at is that there's no denying, whether we like it or not, that those three pivotal powers, the United States of America, China, and Russia, all as their paradigm, see great power competition as influencing how the powers interact in the coming future. The American audience now will perfectly know this if you read through the United States security strategy and defense strategies, but also if you read through corresponding Chinese and Russian papers, official papers, it is always defining the international system in the future as that competition between the United States, Russia, and China. So it is a critical question for us, Germans, Europeans, who are not one of those three pivotal powers. What is that? Where does that leave us? How do we come out of this great power competition? Obviously, and this is what I want to make perfectly clear, comparing U.S. and Chinese and Russian policies does not mean that we do understand those as being, I'd say, morally equivalent. and no way that, but they work from the same paradigm, which is kind of a zero-sum understanding

of the international system. And that sits obviously a little awkward with those smaller powers, with the Europeans, especially with the Germans. So let me ask, how do the Germans view the Chinese and the Russians? Well, I think quite differently. 2014 and the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea was a watershed moment for German security politics. Quite a lot has changed since then. It was that wake-up call that the arbitrary and violent moving of borders in wider Europe was still a possibility, and the premise that we had lived on since the 1990s that this is a very much rules-based order we're living in and that we can discuss everything out, that this was not the case. that there were actors around the table who are willing and capable of using military force to pursue their political goals, which is in that case, Russia, and pretty much very close to our own borders. So this was a wake up call. And as you all know, that there has been a lot of change,

especially in NATO. NATO reacted quite, quite quickly, starting in Wales, in the summit of Wales, and then the further summits, Warsaw, Brussels, and so on. And so has Germany. So defense investment and the defense budget in Germany has, I think, almost doubled since the time of pre-2014, especially in investment terms. So Germany has pretty much understood the hard security challenge that Russia is posing to Europe and to the transatlantic community, to the Western democracies, China, not quite as much. I think everybody in Germany, especially in Germany, has seen the rise of China very early on, has very early on engaged. German industry had engaged in the Chinese economy already back in the 1970s, especially German automobile industry

has very, very early on recognized China to be a substantial market, a potential economical power. So that was not overlooked, but it was always, and to an extent is still only seen as just that, as an economical challenge. Increasingly, obviously, as also an ideological challenge, an autocratic system, which does not buy into our values and understanding of liberal democracy, but never really as a military challenge. So the military confrontation or that possible confrontation was always seen as something between the United States and China, somewhere off in the Pacific, and that there might be some direct influence of this standoff between China and the United States, that there might be some direct impact for Germany and for Europe, hasn't been seen so much in the recent years. It has changed, I think, a little in about the last one or two years. So there is now talking about that also Germany and the European Union would have to show more presence in the Indian Ocean, in the Western Pacific, make a better contribution to underlining the importance of the freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. So I think it is growing, but still I'd argue, yes, Russia is understood as a direct military challenge to Europe, to security in Europe. China, not that much yet. So it's interesting because I think there's an analogous reaction within the German armed forces to what we see in the U.S. and that the U.S. Navy is extremely focused on China, somewhat focused on Russia, but not as much.

The German Navy is now going to be sending a frigate to the South China Sea, if the reporting that I've seen is correct. It does seem like the Navy is thinking a little bit more about the Chinese than the other German armed forces. Would you assess that the same way? Well, I would agree with this, which is in a way understandable. So the realignment of German defense politics, what is called refocusing in Germany after 2014, was obviously for Germany as a predominantly continental power, continentally thinking power, a question of how the army would actually take up that challenge. Just like with the United States Army and other major armies around the globe, within the last 25 years, the army in Germany has also shed a lot of its competencies in heavy armor, in combined arms maneuver warfare, because they focus so much on counterinsurgency style, contemporary force operations around the globe. being very light, being very flexible, very mobile, not so much very heavy and very, very forceful on the ground.

So this had to change, and this was obviously the focus. The Navy has, much earlier on, opened their view to other changes in world politics. Already in 2016, the chief of the German Navy has put in a programmatic speech, so to say, where he said that there were three major thrusts, three major tasks, mission sets for the German Navy in future. One would be, so to say, conventional defense up in the north, which would be defense, three-dimensional warfare against a symmetric adversary, vis-a-vis Russia, that there still remain all those missions and operations. We're still bound in crisis management, which were mostly around the African continents, in the Mediterranean, Eastern Africa, Western Africa, Gulf of Guinea.

