Episode 719: NATO's Maritime North, with Dr. Sebastian Bruns

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an
Eagle one from Eagle Speak at seer Shure your home
for a discussion of netview issues and all things maritime.
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(00:54):
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(01:15):
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and springtimes in the air and so, like all right

(01:37):
minded people at least, we think it's a great time
to discuss the latest developments with NATO's maritime North with
the absolute great returning guest. It's been too long since
we had in bat Doctor Sebastian Bruin's senior researcher at
the Institute for Security Policy at Keel University. Sebastian, welcome

(01:58):
back to Midrats.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me. It's great
to be back on mid Rats.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, we really appreciate you taking time from across the
narrow Atlantic as before you even joined the pre show,
Mark and I were talking about that. We were talking
about the Pacific so much we had forgotten. Yeah, it's
people always telling the Pacific about how big the Pacific
is and how big the ranges are. If you do
that too much, when you refocus your mind to the

(02:24):
North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic you realize
how tight the distances are in everything else. But here
we are approaching mid April and you're over there in Keel,
which is a beautiful time after a long winter in
northern Germany. How is the view from Keel today.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well spring is truly in the air here and it's well,
it's interesting times. But I guess that's what's You know
that the provoc promised us interesting times, I'm not sure
it was meant to be that interesting. We've seen a
lot of activity in the Baltic Sea, lots of undersea
infrastructure that was destroyed or tampered with by well, uh,

(03:06):
a shadow fleet of you know, vessels that are linked
to Russia. And so there's a lot of activity also
on on Germany's and Denmarks and Swedeness and Finland's and
the Baltic States and Poland's part to try to deter
further attacks on the critical infrastructure and uh, well to

(03:26):
deter Russia as a whole. And so a lot of
things are going on, lots of uh, lots of things
to do, which is which is great in many ways,
but also raises questions in many more aspects. And I'm
happy to dive into this in the next hour or so.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about the response
by the Well first, let'st's we've got we've got NATO forces,
we've got European forces, we've got individual countries, UH, and
there there are nine countries that line the Baltic and
eight of them are NATO countries. Now kind of talk
about how this, how that, what the interplay is between them,

(04:02):
and if you can kind of what the initial response
is to what the Russians appear to be up to
following the uk I'll just make this a catch all question.
Following the beginning to the Ukraine Russian.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm glad to we're coming around to the understanding that
the Baltic has been part of this Russian Ukraine war
since twenty fourteen. Mostly. I mean, that's that's the perspective
that you'll that that our eastern neighbors Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia,
Poland will be sharing happily. And it took some time

(04:37):
for UH, for Germans to realize that, given our difficult
relationship and and business deals with with Russia. But you know,
ever since the war escalated more than three years ago
with Russia's invasion, full scale invasion of Ukraine and all
the horrible things that that are happening there, the Baltic

(05:00):
is certainly back on the on the agenda of decision makers.
The German Navy actually in twenty fourteen, together with some
of its partners, there were some some you know forums
that were created both as part of NATO but also
sort of coalision of the Willing. One example is the
Baltic Commander's Conference. So for the first time actually the

(05:21):
commanders of the navies of the Baltic Sea area, including
Norway of course without Russia, gathered together had a sort
of a formal conference every year with you know, with
workshops and naval drills and all these kind of things
things that navies do. But I you know that that
sort of in the in the era of counter piracy

(05:43):
operations and Mediterranean operations and all these kind of things
that kept us busy in the in the nineties and
two thousands sort of fell over the wayside. So building
on that, when twenty twenty two rolled around, and certainly
when the North Stream sabotage happened in September of twenty
twenty to the German Navy and its partners were relatively
well placed with a sort of a revival of the

(06:06):
Baltic Sea. That's you know, still with very very small,
two small navies. I'm sure that's no secret to the
listeners of this podcast. But you know, it's also meant
in many ways a return to this very close operating area,
the national defense issue of what navies are doing. I'm

(06:30):
not saying, you know, the Navy didn't do the expeditionary
operations of the nineties and the and the counter terrorism
operations of the U of the two thousands. You know,
they did, they performed relatively well. But the Baltic Sea
and the North Sea are of course, you know, that's
where Germany's borders are, and that's where that's NATO territory,
that genuine NATO territory. And I think I believe that

(06:55):
a number of naval leaders and policy leaders, I mean
first naval leaders are educated, you know, with a clear
view of the Baltic That's where they train, that's where
they get usually get their first commissions. The the most
most chiefs of Navy in Germany are actually sort of
born and raised professionally either in the submarine uh but
with you know, driving submarines or mine hunters. They're Baltic

(07:18):
Sea people. And and the same goes for the Chief
of Navy, Admiral Jancock, who was born and he was
was born in kiel Or in Crincitica Colture time rather,
and he grew up commanding for you know, among other things,
a fast patrol boat. So he's a he's he's a
sort of a child of the Cold War. And I'm

(07:39):
saying this to try to illuminate his mindset and that
and many and that mindset of many of his peers
that the Baltic Sea is sort of their historical operating area.
And and so when twenty twenty two rolled around, uh,
he and other navy leaders were very very keen, and

(08:00):
very enthusiastic and readily available providing their forces to to well,
you know, make a statement, try to try to put
as many ships to see as possible. And a lot
of other nations around the Baltic Seed did so as well.
It should be noted that the German Navy is the largest,
uh Baltic Sea navy. And and you know, followed closely

