Sea Control - Sea Control 200 - European Naval Procurement with Dr. Jeremy Stöhs

Episode Date: September 20, 2020

Links:1. "On the Decline of European Naval Forces: A Conversation with Jeremy Stöhs," by Roger Hilton, CIMSEC, September 6, 2019.2. The Decline of European Naval Forces: Challenges to Sea Power in an Age of Fiscal Austerity and Political Uncertainty, by Jeremy Stöhs, Naval Institute Press, 2018.

Hey folks, Jared here. We find ourselves amidst Regional Strategies Week here at CIMSEC, so we do what anyone would do in that situation, and we brought in an Austrian navalist, Dr. Jeremy Stowes, to discuss European naval procurement. I want to preface the episode with our usual disclaimer that all opinions are our own and not representative of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. I also want to advertise for Project Trident's next challenge, our fiction contest in concert with the U.S. Naval Institute. We've assembled and all sarcastic judges and submissions are due 30th of september you can find more information on our website at simsec.org finally and as always we want to advertise and strongly recommend our

friends in the simsec podcast network and our second podcast feed the bilge pumps you can find alex and friends positively vibrating after consuming too much iron brew on apple podcast stitcher spotify and wherever else you download your podcasts it's a more low-key slightly less serious approach to current events in the maritime domain and naval history check them out wherever you download your podcasts. With that, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. Aloha, showmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Our topic today is European naval procurement, and we have one of the foremost European navalists as guests, Dr. Jeremy Stoes, Deputy Director of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda, and Security Studies

and Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Keough University. Jeremy, welcome. Hi, thank you very much for having me. Jeremy, before we even get into the segment, I'll start with a question. How does an Austrian become a researcher in naval matters? That's a good question, a frequently asked question that I'm happy to answer. As a matter of fact, I'm both Austrian and American, so I have an American background. citizenship my mom's from from the states and she moved to austria in the 1980s and therefore

you know sometimes i put on my american cap and i'm uh the global superpower if you will and then if i want to switch sides and play devil's advocate i put on my neutral austrian hat so that's always a fun fun role to play but in all seriousness i've been interested in security issues and defense issues if you will from a very young age onwards also thanks to my my parents who have a large collection of books of articles they my parents built a library for themselves my mom was both patient and has the perseverance to teach me english and not only to speak english but also to read and write which is not that easy with a kid you know living in austria and learning german you know as my my father tongue if you will so i have to thank her for that and

of course also my dad who's very interested in military affairs and defense affairs and i have all the literature that I soaked up from a young age onwards. And then later on, I joined the police. I was a police officer on the front lines, if you will, in Austria, if you want to call it that. And later on, then started studying, studied history because I was interested in history a lot and then also English. And at that point in time, there's a small center, which I'm in Graz in my hometown, which I'm privileged to work at and with. And through this Austrian Center for Intelligence and Propaganda and Security Studies, I was able to research and discuss and write about topics that interested me. And at one point I was working on, it was the time of the pivot,

rebalancing US foreign policy towards Asia Pacific. And I was very interested in those fields in this area. And then I realized, well, there are a lot of smart, smart people out there who know that topic much better than I do. So I should maybe look at some other maritime developments. And I realized there's no comprehensive overview of what actually European navies have been doing the last decades. So I wrote a master thesis on the development of the European Naval Forces, which then I turned into a book. And when it was, or during that process, I realized, ah, there's much more to that. And I then was looking for PhD positions and met Dr. Sebastian Bruns, who's a very good friend of mine and a colleague and was my boss

for many years. And I moved up to Kiel, to Northern Germany with the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University. And there, Then I wrote my PhD on, again, European naval power, but this time from a different vantage point. Also, again, strategy for structure and operations, how the different countries in Europe over the last 30 years or 40 years, if you will, how they dealt with the changes in the security environment and so on. So I also would say just briefly that as an Austrian, we don't have access to the sea, but we're dependent on the free trade on the sea. And in a globalized world, there's no state that can really not have any interest in the maritime domain. And we already have Austrian special forces have been deployed on EU missions on German naval vessels, and they exercise with the German Navy from submarines and so on. And so there is more and more interest also in Austria on what's going on on the oceans, on the sea.

Thank you. Yeah, when I was teaching up at the Führungsakademie in Hamburg, we would occasionally get an Austrian student in the naval group or a Swiss student in the naval group. And I was always a little curious about what exactly they were planning to do on the GEMSAE. But let's start with your book, The Decline of European Naval Forces, Challenges to Sea Power in an Age of Fiscal Austerity and Political Uncertainty. And for the listener, we'll provide a link to that in the show notes. You can go check it out. I'm sure the primary driver for the decline was the end of the Cold War. But what other factors influenced the decline that you reference?