But then he already said we have to pay increasingly, we have to pay attention to what is happening in the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean being that link between the European waters, Mediterranean, Atlantic, and the Pacific being of the utmost importance economically as that bow wave for Europe. So, yes, I would argue that the Navy has earlier looked towards China, towards what is happening in Asia with a rising China becoming one of the, most probably, the two superpowers of the future. Is the 2016 speech that you're referring to, is that the Willem Saviner Raida?

Is that the one I'm thinking of? Exactly. Exactly. That's the Wilhelmshavener Erklärung that April Krause has held in 2016. Exactly. You said one other thing in your earlier answer about the German view of the Chinese and Russians that really caught my attention. It was related to the defense budget having doubled since 2014.

One of the things that gets talked about the most in the American press, or whether it's by the current administration, is about the percentage of contribution of GDP towards NATO. And as the Germans have progressively increased their defense budget, they're also chasing their own expanding economy. So that percentage of GDP, it's very hard for Germany to drive it up. And I'm kind of wondering now, as we watch the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, if that number is suddenly going to climb sharply as different countries' economies contract here. Any thoughts on that?

Well, I don't want to look into a glass orb here. We do have two sets of numbers. I think what you just say just pretty much points out how little helpful the whole discussion of that 2% GDP question is. Because, as you said, Germany has been one of the countries which has been constantly chasing their own GDP, never being able to catch up, though increasingly, increasingly investing in defense. And there is only so much money the whole system can actually absorb. It doesn't make much sense to throw even more money if the whole structure cannot absorb it. And now you see with an economic crisis coming on the ensuit of the COVID crisis, that you will see that most of the countries will have it much easier, perhaps, to reach the 2% targets, which doesn't help anyone in the context of defense capabilities. But we do not know yet. Many countries will have problems of actually finding the money to budget a lot of defense programs they've had pre-COVID-19 because there will be much more pressing and urgent expenditure problems after COVID-19. So I wouldn't want to bet any money on how this will end up, but it just shows again that we do have to pay – we all do have to do more about our defense capabilities than just talk about Germany.

Yes, we do, and there's – though we've come a long way, we're not there yet, but the 2% question was never very helpful, I think. Thanks. We'll go back to the article a little bit now here and dive into your first thesis. So your first thesis was that nuclear weapons continue to determine military and naval strategy. How so, and how do the Chinese and Russian approaches differ in this respect? Yeah, I started off with that first thesis in the article. Actually, that was the first thing which came to my mind. We took some notes on perhaps drafting that article that I thought it was really awkward that a lot of defense professionals, so to say, around the tables were discussing the Chinese

challenge, were discussing what Russia was doing. But everybody was discussing that as if there were no nuclear weapons in the world. People were comparing conventional capabilities and how many ships the Chinese had and how many ships the Americans could actually bring into the Western Pacific as if nobody had nuclear weapons. And I always brought back into the discussion that You have to discuss those things differently. We're not discussing some crisis management operation as we have in the 90s and 2000s. If we are discussing great power competition, if we are discussing two nuclear armed powers competing in military terms, then we have to start the discussion discussing their nuclear potential and how they actually envisage to use that nuclear potential. So if we discuss great power competition, the discussion always has to start there. And what I see is that, especially in Germany, Germany not being a nuclear power, and with nuclear weapons being such an awkward topic, nobody actually really wants to discuss, that there is a lot of ignorance around nuclear weapons. It is the whole discussion of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy is left for specialists, both on the political side and military side, as well as on the academic side, where you can read loads and loads about game theory and how it all changes. But that rarely ever reaches the realm of those people who actually phrase policy decisions and actually work with that.