(08:23):
by this by the Swedes and the Finns and now
the Danes. The Swedes and Finns, of course, at the
time were not NATO members. And there you have it.
You know, you have this kind of spaghetti bowl for
anyone who's who's ever seen that, uh, that terrible slide
of the counter insurgency in Afghanistan. You know you've got
various national uh uh well, you've got the national navies,
you've got the European Union, you've got NATO, you've got

(08:46):
coalisions of the Willing, and you have other players in
the Baltic Sea, you know, the Brits, the United States Navy,
the Dutch Navy, who are all mixing and mingling in
this in this very confined and very very shallow body
of water. And when the we had another escalation of

(09:08):
uh well, fiddling with with undersea critical undersea infrastructure, so cables, pipelines,
lots of intelligence gathering ships that we see going around
wind farms, offshore wind farms that we are we're so
happy about in Europe. So a lot of this is
is now even home. The threat picture that the Baltic
Sea is is a theater. It is it truly is

(09:30):
a theater of this this well renewed Cold war, not
not quite peace anymore. We're not not at full scale
war obviously, and so there's a lot of naval activity
now in the Baltic Sea, together with partners. There's also
been a the establishment of the Commander Task Force Baltic

(09:50):
a new national headquarter, German Navy headquarter that works for NATO,
and the idea is that maritime domain awareness needs to
be updated and up graded. And yeah, so this is
where we stand right now.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Earlier today, I ran into a map of the Baltic.
I always feel that a lot of our conceptions are misconceptions.
Is simply because we're always looking at a north up
map from a certain perspective. That this map was of
the Baltic, but it's west up, so at the bottom

(10:25):
you have Saint Petersburg and the Baltic republics in Finland.
At the bottom you have that huge mass of Sweden
sitting up there. And it really does emphasize especially with
Finland and Sweden officially inside of NATO lifelines. But twenty
years ago we had thinn and Swedes and NATO headquarters
in the Partnership for Partnership for Peace plan, so all

(10:47):
they had to do was change their name tag. So
we had already historically worked a lot with them. But
it does emphasize the fact that the old joke of
the Baltic being a quote NATO lake is absolutely true now.
But I think what's also helpful is I don't know
if you share this frustration, but I've always shared this
frustration is people talk about Baltic security if they're not

(11:09):
familiar with the area too much. They'll think the Baltic
republics in Scandinavia forgetting that Poland and Germany are one
hundred percent Baltic nations and are critical. And especially Denmark,
Germany and Sweden. Norway they owned the gate to the
Baltic if you look at it for when you need

(11:30):
to come in and out, and it has been amazing though.
Even though the Russians controlled just a little bit of
shoreline and the Kaliningrad and also in Saint Petersburg in
the last few years since Nordstream two went bubbly, the
Russians are still able to produce a lot of havoc

(11:53):
officially or unofficially, not just in the Baltic but also
up in the North Sea. That led NATO to create
an interesting new command that is focused on securing though
the undersea infrastructure that whether you're talking about Norwegian hydrocarbons,
are being able to get Internet connectivity between Finland and Estonia.

(12:16):
It's really been an interesting development that I think has
been a tap on the shoulder for NATO that there
are other parts inside our alliance that we need to
be pay special attention to should things get nasty sooner
or later. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
No, I mean you're right about one thing. Is well,
you're right about many things. But you know what you
mentioned is is clearly you know, I mean people need
to understand that the Baltic Is has such a rich history.
You know, it goes back to the Hanseatic League, you know,
first naval power coalition really coalition of the willing, and

(12:53):
they built warships to God to guard the trade that
they these early republics, early state in the Middle Ages
would it would facilitate with one another. And of course
there's been lots of wars, but there's also been lots
of cultural exchanges, and the Baltic Sea has always been
about exchange and trade. And I think that's why Europeans

(13:16):
were sort of lured into this false understanding after after
the Cold War. Of course, in the Cold Wars it
was also it was right on the front line, you know,
the West German Navy in the East German Navy uh
met on a daily basically literally and and and if
the balloon had gotten gone up entirely, the Baltic Sea
would have been the site of a of a massive,

(13:38):
massive Soviet red fleet amphibious assault against against NATO, Denmark
and northern Germany. Uh. More precisely, when the Cold War
went away, there was so much enthusiasm, I mean, coupled
with all these other problems that sprung up around the world,
but the Baltic Sea trill truly became in the minds

(13:59):
of many see a sea of peace. Right, everyone was
was a friend. Now everyone could be integrated. And and
I think that's that's the sort of the false narrative
that uh that that too many people, including decision makers
in my country, hung on for for way too long,
sort of seeing something in the other side, uh and

(14:22):
more precisely Russia that simply wasn't there. And in the
meantime sort of going over the concerns, very real concerns
by the Baltic States, by Poland, by Finland in favor
of our own economic forcecomings. So so you know, I

(14:43):
think this is important to understand how how you know,
the Baltic Sea is not simply this this this confined
body of water and and uh, you know, can be disregarded.
It actually is one of the one of the true
hearts of European culture in European history. And it just
takes takes some time for for for us to to

(15:06):
realize this new threat environment which is different from the
Cold War. You know, this is this is no longer
the threat environment. And and as we sort of graduate
from the Baltic Sea to other areas, the North Sea
and and so on, you know, we can no longer
as as strategists, as naval lists, we can no longer
limit ourselves to ship counting. Yes, quantity has a quality
of its own, but suddenly we have to talk about

(15:29):
sea cables, we have to talk about wind firms, We
have to talk about railroad railroads in Sweden and Norway
for to get forces into the theater if we need to,
and suddenly we are we need to be experts on
missile ranges and all these kinds of things, land based
missile ranges.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
That is.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That, you know, sort of defy the old how many
ships do you have and how many how many ships
does the other side have narrative. I will push back
Cell on one thing, and I'm always really excited to
do it. I just simply don't like the term of
the NATO Lake. And I've written about this so so
I'm on record for that. It's I understand that you

(16:10):
know where this is coming from, and there's a lot
of enthusiasm, and I get that from Finland and Sweden
as well. They're very happy to join the alliance. And
of course you're right, it was a small step for them.
They were as closely personally integrated but associated as a
as any non member could ever be. And well, it
took some time for for them to formally join NATO.