Yes, thanks for that question. I mean, the primary driver, as you say, was the end of the Cold War and states wanting and governments wanting to cash in the peace dividend to save money on defense, which is a usual or common process after wars occur. And that is quite common in history that then once there is peace that you focus on other things than developing advanced weapon systems and deploying them and so on and so forth. Maybe a caveat here, the decline, of course, is somewhat simplistic, I might want to say, and you might want to rightfully criticize me for using this platform-centric point of view that I take in my book, because the number of vessels not necessarily correlates with capabilities. It is not necessarily – it doesn't represent maybe the best measurement of naval power, something, of course, my American colleagues will probably attest to and agree with in particular in this whole discussion about the 350-ship Navy with the U.S. Navy. What do you count in those 350 ships? At the same time, of course, size has a quality of its own. I think it was the CNO, Admiral Richardson, who a couple of years ago wrote about or made that point that size matters, where you can be, how many ships you have also gives you the opportunity to be in more places at the same time.

Also, for diplomacy reasons, naval diplomacy is very important to have capabilities to be present physically because if you might have a maritime patrol aircraft or even a satellite, a pirate off the Somali coast won't be deterred by a satellite. He doesn't even know he's there, so you need assets. So I would say that that vantage point or that prism of platforms is important to look at. You want to maybe add a couple of other parameters or you should, including tonnage capabilities. But in times like these where, you know, modern combat systems, radar, missiles and so on, are you all classified? You don't have that data and capabilities. We live in a period of time where we have not seen war at sea between, you know, great powers or between nation states. Last one in a last larger conflict, if you will, with the Falklands War, and even that was a maritime task force against an aerial threat, if you will.

So we live in a theoretical space where we have to draw our conclusions from. So still in terms of deterrence and signaling interest and capability, ships and the size of your forces and airplanes and so on, aircraft and so on, do matter. So that is this one vantage point. And the key driver in the post-Cold War period was saving money on capabilities or on a number of vessels. But at the same time, techflation is, of course, a key driver behind that, namely that the more complex technology becomes, at the same time it gets more expensive. States cannot afford as many systems. Therefore, those systems get more expensive again. And we see this problem during the post-cold war period for more and more states that they cannot or it's very difficult to afford a broad range of capabilities or capability, I should say, in significant numbers. And then maintain a high degree of readiness. That costs a lot. And of course, the overhead for personnel is also extremely high. So this is maybe the second driver is tickflation, is the increasing complexity of modern military equipment. And in particular, naval vessels and naval forces are extremely expensive, be it submarines or surface combatants or things like that, maritime patrol aircraft. And therefore, smaller states have the problem that they cannot afford it anymore. And then you have an increasing decline in the numbers. So that's maybe the second reason.

So is it fair or accurate to say that the trend has slowed, if not reversed, since 2014? Yes, I would maybe to your, that goes in together with your previous question. Although in my book, I write about the general decline of European naval forces in there. That is clear that the numbers have declined, certain capabilities have declined or had declined prior to 2014. There were certain states that actually increased their capability. There are several states in different periods of time they were able to acquire, procure, develop capabilities, naval capabilities that gave them greater capability compared to other states, relative to other states globally or also compared to a time period before. So a good example would be Spain would be a good example. Prior to the end of the Cold War, they were very much dependent on the U.S. to provide more or less everything in terms of ships and so on and so forth. And then during the 1980s and into the 1990s, they were able to develop the shipbuilding and the defense industry, naval defense sector, to such a degree that they were actually able to, with the help from the U.S. in terms of technology, but first build their own ships, licensed according to U.S. designs.

The aircraft carrier Principe de Asturias being a great example of, you know, this American sea control ship that under Admiral Zumwalt was developed to carry Harrier aircraft. The Spanish built that and to also build their own version of the Oliver Hazard Perry class. So to their needs, if you will. And then after that, even having more capability to then build their first domestically designed frigate, which is the F-100 class or Alvaro de Bazan. So you see that during this period of time, the Spanish Navy, for example, increased its capability, if you will, compared to other states. The Turkish Navy would also be an example. That is one thing that you have to keep in mind that, of course, we have a lot of different countries in Europe. And at the same time, I would agree, however, that this downward trend, generally speaking, slowed or was arrested in and around 2014 after the illegal annexation of Crimea.

So you see investments being made again after this nadir, if you will, in 2014, the investments by the individual states, by NATO, and then the EU also trying to increase the capabilities and the assets that they have. But I might want to add that nobody is suggesting that European navies need to entertain the same degree, relative degree of capability as they did at the height of the Cold War. That is something that we have to be aware of, that the threat we currently face in Europe, I might want to say, perceived threat and the actual threat is not the same as it was 1970 or 1980. So that is important to look at. On the other hand, we have global threats and global challenges that might require European navies to deploy further abroad. South China Sea would be an example, but also, you know, the Persian Gulf and so on. And to those who, of course, criticize European spending and defense spending on a European level, but also the individual states again, and Germany is a primary example where there are a lot of critics that speak about a military buildup. I would say that we have seen a relatively modest monetization over the last five, six years. And historically speaking, that's also important. If you look at what states throughout the last 500 years, what they have spent or 400 years, what they've spent on defense in times in peacetime,

on average, we're significantly below those percentages of GDP that states in the past have paid in times of peace. So that is definitely an argument against this notion that Europe is, you know, up in arms and there's a militarization going on and things like that. I think there's steps being taken to regain capabilities that were lost in the past. But again, also the 2% target figure that NATO has agreed upon, many, many states are not meeting that figure. Even in light of COVID-19 and the decline or the problems, the economic downturn, I should say, that states will face, probably not all too many will meet that 2% benchmark. And many budgets have remained static over the last years. Spain, again, I don't know why Spain is always coming up, but Spain is a good example for a relatively static and very low percentage of defense spendings in and around 1%. And they will have significant problems in modernizing their naval forces, in particular their carrier air wing, looking towards F-35s and so on.

