German Defense Cooperations

[kato]

Germany has signed bilateral Declarations of Intent with Poland and the Netherlands in the last two days. These Declarations of Intent envision a close cooperation between the countries in defense matters.

Solid things agreed upon, short-term:

• Integration of the Dutch 11th Airmobile Brigade into the German Rapid Forces Division effective Jan 1st, 2014
• Inclusion of Dutch exchange officers into the German PAC3-armed missile defense wing beginning 2014
• development of a joint German/Dutch fire support unit, FOC agreed 2016-2018
• transition of 1 GE/NL Corps into a binational JTF HQ L / J2C2
• exchange of personnel between German and Dutch naval units; personnel exchange between German and Polish Navies; mutual embarkation of helicopter detachments and boarding/protection naval infantry between Germany and Poland
• Joint training of German and Dutch Mechanized/Armoured forces, already ongoing; also expansion to fire support, predeployment, helicopter, certification exercises, SERE (with Belgium), para, naval training and damage control training (both also with Poland), CBRN and pretty much everything else
• cooperation regarding support of shared weapon systems between Germany and Poland (RBS15 Mk3, MU90)

Medium-term agreements:

• development of a mission-oriented joint ground-based air- and missile defense wing, i.e. joint deployment of the two PAC3 wings of Germany and the Netherlands
• establishment of a joint German/Dutch submarine command as well as a joint German/Polish "submarine operating authority"
• establishment of joint tactical CIMIC units between Germany and the Netherlands
• joint development and procurement of shipborne mission modules between Germany and Poland (for systems such as MRCS180)
• bilateral support agreement between Germany and Netherlands regarding NH90 TTH (training, maintenance etc); "if" NH90 NFH procured by Germany possible trilateral treaty with Belgium

Long-term Procurement:

• joint development, procurement and manning of Joint Support Ships (amphibious assault ships) between Germany and Poland
• joint procurement and operation of new oilers/tankers between Germany and Poland
• joint replacement of MCM capabilities between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium with common successor class
• development of sea-based TBMD capability between Germany and the Netherlands based on SMART-L and existing AAW frigate classes
• envisioned: possible shared common successor class for current German and Dutch submarine classes
• envisioned: joint procurement of (possibly armed) MALE UAVs between Germany and Netherlands

Feasibility Studies:

• common logistic support between Germany and the Netherlands; logistic role specializations
• shared officer/NCO training between Germany and the Netherlands
• possible re-attachment of actual units to 1 GE/NL Corps

Plus some more stuff. Mostly regarding regular meetings at staff/directorate level, mutual posting of exchange personnel to HQs, joint planning and preparation for deployments. And a vision to possibly in the future run German and Dutch services under a single shared command.

 

[Feanor]

How does this compare with other integration efforts between European militaries? And why do this bilaterally rather then through NATO or the EU?

 

[kato]

How does this compare with other integration efforts between European militaries?

The German-Dutch effort probably finds its closes analogue in the 2010 Entente between Great Britain and France, mirroring most of the cooperative decisions taken there, but in some cases taking them one or two steps further (in other cases we remain a step behind in comparison).

The Belgian-Dutch naval cooperation during and since the Cold War (BENESAM/ABNL) might also come close, also as a blueprint for the German-Polish cooperation.
The joint manning thing in the German-Polish agreement is a bit of an oddball, but the chances of that (or the LHDs) being realized are rather slim anyway.

And why do this bilaterally rather then through NATO or the EU?

Three issues: Ease of future adaption, time to realization, and those pesky vetoes from other countries.

 

[Feanor]

Interesting. Does this sort of bilateral integration when combined with EU and NATO integration create problems? Competing demands, as well as a complex web of defense relations, rather then a single clear joint defense policy?

 

[Dan Jones]

Interesting. Does this sort of bilateral integration when combined with EU and NATO integration create problems? Competing demands, as well as a complex web of defense relations, rather then a single clear joint defense policy?

The idea isn't to have a single clear defence policy, but rather to prevent the loss of capabilities that would otherwise occur due to the reduction in defence budgets in Europe. Referred to as 'pooling and sharing' (EU) and 'smart defence' (NATO). This is somewhat disappointing from a EU co-operation perspective though. After the Anglo-French defence treaty, some had hoped Germany would be persuaded to join, making it more of a Pan-European project and thus spurring further EU co-operation.

Instead, the trend seems to be moving towards rather more pragmatic bi- and tri-lateral co-operation in the vein of Admiral Benelux or the Visegrad group, which bears little or no relation to either the EU or NATO. Having said that, the Admiral Benelux arrangement is amongst the most successful defence co-operation projects in recent years, and should be emulated. It will be interesting to see how far the naval co-operation goes, and whether the Benelux model can be adapted. I'll be following this with interest.

 

[Feanor]

The idea isn't to have a single clear defence policy, but rather to prevent the loss of capabilities that would otherwise occur due to the reduction in defence budgets in Europe. Referred to as 'pooling and sharing' (EU) and 'smart defence' (NATO). This is somewhat disappointing from a EU co-operation perspective though. After the Anglo-French defence treaty, some had hoped Germany would be persuaded to join, making it more of a Pan-European project and thus spurring further EU co-operation.

Instead, the trend seems to be moving towards rather more pragmatic bi- and tri-lateral co-operation in the vein of Admiral Benelux or the Visegrad group, which bears little or no relation to either the EU or NATO. Having said that, the Admiral Benelux arrangement is amongst the most successful defence co-operation projects in recent years, and should be emulated. It will be interesting to see how far the naval co-operation goes, and whether the Benelux model can be adapted. I'll be following this with interest.

I think you can't have one without the other. After all if you pool resources, you still need all parties to agree to make use of them. If Germany and Poland share their Amphibious Assault ships, and Germany wants to use them in support of a deployment somewhere, and Poland says no way, no how, then you have a problem. Essentially you can only pool resources if you foresee that you will have a mostly common, or at the very least compatible, defense policy. Otherwise you end up with assets and resources that can't be used.

 

[kato]

then you have a problem.

For all of the five days it'd take to switch out the Polish crewmembers on one of the ships for German members of a spare crew or an identical ship in the yard...

And the problem doesn't really occur. Both Germany and Poland are part of NATO and EUMS. Due to German law i don't really see any possible action for an amphibious assault ship that wouldn't be signed off by either of those, automatically requiring Polish approval anyway. The exception would be an impromptu use during a deployment, such as when Germany was (unsuccessfully) looking for a ship to base some helos for an immediate action at the Horn of Africa off a couple years ago - but on such a deployment, you'd have a basic okay from the partner nation anyway, and it comes down to the mutually agreed upon protocols, RoEs etc.

The planned joint operation of tankers is an even simpler item - all that those are really used for is to support NATO and EU fleets anyway (usually SNMG1, more recently TF465/Atalanta).

This would be different if we were talking about other parts of the fleet - e.g. the German ELINT ships that do go on national deployments in situations where a bilateral partner might not agree.