(16:34):
You know, the decision was was was hands on, it
was wasn't even close in the in the two countries
whether they should join after February twenty twenty two. My
problem with with the term is that it might be
another self delusion in that we simply dust our hands
off and say, oh, this is a NATO lake now
we have don't have to worry about anything else. NATO

(16:55):
rules the seas, NATO rules rules the Baltic and you know,
my first my first point here is I've I've heard
that record before. You know, when you look into some
of the literature on the Cold War, the Mediterranean at
some point was a NATO lake. After the establishment, the
creation of U. S. Six fleet, well until at some

(17:18):
point the Soviets showed up. And there's other there's other
literature out. The first German Chief of Navy in the
nineteen fifties declared the North Atlantic a NATO lake, well
until the Russians showed up or the Soviets showed up
in in numbers, and and so you know, be careful
of this of this world. I want to be careful

(17:38):
of a sort of a reverse self fulfilling prophecy here
in that the Baltic will be a NATO lake until
suddenly it isn't. And the other is sort of the
other problem I have. The other challenge I will I
will raise is you know what if at some point
the Chinese declared the South China See a China lake,

(18:00):
citing the very very same statements that we've in the West. Uh,
you know, we've we've pat we've we've patted ourselves on
the shoulders and said, you know, this is a NATO lake.
What kind of implications does it have globally that we
should perhaps take into consideration. So you know that this
would be sort of my my, my, my counterpoints. I'm

(18:21):
all for NATO expansion and and deeper integration, and and
but I also want to make a third point, since
this is a conversation of two American gentlemen and a German,
and and in our times where we are sort of reassessing,
you know, our our transatlantic relationship, I wonder if the
term NATO lake will lead to some policy makers in

(18:45):
the United States dusting off there and saying, Okay, well,
it's a NATO lake. We don't have to send any
U S forces even in the case of conflict anymore.
And and that's some that's a narrative. I would you know,
I mean, if it's out there, I would very be
very curious whether either of you have picked up any
any of those sentiments, because I know for a fact

(19:05):
that certainly the Baltic States are very in the Swedes
and the Fins are very interested in having the US
in the Baltic seat at some point or in some capacity,
maybe not with a ship, but certainly with staff and
with sort of the political and political engagement.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, I only say this partially tongue in cheek. I
think there are too many sailors that have had great
liberty experiences during ball tops. So probably the best thing
NEO could do is just just keep the Navy invited
inactive at ball tops with good liberty ports. And I
don't think the US Navy will go anywhere over to you, Mark.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, you have to take some of the things that
are going on with NATO. This is my view of
the politics involved here. You know, if the NATO countries
boost their share of the load, as it's saying, goes
in the US and start really taking things seriously, which well,
you know, I think it's happening now. Uh, then I

(20:03):
think that that whole issue of NATO being something the
US wants to bail out of is going to go away.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
I think it's been too important to us and too
important to other people around the world that for US
to get out of it. But it's also the appearance
of disproportionate burden being placed on the US is is
is causing some some heartburn, and I think most people
would understand that if they take it, if they take
a good look at all that aside. I'm sitting there

(20:29):
looking at at the at the map like sal Is
and I'm thinking, well, you know, the Russian's major port
and the Baltic is Saint Petersburg, and that's a tough
place to go out of if Finland and Estonia and
and Sweden are all going to try and stop them.
And you know, it looks like really easy water to mine.
But then there's the the threat I think you just

(20:51):
hit it, the threat of I understand there's some some
Russian missiles being located in colin Grad and UH, and
that poses you know, depending on the range of those things,
that really does pose an interesting threat to anybody trying
to to transit the Baltic Sea. So talk a little
bit about that. The difficulties of operating in a small

(21:15):
environment when you've got this one little tiny part of
Russia in between Lithuania, UH and Poland, that could cause
some serious issues if they if they are as heavily
armed as I would guess they would like to be.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, absolutely, And thank you for for raising the cleaning
Grut issue once again. So yeah, you know, maps, maps, maps.
Compared to the Cold War, the Russian strategic geography has
has fundamentally changed for the worst, as you as you
just pointed out, and the cleaning Grot exclave, so this

(21:48):
is the former kun Exparira in Prussia, and this is
the Russians kept the well. When the Soviet Union fell apart,
Russia retained the part most importantly at the time because
it was uh they're one of their naval bases. And
this is the time when in the nineteen nineties when

(22:09):
the Russian navy went didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
It was, it was rusty, it was it was rotting
in port. And the kleaning Grod exclave or enclave rather
is it can only be be reinforced through uh well
coming from the sea from Saint Petersburg or flying all
around the Baltic Sea states, so usually across the Gulf

(22:32):
of Finland and then uh then flying into Cleaning Grod.
And there's a little stretch of land where Lithuania which
borders kleaning Grad to the north, and Poland which borders
kleaning Grad to the south, where they where they meet,
and this is called the Slovak Gap. To anyone who's
familiar of the of the Cold War, this is the

(22:54):
new folda gap. This has been this has been identified
as sort of the the one small corridor where if
push comes to shove, the Russians would try to go
through through through Belarus, which they more or less control
as a proxy state to try to build a land
bridge between the the the between cleaning Grad and the

(23:15):
oblast of the wider area and and the Russian motherland.
In recent years we've seen that there's been a drastic
increase of land based missiles of various types stationed in
in in the kleini Grad area UH. That area has
been heavily militarized, much like in the rest of Russia.