But Austria is also a good example, not having a navy, I know, but still Austrian politicians still don't take defense and security matters serious, which is, of course, very troubling to me living here. But you see still several states that don't, where the governments don't see the need to invest significantly more. So I think back to the initial question is, has the trend been slowed? Yes, in many places it has been arrested. It has been reversed slightly. There's a focus on readiness. So readiness is very important. Maintaining the numbers of combatants of platforms, increasing the number of personnel, which is not easy. And then also, you know, taking the long view and really trying to, and that will be key in taking the long view and looking down 20, 30 years. What kind of assets do we need? Where are the trends heading? Where do we need to invest? So a lot of challenges out there, I have to say, for each European state. I don't want to discuss all of Europe from this amorphous American perspective where we just say Europe. So help me break it down a little bit. If you're being asked to subdivide European naval procurement, how would you do it? Is it strictly national? Are there alliances for platforms or how does it break down?

Yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the the the tricky questions, because, of course, I understand from an American point of view, if you say Europe, you always think of this, you know, conglomerate, you know, this this bunch of states that more or less work together. And that works the other way around, too. We many people in Europe say, you know, the people in the US and make no difference between the states or the regions and so on. And, you know, New York is very different to New Orleans and, you know, Missouri is very different to Alaska. So you often forget that you have very different laws in different places and the same goes for Europe. So each state still is a nation state and has its own interests that it seeks to protect and safeguard. So in terms of procurement, the baseline is that procurement, naval procurement, military procurement is still largely a national issue and an issue of national prestige, jobs, influence, lobbying. You know, lobbying is no less comprehensive, if you will, than it is in the U.S.

So, you know, industry has an influence on what happens and what is procured in each European state and beyond that as well. So that is important to remember that it is largely national, that there are various stakeholders that have varying degrees of influence. Then there are different bi- and multinational frameworks. That is also interesting for Europe, of course, that you have different initiatives, different frameworks. You have the EU, you have NATO. Within these, you have separate initiatives. Then you have, for example, the Northern Defense Corporation in Northern Europe that is outside of NATO. And then you have other bi and mini and multilateral arrangements that also influence what defense capabilities states think they need.

And then, of course, all of the industry behind that, too. But let's start bottom up, maybe. There is an increasing investment in or a trend towards bilateral and multilateral lateral cooperation. And there are several initiatives within Europe or on the European continent, I should say. A very good example is the Belgian-Dutch cooperation or integration, if you will, because there are, in my opinion, no two navies that are closer aligned than those two, the Belgian and the Dutch navies. And I would say they are the gold standard in naval cooperation. They operate as the same vessels. They have command and control arrangements. They have their exercises together. They're both, of course, within NATO.

they're both eu states um so this is definitely the gold standard and i was able to get a first hand look at how that works and it was amazing to me to see how the dutch mine sweepers are maintained main to undergo maintenance in belgium and vice versa the belgian frigates undergo maintenance in the netherlands and more or less at the end of the year they both have a you know have a bill of how much that costs and then they compare how much the cost and then uh so that it's really interesting to see how close they can actually cooperate and in terms of procurement because now they're looking towards getting both new mine sweepers and new frigates again they're procuring those those capabilities together and in terms of the new mine mine warfare vessel i

should call it maybe not only mine sweep up and mine warfare or mine countermeasure vessel the belgians have the lead and with the frigate uh the dutch have the lead and that just goes to show how that works at the same time and now we're maybe coming up one level from this bottom line is nato of course and nato requirements of the past but as well now nowadays they have a big influence on how these navies have developed and what focus they have it's it's not by chance that belgium is focusing on mind warfare because that was their task during the cold war and it also was part of the task of the of the dutch as it also for the germans of course in many other states but so you see how of course nato also has an influence on that and there are i would say

so national level then you have the different uh influences by the from from multinational organizations if you will and then you have in terms of defense corporation you have several projects in the past that are worth noting one project would be or one one one corporation that you see that is very closest between italy and france for many years for many decades now already in particular after the cold war the italian and the french shipbuilders cooperated in several larger and large projects in particular in terms of surface combatants they built the same air defense destroyer more or less really the same air defense destroyer for each navy so for the french and italian navy they learned their lesson from from that difficult project the brits were

part of that too but the brits needed other capabilities in the 1990s and left this it was called horizon project left this project and then now you have the daring class type 45 air defense destroyer for the bridge which is the similar size and had similar but the more uh better air defense capability than the italians and the french and the italian the french they learned their lesson i believe out of this out of this corporation and went on to build the frem which probably every uh navalist in the u.s will now know because the next uh frigate american u.s navy frigate will be built based on this frem design this multi-mission uh frigate european multi-mission frigate and that was if you want to call it they were cousins so the french they had