So this is my argument is that we've got to get that back. We've got to return to a point where we discuss nuclear strategy and actually analyze what powers say about the nuclear arsenal as a starting point for our discussion what conventional military power can actually do in that situation. So could you describe for the listeners how you view both the Chinese and the Russian policies? Because they're pretty sharply different. And I think you made a compelling argument that they use their nuclear weapons and either threat of use or non-use to achieve different ends. Yeah. My starting point is if you look at Chinese policy papers, then China is very, very outspoken that they have a no first use declaratory policy, which means China expressly says they will not use nuclear weapons first and they will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. The interesting thing is that very many people in Germany, at least, but I think so across the world who are skeptical about nuclear weapons would always argue this is something which we would love the United States or Great Britain or France as the Western nuclear powers to adopt as their declaratory policy as well, a no first use policy. But if you look into it a little closer, then you realize that that no first use policy is not actually something which should calm you, but it is rather the other way around. And by this no first use policy, China is, in fact, trying to isolate, to make an escalation of a conventional conflict in their near broad in the Western Pacific actually possible. How so? They tried to separate the possibility of a military conflict escalating into nuclear war by saying, well, it's not us. We would never do that before.

So the obvious addressee is the United States. With a no first use policy, China is actually arguing that if it should come to a military confrontation in the Western Pacific, we will not pass this threshold to nuclear first use. This would be for the Americans to do. So at the same time, and here we now come into the question of what does it all have to do with maritime potentials and conventional powers, by trying to separate conventionally the Western Pacific from the United States by isolating that strategic area, and at the same time there's no first use policy, they put a very pressing dilemma on the United States, Which is either of passing that threshold, which is obviously not a very, very auspicious outlook for the United States, because you will always have to then put up the question, how can a nuclear escalation be actually controlled and confined to a two-hector situation only? So what would the Russians, for example, do in a nuclear confrontation between the United States and China? So you would actually open the box of Pandora. Or if you do not cross the nuclear threshold, then you would have to use only conventional means.

And here we come into the area of the Western Pacific against a by now forbidding, or at least that's the propaganda, forbidding conventional arsenal. So you would have to pay a hefty price, actually, to enter that area and to actually bring conventional means to the front. Or the third option would be to let the Chinese use military power in their near abroad as they see fit. But that, in turn, with the U.S. partnerships and alliances in the area with Taiwan, with South Korea and Japan, would then pay nil and void on all American alliances and partnerships around the globe if they refrained on fulfilling their pledges in the Western Pacific. So this is basically what the Chinese are saying, saying, okay, we don't use nuclear weapons first, but we make it so costly for you to not use nuclear weapons that you can either get a bloody nose, and we do not actually know how bloody that nose would be, or you will not be able to meet your obligations with your partners and allies in the Western Pacific. The Russians on the other side do, I think, the same thing, but totally on a different track. So the Russians do not have a no first use policy. The Russians actually say we will use it first. The Russians actually show it to us every other year when they do their large scale exercises, which regularly end in the use of a small yield nuclear weapon, which they use in what they call a de-escalatory strike. What they say is, well, if we have to use military force in our near broad to pursue our political goals, then we will use small-heeled nuclear weapons, either the threat of them or the use of them, to safeguard our position.

to guarantee the fait accompli we have made against a purportedly superior Western alliance. So as we see, both powers, China and Russia, use nuclear weapons actively in their strategies to try and make conventional war possible and try to hedge it against getting out of control and becoming an uncontrollable nuclear confrontation, which would then actually make their gains impossible. Thank you. So you've made kind of a catch-22 for the United States as the third power in the discussion there. And we'll talk now a little bit about your recommendations for countering it or counterbalancing it. Your second thesis is that anti-access area denial isn't a sea denial tactic, but rather a means of sea control.

Can you explain that? Yeah. If you go on from those two stratagems that we just discussed, you do realize that the maritime domain plays a critical part in both of those stratagems. For the Russians, it is the Baltic Sea. Okay, for most American listeners, the Baltic Sea is more a lake. I think it is smaller than Lake Superior, I think, altogether. But still, it is a maritime domain. The maritime domain isn't so far important for the Russian stratagem because the Russians have to control the Baltic Sea both in order to protect St. Petersburg, which is one of their most important commercial harbors, and the enclave or the exclave of Kaliningrad, which is one of their predominant maritime bases in Baltic, which is wedged between the Baltic states and Poland, to be actually able to have the freedom of maneuver to either threaten or enact a military aggression on the eastern frontier of NATO, the Baltic states and Poland. the Russians do have to control the eastern part of the Baltic Sea,

the Gulf of Finland and the eastern part of the Baltic Sea east of the Isle of Bornholm. Why is that? First of all, because they have safeguarded their sea lines of communication between their exclave Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg on the one hand. Secondly, because they obviously have to cover their right flank which is to the sea, if they want to operate through the Baltic states and actually want to grab some territory in the Baltic states, because we are talking about a littoral area where the