(23:36):
Any civilian opposition, any peace movement to speak of, has
been has been driven out or I suppose killed, or
putting put in the gulag perhaps. And so it's it's
it's been fortified, and it really sits just right across
the bay, the Bay of Gadinya and Gadansk two of

(23:58):
the major Polish UH commercial ports, and Gadinia is also
the home of the Polish navy. So this is very
close and very delicate, very delicate situation, and the Russians
have been able to well, you know, the old saying
was at was an A two A D zone. There's
been much more research done now, fantastic papers by the

(24:18):
Swedes of old people. One of the papers was called Bursting,
Bursting the Bubble, which did away and convinced me. So
I thought with the idea that the Baltic Sea would
be sort of a red lake, and no, no Western
navy should ever venture into this because it would be
subject to to Russian land based missile strikes. The threat
is serious, don't get me wrong. And the Russians have

(24:40):
have have adapted to their to their less favorable geography
in in that they have put a lot of emphasis
on the land based missiles. They've put some caliber missiles
which is their version of the Tomahawk, on on corvettes
and and and ships that the navy ships that they
operate in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic fleet is still

(25:03):
very small, and it's it's it's sort of insignificant when
you just use the the metric of vals, tubes or ships,
you know, native ships us versus Russian ships. But the
Russians have also been able to utilize a lot of
these other well is it domains or these other issues

(25:25):
of of or these other forms of of naval warfare.
For instance, they've created what they call the shadow of
what we call the shadow fleet so to so they
operate through flags of convenience, a fleet of tankers and
cargo ships, which helps go around the embargo that has

(25:46):
been put against Russia. And you know, historical and and
so so these ships are not in a very good state.
They're rusty, they're often underinsured, the crews are not trained properly,
and some of them are being used we we understand,
to launch drones against Polish territory, against German territory, to

(26:08):
collect data, tolect to to to collect target data from
naval bases, from our naval basis, from airports, from uh,
you know, just you name it, the classic, the classic stuff. Now,
these are not naval ships, so we in the West
have a little bit of a problem countering them because
to to us, and you know, every every third or second,

(26:30):
the second or third ship that passes by is actually
just the cargo ship. But you know, they do look
like like regular cargo ships. And so getting the intel
right and addressing this whether they are now you know,
whether they's dragging anchor trying to destroy cables or under
the infrastructure, whether they're you know, doing GPS spoofing, which

(26:53):
in a in a confined and shallow territory like the
Baltic Sea kind of does disastrous consequences. Imagine an oil
tanker or a big cargo ship. Uh, you know, sinking
and and creating, creating a horrible, horrible mess imagine. You know,
of course, certainly in the military context as well, you
need all these you need this, you know, you need

(27:14):
to working cyber domain, you need GPS and all these
kind of neat things that you need to navigate in
in confined and shallow waters, and and and so the
Russians have also taken a page out of the Soviet
naval doctrine. Again, if you were around in the Cold War,
you may have spotted a a well suspicious fishing troller

(27:38):
type vessel off and Norfolk perhaps hanging out there and
just you know, just just mining its own business. But
of course these were signal intelligence ships that were attempting
to well to to to find out when the US
Navy would uh would deploy and what it would do
and all these kind of things. And you know, European

(28:00):
Northern Europeans turned a bit of a blind eye against
that capability. Perhaps, you know, we didn't really understand Russian
naval doctrine. We didn't understand their naval plans and their ambitions. Uh,
we had a good time laughing about these that that
that fuming and and uh smoke bellying aircraft carriers of theirs.
But in the shadow of that, Russia has created a

(28:21):
lot of headaches for naval planners and naval operators, be
it again the land based or the ship based missiles,
be it their activities in the in this in in
in the Seabad warfare and the undersea domain were the
activities that they've been they've been doing in this gray zone, UH,

(28:42):
and the and the hybrid context. So anything that's short
of war but not peace as we know it yet,
and then we we really have a problem addressing the scope,
the width, and the breadth of of that of the
threat both to our forces but also to our alliance.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Now, I've always thought the use of gray zone, both
in this context and also some of the things that
the people's the Republic of China does, uh in some ways,
I think in a broader audience that can kind of
just flow past them. Uh. I almost like the term
though it can have the opposite reaction, but it really

(29:23):
is a preparation of the battlespace. And you know, the
American Navy and Marine Corps, you know, we kicked off
this entire type of warfare back during the Spanish American War.
One of the first things we did is off of
I think of Scinthuegos in Cuba, we sent a landing
party ashore with a bunch of axes and to cut

(29:44):
up the Transatlantic cable going from from from mainland from
continental Spain uh to the New World. And it's one
of the things that should things a decision made to
go kinetic that everything that they're doing to map the seabed,
whether it's in the Baltic with the Russians or the
Chinese off and around Taiwan, that that that's just giving

(30:11):
them the information they need to be able to move
fast early, because especially the Baltic, with those short range
and all the things you can do from shore based assets,
it'll get furry furry, real fast. I wanted to roll
back a little bit to a comment that Mark made
about NATO spending, and it's been eight years since it