similar arrangements similar hulls similar size some some ascensors were similar but at the end of the day there were you know they weren't the same ship and so that that is one one area where um you can see cooperation or you can really see what you also mentioned uh really uh how should So to say, if you want to subdivide it, you can see this subdivision that there is this French-Italian cooperation that is very strong. But otherwise, I would say a lot of those programs are one-offs where bilateral cooperation made sense at a certain point in time, but that might not have had a long-term effect on nations and shipbuilding, shipyards and so on, cooperating long-term. Maybe one more example is of successful cooperation would be the Spanish-Dutch Enforcer Design for a landing platform dock. And the two in the 99 is, again, financial pressures, the need to still have capabilities, and know-how that was there made them decide that they would cooperate on these LPDs. And each state and each navy procured two of these LPDs that are very similar.

So that shows that this cooperation works between European states and European shipyards and the defense sector. But it's not that I would subdivide it. And one last thought would be that, of course, a lot of European states look towards the U.S. for cooperation because the cooperation with the U.S. in the defense realm has so many other dimensions, including the political dimension. It makes a difference if you buy a Swedish Gripen fighter or if you buy the F-35, just by that political dimension that the purchase of that system and the support and the interoperability that you get and so on and so forth has. So there are several states now, as in the last over the last 30 years and before that as well, that tend to look to the U.S. for for cooperation, the defense sector. And that, of course, works against European consolidation of the European defense and naval shipbuilding or whatever you want to call it market. Thanks. So how would you describe the shipbuilding infrastructure in Europe then? well in two words state of the art and or in two terms state of the art and facing challenges so

in all seriousness i believe that the european shipbuilding industry and you know that's a very general term because there is no such thing as the european shipbuilding industry it's shipbuilding industry in europe so i would say they they can hold their own globally in many many areas. They're still, you know, together with Japan, maybe the leader in conventionally powered or AIP, air independent propulsion submarines. They have varied, can develop very advanced sensors, combat systems, radar technology. Look at gun technology, the Italian gun technology that comes from Italy. Passive countermeasures, electronic countermeasures, also a strong Italian defense sector there. So there are several areas where

the european shipbuilding industry can hold its own there are of course the larger the systems get the more complex the systems get and then if you need to procure them then it gets more complicated because individual states are finding it more difficult to build and procure large platforms with all the you know with everything that goes with it so if the us you know wants to build a new carrier and it costs 15 billion as the the ford class gerald as gerald ford will cost the u.s is willing to pay that no european state can develop and procure that because that is just too expensive just to to give the american listener an idea of how that much that is that is more than twice as much as the entire norwegian defense budget per year is so that is

a lot a lot of money so you see that that is that is one of the issues that then when the when the systems get larger and you can't procure them in larger numbers then they get prohibitively expensive one note to the european shipbuilding and i would say naval defense industry because shipbuilding and defense industry are also you know that they're not the same thing the one is you know so i would i would say compared to the cold war or the period of the cold war moving up into the 1980s the european defense sector naval defense sector has caught up to the american defense sector and globally in several areas and that is an interesting point that we often forget nowadays when because we always lament about lament about how you know bad things are going

if you look at the 1980s where the americans just got their you know the spy one radar and the aegis system and and and the standard missile and you know they were above and beyond anybody else In 1990s, in a period of peace dividend decline in defense spending and so on, the European industry in Europe, I should say, was able to develop advanced sensor technology, advanced radars, and a missile family, the Asta missile family, that is in some areas at least as good as their American counterparts are. And so that is an interesting point to make of how capable, you know, and how ingenious also European defense sector is. And in some areas like, you know, who builds, who's the largest exporter of conventional submarines? It's still, you know, the Germans, for example, but the Italians also do a great job and the French. So they still have certain areas. But going to the challenges, they face similar challenges as does industry globally.

Getting the qualified personnel, getting the technicians, competing with other sectors. Also, to a certain extent in Europe, the problem that several states in Europe, that there is no willingness or less willingness from the industry to cooperate with the military. That is something that I think also the U.S. sees now in particular, like the DARPA having problems cooperating with certain companies in Silicon Valley because, you know, the military is not always perceived as a positive thing. So that is one problem. And of course, also saving and declining budgets that have led to and declining the demand, national demand for capabilities that have led to problems. And then now we have COVID, of course, which also has ramifications for the European shippling infrastructure. So you've already given us one example of the Belgian and Dutch navies focusing on mine warfare and their frigates. Is there a particular direction that European navies are focusing right now? Because the outsider's perspective is, I do see a lot of development of multi-role frigates and maritime patrol aircraft.