whole of the theater of war could actually be touched from sea. And so controlling that area is absolutely critical for the Russians. And that's exactly what they are doing. If we look at what the Russians are doing with that integrated, systemized approach of modern anti-air and modern anti-surface weaponry, which they've put up in the St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad area with very, very long range anti-surface cruise missiles and the new A400 Triumph air defense systems. What they try actually to do is to control that area of the eastern Baltics. It is not just sea denial. Sea denial would not be enough for them. They have to control that area in order to make sure that they can use their sea lines of communication at any time. And they have to make sure that they can use the sea, especially around the Gulf of Finland and all through the way to the Gulf of Riga, to actually support their operations, possible operations in the Baltic states. So it is about sea control, not sea denial. Sea denial would be much easier to be done. Baltic Sea, where you have in that area hardly any place where you have water depths exceeding 150 meters, mining and submarine operations would be the means of choice for an easy sea denial.

But we hardly see any submarines in the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea, and neither do they put a premium on mining, though I would not discount that. But what they do by putting up those umbrellas of ASCIM and anti-air weaponry over the eastern Baltics reach, without using much actual seaborne assets, they reach sea control, limited sea control in the eastern Baltic Sea. so it's interesting i was interviewing tim polish a couple weeks ago about operation albion and all the themes that we covered there just came up in the speech you just gave here discussing sea control sea denial in the baltic and what it actually means do you think that this is is a function of baltic geography or do you think it holds up in the pacific as well because i was i would argue that the chinese are doing almost the exact same thing i i perfectly agree i perfectly agree. And I think this is, again, some interesting part of some parallels in Russian and Chinese strategy. We've already discussed about how they actually use their nuclear arsenals in trying to

isolate and separate their near abroad from the influence of Western powers. This is the case in the Baltic Sea, where Russia tries to isolate it. And what Russia is doing is exactly what we discussed before about china russia is saying okay do you really want to lose berlin or paris or london for riga or talit because i have the weaponry i have i have intermediate range missiles which can be nuclear tipped and i have put them up in baltisk and i make a land grab and do you really want to try and force your entry into the baltic sea which i control and thus risk losing one of your major cities to one of my nuclear weapons. They are playing, it's that very, very old argument we've seen before.

We've seen in the 80s, for example, when I grew up, everybody in Germany was afraid that the Americans would never come because the Americans would never risk Cincinnati for Fulda. And it's exactly the same story again, what the Russians are trying now. Now it's more addressed to European powers, to the Western European powers at the United States. Okay, do you really want to bleed for the Baltic states? And this is why the Baltic Sea is so important for them. And the same is true in China, right?

I'd argue the Chinese try to separate the Western Pacific from American influence in that case by putting up that price tag and saying, okay, do you really want to cross that threshold to nuclear confrontation? Or do you really want to use a number of carrier strike groups to our weaponry? And exactly what they do in the South and East China Sea is exactly the same what the Russians are doing in the Eastern Baltic. So when we talk about, and this goes back to your question, whether Germans have really, how Germans view the challenge put up by China, When Germans discuss the illegal land reclamation that Chinese have done in the South China Sea, when the questions of infringements on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas in the South China Sea are discussed in Germany, most Germans always discuss it in economical terms.

So they try to get their hands on the resources, on fishery rights, on fossil fuels, which might be found in the South China Sea and so forth. I do not think that this is the only, I don't think that this is the most important part of why they actually do this. This is part of their quest for sea control in the South China Sea. By coming up with their installations on Fiery Reef, they just try to extend their sensor and weapons range out into the Western Pacific beyond the first island chain in order to make sure that they have sea control within the South China Sea. And so that the United States Navy would have, again, as we said before, would have to pay a hefty price in order to contest that sea control and the South China Sea in order to come to the aid to their allies, whether it be Taiwan or then, in that case, Japan or Korea. I think the United States Marine Corps has perfectly understood that and has written, I think, an excellent document with the planning guidance of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, which I have given my students to read and said, this is, read it and read it again and try to understand what the definition and understanding of sea control, which is at the basis of the Commandant's planning guidance. That the U.S. Marine Corps is turning their doctrine on its heads. And I think we kind of have to do the same, which is to say the Marines do not use a sea control, which has been fought for by the Navy for amphibious operations or with their amphibious means. But on the other hand, to the contrary, they will join the Navy in fighting for sea control and opening a sea area, in that case, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, to open that area for the Navy to actually be able to project power again.