(30:34):
really broke above the background noise, but heck, when I
was a NATO staff officer in the first decade of
this century, it was a regular topic then. But getting
everybody above above two percent, and I think in twenty
twenty five plus or minus depending upon where you get
your information from. We're looking at about twenty twenty three
of thirty two nations have gotten above two percent. And

(30:59):
we actually have of five NATO members, three of which Poland,
Stony and Latvia and Lithuania is not too far behind them.
Are Baltic nations are actually spending over three percent. The
other is Greece in the USA, and the other nations
are catching up. And I'm curious A lot of this

(31:19):
has to do with the fact everybody is realized there's
still a bear to the east, as there always submit
a bear to the east for a thousand years. How
much of the additional funding that nations are investing in
both national and an alliance defense is going to see
or as a lot of the additional plus up going
towards the land component and aviation.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Great question. So you know from how I see things.
So when I look at Poland, when I look at
the three Baltic republics, each of them individually, but also
the three together, they are bordering Russia, and so they
will they they are investing much more into the land

(32:03):
and air components than in the in the naval and
maritime domain. Historically, the Polish Navy has always been insignificant,
insignificant in comparison to the Polish Army and the Polish
Air Force. And you know, a lot of the spending
also goes into things like border defense, civil civil defense,

(32:23):
air raid shelters. I mean, all these things that that
are suddenly more or less suddenly on the on the
on the to do list, on the agenda. And the
maritime domain, the maritime sphere, the Southern Baltic Sea, the
Eastern Baltic Sea is not something that these countries will
be heavily invested in. When it comes to Germany, you

(32:47):
know that we we had a at the end of
the day, this country is a continental nation and it's
it's waging continental warfare, and so what what what we're doing.
What we're seeing is that the Navy is sort of
the German Navy is capitalizing on twenty years post Cold

(33:08):
War of serving for what was well then always perceived
as as German national interests. So you know, hunting pirates
of Somalia, you know, picking up people in distress, refugees
from the Mediterranean, you know, domestic politics aside. All these
things showed policy makers and showed people in Germany that

(33:32):
the navy does things. It's out there operating. It's not
you know, it's not the air force. It's not you know,
the army that's garrison or in barracks, and they just
go places when they when they have to. The Navy's
out there working and so I think that helps. And
you know, in conjunction and coupled with the fact that
the Baltic Sea Germans get it. The Baltic Sea is

(33:54):
is is a sea. It you know, it's it's maritime.
So we need some forces and this is sort of
the lay of the land where the German Navy picks up.
The problem was that in twenty twenty one, this is
before the full scale invasion, the German Navy and sort
of the last grand coalition of the Conservatives and the

(34:17):
Social Democrats, the outgoing government of Missus Merkel, in the
last decisions, what they provided sort of over the summer
before they broke for the election was they checked off
the wish list modest the very modest wish list of
the German Navy, including you know, the P eight American
built maritime patrol aircraft, a couple of midlife refits for frigates.

(34:40):
The German Navy wasn't quite ambitious, so to speak. It
sort of you know, we was happy with the bread crumbs.
And so when twenty twenty two and siteen Vendor, the
Sea Change speech by Chancellor Schultz rolled around, the German
Navy actually didn't have anything to know. They didn't have
a shopping list, like, oops, what are we doing now,

(35:02):
whereas the army, the German Army and the German Air
Force had a had glossy brochures ready to say, oh,
by the way, we're gonna we need the F thirty five,
which Germany will procure from the United States. And so
the navy was a bit of a was was was
caught at a you know, with its pants down. It's changing,
and it's it's you know, they've they've picked up speed

(35:23):
again to try to make sure that the Navy is
growing and that we're modernizing our fleets and and and
it's it's been certainly in the in the high end,
in the high end on the on the intensity spectrum.
So Germany will get new anti submarine warfare frigates of

(35:44):
the Nita Zaxen class, the F one twenty six. Now
there's a design for for eaches equipped a w anti
air warfare frigates of the type F one twenty seven
ten thousand tons by the way, So you know there's
those are not frigates in my in my in my book.
But that's enough. That's for another day. There's going to

(36:04):
be two additional P eight preside on maritime patrol aircraft.
There's going to be additional submarines, big submarines that Germany
and Norway are building together. And lo and behold, these
are the same submarines. They do not differ. The Norwegians
and the Germans will be getting the same boats and
chances are or it it's it's planned that Germany will

(36:25):
forward base one of its submarines in Bergen, Norway, to
get some reach into the Norwegian Sea. So you know,
things that are have been unheard of are are happening
in the maritime domain. There's other things where we simply well,
the German Navy and the German government UH and of
course we had a general election to just this February.
The coalision is UH is getting ready to to start working.

(36:48):
The Chancellor, mister Mertz uh well needs to be elected.
So you know, we we we're we're in limbo here,
which is of course, you know, always a very bad
idea when when Europe's economic power is in political limbo
and doesn't make any decisions. But here we are anyway.
So there's some some issues, for instance with the mind
clearance capability, some a capacity in the Baltic Sea that's

(37:11):
very very useful, but that's been dangerously neglected by naval
leadership and also by policy makers. There's no replacement at stake.
And uh, you know, there's also some some some people
who are wishing back the naval jets.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
The German Navy used to have a Starfighter and then
later Tornado aircraft. We all gave it up, gave it
up to the luffuff in two thousand and five. Lufuff
Is said I will do it, and they never exercised it.
So we we know lovet that capability. Also there's a
there's a smaller group of interest, well interest group who

(37:49):
want to go back to the fast patrol boats of
the Cold War. Those are not coming back. The German
Navy gets five additional corvettes, which are not a one
to one replacement of those fast patrol bo But you know,
to the two major issues, and this is not genuine
to the German Navy. This is not genuine to the
German unforced. It's an issue of the ships, and the

(38:11):
boats are not on time and they're not on budget.
And the second issue is manning. Crewing is the fundamental challenge.
And even if you you know, if you think about
operating these ships, operate getting people to join the military
in a society. This is for Germany. You can only
speak for German. For Germany really that has unlearned war.