But then the MPA piece may just be me wearing my American hat and seeing, you know, Europeans buying large quantities of P8s. Yeah, well, and you're right, they are buying P8s. So that is definitely something that goes hand in hand with the focus on ASW. And so you're making, you know, you're more or less giving me a perfect segue here into that ASW is something that really a lot of people are jumping on now. So it's it's but it's it's more than just buying the P8s. It's it's the whole spectrum throughout all domains. And it starts with, you know, hydrographic research and really trying to get more data on this, you know, what's going on below the surface, going up all the way to space, putting satellites into space, sensor technology, maritime domain awareness. So, shore-based radar systems. So, that is, I think, also because we are looking at the development and the threat, the potential threat throughout all domains. And also, you might not like the word, but hybrid warfare in terms of actually threats and challenges beneath the threshold to conflict or to open hostilities. So you have to look at those areas as well. And therefore, hydrographic research, sensor technology, those are definitely areas that are really where there's a great focus on and that often get overlooked in the whole debate about platforms.

Because again, what do we look to? We look to the P8s being deployed to Norway and Iceland, rather than which drone is being developed to map the ocean floor. How often do we read articles? Now more often, but not by far now. It doesn't catch the headlines, I should say. In terms of surface combatants, yes, the focus is also on ASW and multipurpose surface combatants. So many European states over the last decades have had similar timelines in the acquisition processes of large surface combatants, let's say it that way. So you can see that during the Cold War, end of the Cold War, most of them still had ASW, many ASW frigates or destroyers or also corvettes. And then the focus switched to air defense capabilities, which is very interesting that in times where actually the main threat from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and its missile slinging systems had passed, European states, all or most of them procured air defense combatants, be it the German F-124 Saxon class, the British with the Dering, the Italian or French with the Horizon class, Horizonte and Forbin, be it the Dutch with the Zeven Provinzen or also the Danish, then

later on with their Ivo Huitfeldt. All of those actually have really capable combat systems, long range smart radar Thales from the French company Thales. It used to be also the Dutch company Signalapparaten Nederland, which was then bought by Thales. So that's really interesting to see how that focus on air defense capabilities was actually developed and persisted throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. And that was one of the ideas behind it was not only do we have the technology

and the know-how, but also we want to project forces abroad. And it coincides with, you know, the U.S. strategy of forward from the sea. We need to go abroad to do crisis management. And European states were happy to find something to do rather than, you know, because they didn't have to hunt then Russian submarines anymore because they all were rusting away up in Mormansk. So they had something to justify their work with or their money with that they were receiving and their funding. So they said, hey, we, you know, expeditionary operations and many jumped on that very quick. Italians, French, French had been abroad more often before already. But you see this trend and projecting power from the sea onto shore and providing air defense capabilities over shore was very important.

You know, if you have troops on ground, you want to do that. And it also coincides with then getting capabilities of close, what is it called, shore bombardment, to use the term. I don't know the other term. I can't think of it. So that was a focus. So now you see the next iteration of vessels or the next generation of ships that are coming online now are being developed are, again, ASW. Because you already have all those air defense capabilities there. So the next generation is largely designed for ASW and it coincides with the threat or the perceived threat from Russia.

So that is one area where I would say you see this development throughout Europe. OPVs, of course, are important just because there are several states in Europe that are very small and in very limited means. So you need to put something to sea and maybe not a 30-year-old French frigate that you have purchased secondhand or some landed lease or whatever it is called that they used to get it. So really getting OPVs that have decent sensors on it, but also able to put some missiles on them or something that you have some offensive capability and can actually add to potential warfighting scenarios. MPAs you already mentioned, and then we go into those aspects that are more difficult to grasp, not as tangible, namely everything that is unmanned, sensors, and so on. And there you see the development, increasing development of unmanned systems or platforms, I should say, be they aerial, be they surface or underwater, with, of course, still aerial being the area where we have furthest progressed globally. And you see some states like Turkey really becoming a leader in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles and pushing the envelope in that and also deploying them in Libya. So that is an area where we will see a lot of development now and more or less all the states are putting a focus on that because it's necessary.

Rotary wing drones and to a certain extent also then shore-based sensor capabilities and then putting that all together and connecting that. That is, of course, much more complicated to address that, to study that, to also show the capabilities that you have for maritime domain awareness, for command and control, ISR, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. And there is the learning curve is extremely steep still. And that is something that to a certain extent goes to show where Europeans for the last 10 years have not made a significant headway. And an interesting example, some most listeners won't know that in 2011, during the campaign against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, the Europeans, the Americans led from behind. They provided some assets and some critical assets, if you will. But the Europeans led, more or less were in the lead of the mission and of the campaign. But they didn't have a single, they didn't have a single shipborne unmanned system.

They didn't have any drones on their ships. And only when Americans came, the Americans could provide these capabilities. Well, that was in 2011. It took France eight years, eight years to actually integrate, fully integrate a drone, a rotary wing drone, so unmanned helicopter, if you will, on one of its ships, on one of its assault ships. So it took eight years for that to mature and develop. So you see how long that actually takes and how, if you will, how far behind Europe and European states are in certain areas compared, let's say, to the U.S., but also maybe to other states that are making some headway there. Thanks. I'm going to skip ahead in the program just for a second because you just mentioned this, and I wanted to discuss Germany's procurement strategy here. We've seen two different classes of ship now. That's the 125-class stabilization frigates and MKS-180 anti-submarine warfare frigates, which the German Ministry of Defense just agreed to purchase a few months back.