Because currently, or this is at least the Chinese stratagem, they simply prevent the Navy from projecting power into the South China Sea area. And the Marines are trying to open that again. I think it's a brilliant piece of thinking, which has gone into their planning guidance, which should be read more often in Europe, I think. Yeah, I've loved the planning guidance I've had, the opportunity to speak to a lot of U.S. Marines about it. And the other thing that we see here is that that planning guidance has just spurred an explosion of writing by the Marine Officer Corps as they envision new possibilities with that guidance. And now the, how should I, I'm trying to remember the exact name for it, but the force structure planning behind it has also been released, which I think is going to produce even more writing from the Marine Corps Officer Corps. Your final hypothesis was that the most pressing operational problem in the Baltic isn't actually maintaining sea lines of communication. What would you say the greatest problem there is?

Well, I think obviously after 2014 and once the Russians started to very openly put up that threat to the Baltic states in their recurring exercises, which I've just spoken about, The question was on the table, obviously, how do we actually, one, make possible that the Baltic states, if they should be blockaded by the Russians, that they can actually survive? We should not forget that we're always talking about how to reinforce military forces, but there is a couple of million people living there who would be, could be strangled by any Russian aggression in the area. So how do we keep those Baltic states alive? How do we keep the sea lines of communication to the Baltic states open? Two, how do we reinforce those tripwire forces NATO has in the area, the enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states? How do we reinforce them? How do we supply them? How do we get that spearhead force, the very high readiness joint task force, the VJTF of NATO, how do we actually get them into theater? So naval forces were early on most prominent amongst them, obviously, the German Navy, because the German Navy is the biggest NATO Navy in the Baltic Sea, was quickly to argue that, OK, we have to focus on how to open the sea lines of communication, how to keep them open, how to keep that lifeline, that umbilical cord to the Baltic states intact. I don't want to say that this is not important. Of course it is important. But I think we make a big mistake. We only focus on sea lines of communication and how to protect them and how to reopen the Baltic Sea for NATO. Because if we do that, we have already missed in one of those critical tasks we have, which is to contribute to deterrence. So that goes back to the whole, and I hope the listener might understand now how those arguments, how those theses build on each other. So if the Russians, if their whole stratagem rests on the assumption that they could actually have enough power for a short while to force a decision on the eastern border of NATO and could then actually hedge whatever they have won on the eastern flank by the threat of use, by threatening the use of nuclear weapons,

before the overall conventionally much superior NATO has any chance of actually reinforcing and reintroducing forces into Europe. So if it's all a question of the Russians trying to be fast, faster than any buildup of NATO can be, and on the other hand, the deterrence of NATO rests on the assumption that they have a tripwire force in the Baltic states, They enhance our presence and have an over-horizon force, so to say, as a deterrent, which is predominantly the Americans, but also all those other Europeans, even German armed forces, even once they are to full capacity again, will take weeks actually to come to the rescue of the Baltic States. So if we do have that deterrent and that threat, we have to make sure that we counter that assumption, that Russian assumption that they can be faster and that they have nothing to lose once they get their machinery into running. So only focusing on how can we react to a Russian aggression puts us already behind the power curve. And I think naval forces, as opposed to ground-based forces, have a very big advantage in actually contributing to our deterrence posture in that way. We have the enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states, which is a very small force, which has the biggest advantage that it is so multinational.

All of NATO nations are present in the Baltic states. Everybody is there showing the solidarity. And this is not just a token political word, but everybody's showing their solidarity by being in theater. And should it come to an aggression that everybody would actually be directly involved, not only the United States, Germany, the UK and France as those leading roles, but everybody would be directly involved. And Canada, sorry, did not forget that. So this is their biggest advantage, but they have to stay put within the Baltic States. They are passive. You have those reinforced battalions in each of the Baltic states, and they can practice, they can do exercises with their host nations and together and so on. And that's it. Naval forces, on the other hand, naval forces already in peacetime can do much more.