(38:34):
That's been one of my colleagues described as post heroic,
not willing, not able to to to go into into
into battle. Really that that, you know, turns a blind
eye to to the fact that war is still around
and wars are messy and bloody and traumatic and and
frankly need to be avoided. This is this is the

(38:58):
larger conversation and and the Navy alone cannot simply change
that conversation. It never could, but it can in the
shadows of these of these conversations. I think it can.
It can make some headway. But at the end of
the day, coming back to my initial initial opening, TI
rate Germany remains army centric and.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
For center, Yeah, I guess the good news is that
both Sweden and Finland are building some new destroyers and
frigates or whatever they're going to use. So that's going
to help supplement the forces in the in the Baltic Sea,
except that's not going to happen for what three or
four years. I think they're going to show up. But

(39:37):
speaking of activity, and the European NATO has started this
Baltic Century network, and I wondered as part of that,
Estonia recently arrested one of these dark shadow ships whatever
you want to shadow fleet ships. How does how is

(39:58):
how is that viewed in context of what the Russians
are up to with these with these other vessels they've
been flowed through the Baltic.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Mm hmm, great question. Yeah, so you know this is
this is one of the challenges of this gray zone
is that when all you have is a hammer, every
problem looks like a like a nail. Navies are not
the probably the first best response for, you know, to
to to board these tankers and these cargo ships, simply

(40:29):
because there's too many cargo ships and even if you
just take the suspected ones, we would never have enough
enough boarding personnel. Not to mention that there's there's tremendous
legal issues involved. I mean, you don't want to be
subject to you know, to to to piracy charges if
if you can't make a clear statement that you need

(40:49):
to board this vessel right now. And what we've seen
around the Baltic Sea, interestingly enough, is it's been the
coastguards UH and the customs inspections that have really put
a pin into into that shadow fleet. I believe it
was Finland of Christmas last year that started that the
Finnish Coast Guard detained a a vessel. And these aren't

(41:12):
mind you, these are not Russian flagged. These are you know,
flags of convenience UH. And and usually none of the
crew is is from Russia. They are simply being you know,
through shadow firms and through through UH money laundering schemes
and all these things. They're being utilized as Russian assets.
Now it's very difficult to prove that while a ship

(41:33):
is dragging an anchor across the sensitive area of of
the Baltic Sea. And you know, we've we've with Europeans
pride ourselves with with you know, due process, and we
don't want to risk a military mirror till military confrontation
over some rusty sey shells flagged general cargo ship. And

(41:57):
so you know, i'll i'll have to admire the both well,
with the Fins and the Estonians, even the Germans, my
fellow Germans, found ways to and to to detain those
ships through inspections, through coast guard inspections and in German,
in the case of Germany, the customs inspection. In fact,

(42:19):
there's a tanker that was that had that had an
engine failure of the island of Rugen, Germany's largest island
in in the Baltic Sea. That it took some it
actually took some some days to secure it. And then uh,
the custom the German bureaucracy stepped in, and you know,
you don't want to mess this is pure discretion as advised,
never messed with German bureaucracy, because the bureaucrats in the

(42:42):
customs offices they found ways to not only detain that
particular ship, but also to confiscate the cargo and to
sell it, which is which was oil crude oil from Russia,
you know, which was which was going out of the
Baltic Sea into likely the Mediterranean or somewhere in the
in in Asia. Now, these things are not glamorous. This

(43:04):
is not your Captain Phillips movie type of visit board,
surge and seizure operation. These take some time and these
are again bureaucrasts. They work slowly, but once their wrath
is unleashed, they can really go places. And I think
that's been happening in Estonia, that's been happening in uh
in Germany and Finland. The coast guard corporation coast guards

(43:27):
is another matter. Most navies here don't have the uh, well,
I should I should step back. Some navies here in
the Baltic Sea region and in the wider Northern Flank region,
they the navies have coast guard tasks, so there's not
a separate coast guard. In other nations there's a separate
coast guard, and then still other nations there's a coast guard,
like in Germany, but the coast guard is simply just

(43:49):
an umbrella organization which has you know, like the Customs
Inspectionship and the Federal police and the you know, the
Department of Transportation. Ships. They all have this kind Frombrella,
but there's no unified coast guard. So that's where corporation corporation,
and that's where integration is is really important. It certainly

(44:11):
would help to engage. You know, there's there's things like
the Coastguard. There's coast guard interaction. I forget the name
of it, uh, you know, but but there's there's there's
ways for these coast guards to interact so that navies
are not uniquely tasked with stopping cargo ships, because we
need our navies to do other things, most importantly to

(44:32):
deter Russia.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Now.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
I don't know if mister Putin and his cronies are
deterred by German bureaucrats or Estonian bureaucrats, but it's a
step in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's a good thing. I had my my mic muta
because I started laughing. You know, from their American perspective,
and Sebastian, you lived in the US, you understand this.
The American government a bureaucrats. Uh. And don't get me wrong,
I love Italians, but they're kind of like the Italian bureaucracy.
You take a deep breath, you know it's going to
be painful. No, for those have it experienced. German bureaucrats