And these are functionally purpose-built ships. They're no longer multi-role. They have some minimal anti-air warfare capability, but they're not really comparable platforms to the British, Norwegian, or Spanish destroyers and frigates, which are really multi-role. Do you think this is a trend or an anomaly? Your previous comments lead me to believe that you think this is going to be a new trend. No, actually not.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I didn't explain it well enough. Also, I would agree with you that the German, the F-125, Stabilization Frigate, Baden-Württemberg class, as it is called, is, in my opinion, an anomaly. And there are several reasons for that. But interestingly enough, and I've had this argument or this discussion, I should say, with my colleagues in the German Navy and also in our community, is that there's a reason why the Germans built that ship, or there's several reasons. And it was also a child of its time. And it also goes hand in hand with what I mentioned before, is that this idea during the 1990s and the 2000s of being able to project power abroad, naval power abroad, influence other states, influence, have an impact on conflict, that it doesn't have spillover effects, that really had an impact also in German naval thinking. And there was a significant or there was a consensus that the German Navy should become an expeditionary Navy, including the idea of sea basing.

So having capability to really be in the area and to project power onto shore. And there was also the idea, quite from a well-developed idea of procuring some form of power projection vessel, let's call it that way, if it would have been then a landing platform dock or not really an amphibious assault ship, but a landing platform dock. And that never materialized for one reason, financial reasons, and the other, of course, political reasons, because projecting power always has something. In Germany, it's always a difficult issue. And the idea of this F-125 was as a successor to the F-122, which was an ASW frigate developed during the Cold War, the Bremen-class F-122. And it should have been a successor to that. And in the meantime, they had built one F-23, also ASW multi-purpose frigate, then at the F-124, which was an air defense frigate. And now we're at F-125, which should have had the ability to be deployed for a longer period of time.

So sustain deployments over long distance away from Germany, be cost effective, have a wide range of missions, particularly in the stabilization area. So that's why it's also called a stabilization frigate, good to support task forces, command forces, special forces, for example, for evacuations, evacuation of German citizens somewhere abroad, and also have a high level of survivability. That is something that the German Navy is always focused on. The German industry can really provide vessels that have a high degree of survivability. That was important to them. And over the time, the ship morphed from having—initially, there was planned to have a 155-millimeter gun on there, similar to the Zumwalt from the German Panzerhaubitze 2000, which is a self-propelled howitzer, to put that on the ship, have long-range fire, and then also to put a multiple-launch rocket system. I think that's the name for it. I think the American Army also has it, and the Germans have it, and to have Mark 41 vertical launch systems for air defense capability on there as well.

Well, all that, as some will just call it here, was scaled down, and so the 155 was dropped, and now it's 127, so 5-inch, and the multiple launch rocket system was dropped, and then the Mark 41 air defense capability was dropped as well. And we end up with this ship, which is a fine ship, has a great combat system, is very good, has multi-mission modules that it can deploy rapidly inflatable boats, and it's quite a large vessel and so on and so forth, but only has point air defense. So it only has ram launchers and fore and aft. So very limited air defense capability. And of course, in times like these, now where the ship is coming online and has been introduced, you have the problem wherever you will go, be it the Baltic, the high north, the Suez, Strait of Hormuz or Malacca, wherever you go, the missile threat will be such that you might need another vessel to accompany you if things turn bad. And that is a result of the lack of money, the lack of foresight, and this idea in the German Navy also that – how they perceive a balanced navy because they – the German Navy and Ministry of Defense with it, of course, has a different perspective of what they perceive as a balanced navy, whereas many other countries look towards having a large flat deck of some sort. Even Portugal is looking at that and other states in South America and in the Middle East having some kind of LPD or so on, LHD. Germany said, no, we have different priorities and we will focus our projection capability.

We will rest in these ships. So they have them now. They will do the best they can with those ships. But I think it shows that we need to think long term in terms of naval procurement and really hedge against possible challenges of the future. And so that would be my take on the F-125. there is a very good article or a chapter on the ship and what is it called uh the world naval review edited by conrad water so if the reader wants to look that up and i think it's the it's the 2018 edition yeah that's what it is and there's a fine chapter on that ship in there

and it explains how that came about do you forecast in a similar problem for mks 180 no i don't getting briefly back to your question of of of multi-mission capabilities yes the f-25 the problem is it does not have the spare space that the additional space to really put you know more air defense capabilities in there are really upgraded to such an extent that it can And in my opinion, maybe industry will prove me wrong, I would like to see it, but to really put more capability on there that it could hold its own in a highly contested environment, particularly against air threats. So it cannot provide air defense cover for any other vessels. MKS-180, which will then become or has become F-126, is a different kind of ship. and they from the beginning on they really said okay this needs to have warfighting capabilities