Naval forces can actually show the Russians that they are sensitive, that the Russian situation is sensitive as well, because having the exclave of Kaliningrad is a big advantage on the one hand, if you think in operational terms, because it is that forward observation point, you might argue, where they have Baltisk as the naval base, from which they can operate both the intermediate range ballistic missiles and their ASCIMs and their AA. They can all do that and have a very, very long range into the Baltic Sea. But at the same time, it is an exclave. It is an island. And the only way they can actually support that island is either by sea or through enemy territory, so to say.

And at the same time, Baltusk is easily to be blockaded. We said that before the Baltic Sea is very, very shallow. The entrance into the Baltic area is very narrow. So it is a very fragile situation they have there. And this is something which you can show them already in peacetime and say, okay, it's not that you do not have nothing to lose. We can operate in peacetime absolutely freely without infringing on anybody's rights in that area which is so precious to you, in that area between St. Petersburg and Russia proper and the exclave of Kaliningrad. We can actually operate there with our surface forces. We can always operate there with submarines, which you will never know. And it is easily reachable for us by modern aircraft from Denmark, Germany as well. So we have an active part in actually putting a price tag up for them as well. Not just passively, just denying or trying to deny them any success or slowing their success, but also right at the beginning in the buildup phase of a possible conflict to show them, okay, if you are up for any mischief here, you have something to lose as well. It's not just that we have something to lose and then we will have to try to react in time.

No, you have something to lose as well. So make your balances and you will realize aggression is not worth it. Only naval forces can actually do that and can actually visibly do that. So in your opinion, is NATO in a position to execute that strategy or is it still something that's in progress? I would argue both. I would argue both. The good thing is, and don't get me wrong, I do not actually expect Vladimir Putin to knock on our door tomorrow. I think his motivation for a direct aggression towards NATO, towards any of the Baltic states, is rather low. And this is the justification why it is, I think, perfectly okay that currently we only, so to say, have a tripwire force, which is the enhanced force presence in the Baltic state.

Obviously, we all know those reinforced battalions in the Baltic states would be no match for conventional Russian forces, which are already in theater. But I think the motivation is low. So a small deterrent is enough to counter that low motivation. But as I said, in order to keep it that way, we should add those active means to our posture that we have at our disposal. And I think they're already there. The German Navy has a small but very potent force in the Baltic Sea and so have a number of partners and allies. And there is actually quite another advantage naval forces will have, which ground forces could not as easily copy, which is two of the most important powers in the Baltic Sea area are not part of NATO, which is Sweden and Finland. And both Sweden and Finland, they are very much aware of the Russian challenge, and they have very, very capable, small, but very capable forces. Now, both for political reasons, for the time being, will not be partners, will not be allies in NATO. But we have constant exercises and constant cooperation between the German Navy and other NATO navies and the Swedish and the Finnish navies. So regular exercising, regular presence operations in the Eastern Baltic Sea do just the trick without complicating the political picture by any direct overtures of Sweden and Finland towards NATO or the other way around, and still could actually close the ranks in the Baltic Sea.

And again, underline towards the Russians that aggression is not worth it. We have something in place which could actually make you pay a price in the early stages of any possible aggression already, without disturbing the political balance in Northern Europe too much. Thanks, Sascha. I think we're out of time here. Do you have any final closing thoughts? Otherwise, we'll sign off for this one. No, as I say, it was the first time for me in a recorded interview. I hope I've not spoken too much gibberish. I just hope that reading through the article, once it might be published on SimSync as well, will clarify a lot of what incomprehensible things I've just said. Not incomprehensible at all. I would like to thank my guest, Sasha Rakowitz.

Sasha, can we find you anywhere online? Are you working on any other projects? No, not for now. Now my next project is my next job, which will have a lot less to do about writing and teaching. So I will see whether I have the time again to put something in writing. No, I'm not a regular poster on anything. I follow everybody, but I do not post. So I know I'm the worst nightmare of all of you out there on the blogosphere.

But I will have a look whether I can change that in the future. Now we look forward to that. So thank you to our listeners for tuning in, and we'll see you next week. A pot of rum and a pot of gin, oh, way, hey, put it in the alley. A pot of wine, both white and red, oh, put it on the shimbo now. So help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley. Way, hey, put it in the alley. Help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley.

Put it on the shimbo now.