(45:02):
are Dutch bureaucrats, or they're scary because they're really, really good.
When they have you at a corner, there's no escape,
So yeah, it's it's definitely a different experience. Nobody wants
to be at the at the focused end of a
of a Baltic bureaucrat. That's a fact, especially if he's
if he if he's German. And also something for the

(45:24):
listeners to look up when a couple of times we've
mentioned the Hanseatic League and most of most of our
listeners are Americans that you can't it seems like it's
you know, medieval history or Renaissance history, but it's really not.
And for those who live in the continent and they
drive around, you start to notice, even to this day
and the as we are entering the second quarter of

(45:45):
the twenty first century, even on the German license plates,
the old Hanseatic cities, their license plates still have it
h at the front. History. History is always there. It's uh,
I know, as somebody focused on German security issues, this
focus back to the Baltics. It's serious and it has

(46:05):
a lot of history there and things haven't changed all
that much and a lot of it is as you mentioned,
it's trade. It's you know, everything from iron ore to
lumber to manufactured goods, going back to beeswax and pickled herring.
It's it's serious, it's big money. But there's also in
that business. It's shipbuilding. And you mentioned the new submarine

(46:28):
that Norway and Germany is going to be working together.
If I had a magic wand, I would have the
Canadians get in on that action and find a way
to buy some of those to replace their old upholder submarines.
Poland they need, they need some submarines to do so
maybe German industry as an alliance, we can we can
help each other out. And we saw something interesting on

(46:49):
our end that America loves selling their f thirty fives
and other equipment to other people. But we haven't big,
big fans unfortunately of buying from our friends and ally
as well. But last month we saw an announcement that
the US is going to enter in and work with
the FINS to buy thin ice breakers. And I'm curious

(47:13):
with the industry and in the maritime nations in NATO
if they can get past some of the nashing of
teeth and rending a close at the new administration has
that announcement with partnering with the FIN shipbuilding industry, has
that started any other conversation about other things, because let's

(47:34):
be honest here, when you look at all the European
nations that have substantial shipbuilding, they produce some really good product,
they have a lot of expertise, they're very modern in
a lot of ways. America could our industry could definitely
learn a lot. Fincantierry has brought some good stuff over here.
But has that action with Finland started some other conversations

(47:57):
about expanding the partnership between North America in Europe and
the ship building arena.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
That's a good question. It certainly has once one moves
beyond the headlines, I mean the whole conversation, and I
just want to touch it. But the whole conversation about
Greenland has not been helpful in this wider context. However,
I think what it did was it raised attention to
issues such as ice breaking capability, such as Chinese and

(48:27):
Russian influence in the hard North. And you know, I
think this is this is where this conversation where we
collectively have to drive this conversation is how do we
get ships into the water capable ships? And you know,
to to to do away with some of these or
to unlearn rather some of these things that we've just

(48:49):
individually and collectively learned that we just built our national
ships and we just operate them like that. And and
you know, I would you know, there's a lot of
appetite for this new kind of creativity. You know, let's
let's try something else, let's try something different this time.
And I you know, there's the German Norwegian Submarine pro

(49:10):
program is sort of very unique, and it was born
out of this idea that hey, let's let's do something
that we that no one has ever done. Yes, there's
been NATO navies who built frigates together, but they ended up,
you know, fifty percent different from one another, depending on
which country operate. And this is this is something new
and and to to uh, you know, to to to

(49:32):
your point, sell, the Canadians are genuinely genuinely interested in
getting in on that program. That's all I can say
at this moment. But that would create a new that
would create sort of a NATO North Atlantic conventional submarine
alliance and could really complement the the established submarine forces,

(49:56):
the nuclear powered tag boats that U you know, are
keeping the North Atlantic safe, and the icebreaker issue would
be another would be another great thing to look into.
And you know, we need to get our brightest minds together,
both from amer in America, in Europe, but also collectively
to think about where is potential that we, for one

(50:18):
reason or another haven't seen, you know, think about shipyard
that shipyards that can repair use navy ships in Europe,
think about building ships on either side of the Atlantic.
I you know, I'm very enthusiastic about two of my
two of my friends who are now involved in shipbuilding

(50:40):
and policy. First Jerry Hendrix, Captain retired working now in
the White House, but more so my former boss, now
Senator Todd Young of Indiana. When I worked for him
when he was a junior congressman in the House of
Representatives some fifteen years ago, he he already had his

(51:01):
eyes on shipbuilding, and lo and behold, he's now one
of the authors, one of the people who push aggressively
the the the ships Act, not the chips, but the
ships Act. So there's a lot of movement there and
and you know, I think there's also there's also an
opportunity for Europe again. We are you know, we are

(51:23):
you know, there's there's a lot of things that we
we can be accused of mostly most of it is true.
But we do get around. We eventually do get around.
We're not lazy, We're not you know, we're not trying
to to stop everyone from having a successful shipbuilding or
naval uh naval corporation. It just it just takes some

(51:43):
time for us to to to get around the curve here.
And you know, there's there's things that have been sort
of courtesy even of the European Union. I know that
not a lot of people are fans of the European
Union as a as a as a body, but it's
created some standards and it's created some you know, some
some some things legislative things really in shipbuilding. One of

(52:06):
them led to the German government actually giving the F
one twenty six this is our next ASW frigate who
diamond shipyards in the Netherlands. Because the European specification said
you have to make an open call, so every European
shipyard can nominally make an offer for your next frigate.
This has been the case, this has been around four decades.