it has to be able to conduct the full range of capabilities from a german point of view of course again the focus is very much on survivability and when german build some of the sturdiest warships it has ice class i think 1a or whatever this um the ice i can't think of it now but it has an ice class that can actually go up in the high north can operate right operate in those areas as well which also shows the intention of the german navy in the future area of operation which past ships have not been able to go there will have a comprehensive combat suit on there it will have weapon suits so it will be more capable on the other hand it will be a very large ship larger than the current f-125 and surprisingly again the air defense capabilities rest well the

sensor very good but their defense capabilities in terms of missiles will rest on the evolved sea sparrow missile 2 so the newest version of that quad packed probably in and so four missiles per vertical launch system but still it's not all the other ships globally or most ships of that size western warships be it the japanese be it the american be it the the south korean uh also the europeans the other states in europe all have a standard missile in there so that again shows that that is not a focus of the german navy of course missiles are expensive to buy so and one last point that you can if that i would like to add the other ships you mentioned at the beginning are not necessarily multi-purpose surface combatants in my opinion especially if you look

at it let's say the british daring class you know it was a fine ship but it was designed and developed to conduct air defense for the carrier strike groups and it has a very limited like many other ships in europe a very limited anti-surface warfare capability in terms of harpoon and you know your helicopter of course relying on the carrier to do the to do the work but so you know that capability cannot really and cannot really be expanded to such a degree and the royal navy there also has has or the government i should say has also not provided funds to really uparm those ships the nansen class that is uh the norwegian frigate is a relatively small frigate for that area so you know it's also designed to operate among the fjords and among the littoral space

along the norwegian coast um so that is also something that uh we have to keep in mind but It also has a very small missile magazine capability with only eight cells and so very few missiles. So there are some limitations to the other ships as well where I would not say you can necessarily compare them because they're also designed. But in general, you're right that the German F-125 is to a certain extent one of a kind in Europe, if you will, if you compare it to other states. Thanks. We'll get back to the magazine depth question in just a minute. But you mentioned this earlier when you discussed the Belgian, the Dutch, and why they chose to focus on what they had focused on. Is there any attempt at apportioning roles and responsibilities from a NATO perspective that would better inform these procurement plans? There's always the effort to streamline, to lose redundancies and duplications.

And that has been going on for decades, if you will, within the NATO framework to really try to organize the capabilities to such an extent that they're best served, that they're efficient and effective. That, however, always stops there where national interests come into play. And what I mean by that is that NATO is an alliance of nation states, and therefore within NATO, the states have different perspectives on how much they want to follow, to what degree, I should say, they want to follow NATO guidelines in terms of procurement and capability development. During the Cold War, of course, the pressures were higher and greater, and many states adhered more so to those NATO guidelines than they might today. But there are also examples of the Dutch Navy during the 1980s that also feared that it would become the Royal Navy, namely limited to ASW operations in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea and not be able to operate globally anymore. And there was a pushback by the Navy, and the Navy made its case heard among politicians that it still needed to be a globally operating Navy, being able to deploy to its overseas possession. Thank you, overseas possession. That's the exact territories, overseas territories, that it would be able to do that.

And they succeeded in remaining an expeditionary-oriented navy, which nowadays has very few escort vessels, several large projection vessels, if you want to call it that, and submarines. If they had been okay with that in the 1980s, been being relegated, if you will, to the North Sea and the Channel and the Norwegian Sea, maybe the Dutch Navy would look very – the Royal Dutch Navy would look very different today. What I'm trying to say is that, yes, there are efforts in developing more comprehensive capabilities within NATO and delegating the requirements to a better degree. But in terms of procurement, I would be very careful in finding causal or emphasizing too much or stressing too much the connection between the NATO requirement and then the actual capability that is being acquired, procured, and so on. There are, of course, several examples. The focus now being on the ASW and the rush towards having ASW capabilities. That is, of course, something that is also a consequence of NATO's refocusing and readiness. So there are those – that is an influence on how states build and fashion and deploy and entertain their navies. But I would not – I would be careful of carrying that too far. We're returning – there's a – how should I say?

For many years, there has been this idea of niche specialization also within NATO. So small states bonding together, focusing on those small capabilities that they can afford, be it mind warfare, mind countermeasure, things like that. But now we realize in the current secure environment that the Baltic states with their focus – just an example of Baltic states with their focus on mind countermeasure will not help them in a crisis situation because they have no means to defend themselves or to establish maritime awareness and recognize maritime picture and so on. So my argument always is you need to have a certain amount of baseline capabilities, offensive and defensive capabilities, in addition to your niche specialization. And the same goes for also the states in the Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria in particular, who currently, for several reasons, have difficulties of modernizing the naval forces, now have procured ocean-going patrol vessels or offshore patrol vessels, OPVs, but also have very limited offensive and defensive capabilities. So this niche specialization has its limits in my and states have to do more and they have to find maybe not symmetric, but asymmetric ways of of using technology and investments to to further their capabilities. And sorry, and maybe one one more point that that comes to mind is, of course, redundancy. You need numbers, you know, you need numbers and you need a certain amount of critical mass.

So that is important. Thanks. You mentioned magazine depth before, and one of the interesting differences between navies I see in Asia and Europe is magazine depth. So Europeans continue to roll out frigates and destroyers that have comparatively small numbers of VLS cells compared to Asian counterparts. I'm thinking of the Republic of Korea, China, Japan. Is that calculation based on threat assessment, or is there a procurement challenge with getting the missiles, or is it something else that i'm missing no you're not missing anything it's i think it's it was a threat perception when those ships were built those ships were built and designed in the 1990s and 2000s

so the threat perception was was different than it is now that's the one reason and just to keep it short and the second reason is of course um um is also money missiles are very expensive they're very very expensive uh if you have it yet they have to be certified you know you have to uh they cost a lot of money and they're not readily readily available either it's not that you can it's not like you know um artillery shelves that you can just you know get in large numbers it takes time to actually you know procure them and and build them so that is really something that european navies lack the magazine depth in my opinion there are a couple good pieces also on simsec um um the european battle force missiles and i'm just writing a piece on that as well

um that i where i see a missile gap if you will in terms of offensive and defense missile capabilities uh among european navies thanks i'm going to shorten these last couple questions because we're running out of time but uh what's pesco and then do you think that helps or hinders the procurement process uh pesco is the the the permanent structure cooperation of the european union uh was already introduced many people don't know in 2009 some people on the in during the lisbon treaty uh and is designed to deepen defense cooperation between the eu members those eu members that are willing and able so you know you're not forced to cooperate and it was established in 2017. They have several projects. I think it's currently we had 34 different projects

within this PESCO initiative that are underway. And I think another 12 or 13 are already agreed upon and will be commenced soon. And seven of them are maritime, including semi-autonomous mine countermeasure, harbor protection, maritime surveillance, and things like that. I think um it will uh help um procurement and stream and and um becoming more effective and more efficient um i mentioned italy and france before they have teamed up now on the joint venture called naviris the shipbuilders of those two states have teamed up to build uh the european patrol corvette which is also one of those pesco projects so this european union project says we need a patrol corvette and those two in italy is in lead and france is there too so you always have lead nation

and then participants in those projects i think it has uh will have long-term effect and positive effect on procurement interesting an interesting point not i made but frank hoffman made in a recent podcast is actually that if you look at those capabilities all of those many of those capabilities are defensive and that is interesting with americans looking at offensive capabilities is that the Europeans are more looking at defensive capabilities, especially European Union. You don't have any PESCO project for long-range strike missiles in there, but rather for harbor protection, maritime surveillance.

Thanks. Do you think that's a political consideration or a capabilities consideration? Oh, definitely both, but of course also a political consideration. I mean, offensive capabilities, There are only two states in Europe that have long-range strike capabilities in terms of cruise missiles. That's France and Britain and the U.K., and those are very limited as well compared to the U.S. So you only have – I don't know – only the French have surface combatants that can launch cruise missiles, and the U.K. only have currently only submarines, a couple of them. So that has a very – because it's escalatory and it has an escalatory potential and offensive long-range strike capabilities in Europe have a political dimension, yes.

But also cost a lot of money. Don't get me wrong. They cost a lot of money. Absolutely. Do you have any final thoughts before I close it out? Well, in general, I think there is a focus now on readiness. I think the European defense industry is challenged because of the current situation. Also, COVID plays an important role in that.

You will see even more harmonization and rationalization measures within the European defense industry. Germany is an example of that, where actually now the shipyards are consolidating after many years. It will be a very competitive, remain a competitive field. But one important and interesting point is that the U.S. is actually now – for the first time I think since 1890, well, the U.S. Navy built and procured a vessel, a warship, one of its principal warships based on a foreign design. And principal warships I don't mean – so we're really talking about frigates and destroyers and so on. So that's a very interesting point that actually the U.S. is looking to Europe for technology similar to the Norwegian strike missile and others. And at the same time, you have several European states that are looking very closely to cooperating with the U.S. Interesting times and a lot of challenges ahead. Well, thank you, Jeremy. That's all the time that we have for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Dr. Jeremy Stoes. Jeremy, where can we find you online and what are you working on next?

Well, I'm working currently, I'm working on a study on the future of European naval power. So where that's heading in terms of the, also in light of the great power competition and the high end challenge that we'll be working with the Center for Maritime, sorry, Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen. So that will be published sometime this fall. And then I will at some point start working on my, rewriting my PhD so that I can publish that so that's also will be work in progress for probably 2022 i hope to see that published you can find me on facebook and on twitter uh our my center the austrian center for intelligence

propaganda and security studies also on twitter and on facebook and our home page and of course my friends at isbk um also the c power series you can find them on twitter always uh the leading thinkers up there in Kiel in continental Europe on naval matters. So yeah, happy if anybody reaches out and happy to discuss naval matters and maritime

security. Well, thank you again and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Sea Control is produced by Keegan Ingersoll. Thank you. Help me, Bob, I'm pulling the alleys. Why are they pulling the alleys? Help me, Bob, I'm pulling the alleys.

Pulling out the shimbo now.