(52:27):
Usually the case was that, you know, when the French
Navy wanted to build French ships, they made it so
that only French yards could eventually make, you know, across
the hurdle, and the Germans were the first ones to
to to really go through with this and say maybe
we were not quite as as as happy with German
ship building in the past. Let's also make a statement now.

(52:51):
What happened was German ship building said, oh, okay, we'll
really have to up our game. Let's create a ship.
Let's let's build a ship. Let's build the next class,
the F one twenty seven a W and let's make
it bigger and better and more on budget and on time.
So suddenly you have a lot of movement that again
has has been has its roots in bureaucracy. And I

(53:12):
can't believe I's say that, but you know, a lot
of this bureoucracy is actually good for something.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yeah, that's a good point. You know, earlier on you
talked about maritime domain awareness, and I know that standard
standing Naval Maritime Group one is hanging around off or
floating around in between Finland and Estonia or somewhere out there,
and I'm wondering what the what the the I was

(53:38):
And I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna disappear down a
rabbit hole myself. You talked about the Russian UH intelligence
gathering ships and you asked whether we had any familiar Well,
I remember when I was in the Pacific, the Primori
class ships were following our carriers off Vietnam and and
also were poked UH sitting off Guam trying to find

(53:58):
out what was happening there too. So yeah, they they
do a pretty good job of trying to figure out
what's going on in the world and see and as
Seal said, get themselves ready for what could happen. And
I'm wondering about the same thing with the Standard and
s N MG one and whether their domain awareness is
what is helping the the Finns and the the Estonians

(54:21):
and some of the other countries. Perhaps even Germany could
aboard some of these ships with their coast guards or
customs or whatever. Are their people?

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, absolutely, And and and another great question here the
fact that NATO has not one, but two standing maritime
groups as an MG one which is mostly frigates and destroyers,
and as an m c M Mind Continmentials Group one,
which is as the name suggests, mostly mind condom measure
ressults vessels. Currently actually last week last week they were

(54:55):
involved in an exercise off the Polish coast and you know,
we got some some some some uh interesting information from that,
including that, of course the Russians were using drones to
try to harass those ships in international waters. All of
this is happening at a you know, at an alarming

(55:16):
and increasing rate, and there's a lot of attention now,
not least because the media, both mainstream as well as
blogs as well as a lot of the public interest
is simply now geared towards things are happening in the
Baltic seat. It's almost like, you know, almost like a
like a magnifying glass under magnifying glass where a new

(55:37):
or not so new threat is emerging and it's it's
it's more intense by the day. The fact that we
have a standing or two standing NATO maritime groups there
is is great. The problem is that there's also other
groups such as the the bridge Let Joint Expeditionary Force.

(56:01):
This is not a standing naval task group. But the
Brits thought this up and I believe twenty sixteen, to
to engage with the Northern European countries. Poland is not
a member, Germany is not a member, all the other
Northern Flag member countries except Russia of course, are members,
and so there needs to be some deconfliction. The idea

(56:22):
of this command in Rostock, the city of Baltic, headed
by a one star German Navy is to fuse all
that data. And we're just now talking about, of course
the military data. There's there's tons and tons of commercial
data because in the Baltic Sea again, wind farms, cable operators, pipelines,

(56:44):
there's a lot of lots of tourism and commercial traffic.
All these are principally sensors. All these ships and all
these all this infrastructure is sensors and with the help
of big data. There's some interesting work being done here
out of kiel By by private companies who are trying
to fuse trying to use big data to to first

(57:04):
gather all this very often available in the public domain.
Actually all this, all this data that's available on the
Baltic see anything from you know, how the how the
seabed looks like, where where there's where there's infrastructure, where
there's unexploded ammunition from the world wars. Try to fuse
that and feed that into this This new command in

(57:27):
Rostock and you know, there's been some growing pains the
German The German government was very keen to say this
is a German national tactical headquarter, whereas all the Allies
were like, wait a minute, wasn't this a NATO headquarter?
And isn't that how we assign the troops to it? So,
you know, the growing pains involve a lot of the
you know, let's you know, let's let's try not to

(57:50):
not to to let's try to conflict things, but also
let's try to fuse things that we already have. This
is less about that's about reinventing the wheel than you know,
dodging the eyes and crossing the t's no pun intended.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Especially, I just realized we have just finished up a
great and a really really fast hour. Again, I appreciate
you you taking time to invest out with us and
our listeners. For the listeners, if they wanted to keep
track of what what you were working on, where's a
good place for them to put their eyes And do
you have a project you're working on right now that

(58:23):
we should look forward to in the next few months.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Well, it's been an absolute pleasure to be back on
the show. Gentlemen. Uh, I couldn't be. It couldn't be,
couldn't be happy at having spent my late Sunday night.
It's actually Monday morning in Germany. Now with you, with
you too. I'm actually in between well, not jobs, but projects.
Most importantly, I've left X simply because I was too

(58:45):
busy doing other stuff, and I do plan to start
a substack in the meantime. You know, if you if
you look for the Institute for Security Policy at Kill
University or www dot QC power series dot com, you'll
find my profile. You'll find that I'm working on a project,
a multi year project on NATO maritime strategies and naval
operations from the Cold War to today. And yeah, you

(59:10):
know I'll be I'll be hanging around podcasts and anyone
who's who sends me an invite, h I'll attend, I'll speak.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Well, we need to have you back again more often.
This has been too long, and you're a fund of
good information. Thank you, and I.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Really appreciate it once again, and I hope you have
a great spring, and I appreciate everybody join us for
another edition of mid Rats, and until next time, I
hope you have a great Navy Day chairs,

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Episode 719: NATO's Maritime North, with Dr. Sebastian Bruns

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