20
SEP
2023
The two-week maneuver Northern Coasts 2023 [1] keeps the NATO states mainly off the coasts and on military training grounds of Latvia and Estonia [2]. A total of almost 30 ships and boats, more than 10 helicopters and aircraft as well as over 3,200 soldiers are involved, including two units of the naval share of NATO's Rapid Reaction Force. 3] In addition to the command structure, the Bundeswehr provides in particular frigates, mine defense vehicles, a submarine, supply ships, maritime reconnaissance, helicopters and ABC defense of the navy; the naval battalion also participates in the war exercise. [4] In addition, civil shipping is involved in the military maneuver. The Bundeswehr speaks of a "close" cooperation between the naval forces and shipping companies, which provide merchant ships for Northern Coasts in 2023, so that the soldiers can train the boarding and "control of foreign ships" during so-called boarding exercises. 5]
Northern Coasts goes back to an initiative of the German Navy from 2007. Since then, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden have been alternating the annual war exercise. According to the Bundeswehr, the reason for the new format at that time was the eastern expansion of the NATO alliance into the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2004. 6] Northern Coasts took place on the Baltic Sea from the beginning, but was initially under the sign of the intervention wars of the Transatlantic Block in the Global South. At that time, no outstanding military-strategic importance was given to the Baltic Sea. At the NATO summit in 2014, however, the member states also began to prepare militarily for the great power confrontation with Russia. Since then, military strategists have emphasized the importance of the Baltic Sea as a "maritime lifeline": Not only important trade routes, but also "the most important supply routes for NATO to Finland and the Baltic States - and thus to the troops of the enhanced forward presence stationed there - run across" the Baltic Sea, according to the Bundeswehr.
Against this background, the force has shifted the substantive focus of Northern Coasts from the war against non-state opponents off the coasts of Asia and Africa to the war of great power "especially on the northeast flank of NATO": The mere training area Baltic States had again become a potential war zone. 7] The USA has been regularly carrying out a multinational large-scale maneuver on the Baltic Sea since the 1970s, the so-called BALTOPS exercises. With the alignment of Northern Coasts on great power conflicts on the Baltic Sea, the German maneuver develops into a parallel to the already existing US war exercise. According to the Bundeswehr, "both" maneuvers are "ideal opportunities" to rehearse joint war operations - not only under American but also under German leadership. 8]
Activities on the NATO northeast flank, especially on the Baltic Sea, are an "elementary focus" of the German Navy, according to the Bundeswehr. 9] Since 2019, Berlin has been building up the German management team DEU MARFOR in Rostock, which is to become the core of a NATO command structure for the Baltic Sea, the so-called Baltic Maritime Component Command. With the naval command in Rostock, Berlin claims to command NATO operations in the entire key Baltic Sea region. It is "a first," explains the inspector of the Navy, Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack, "that a maneuver is conducted by my staff and me from Rostock, although it takes place off the coasts and on the territory of Latvia and Estonia." Northern Coasts 2023 is "a huge step towards full operational readiness" of the naval command, which plans and leads the exercise. 10]
The German regional claim to power in the Baltic States - as well as the German dominance in the EU - is anything but undisputed. In Europe, there is no need for "German leadership, but German self-restriction," said Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau last year. 11] Poland is in "permanent dispute with Germany or the German-French tandem, which it accuses of hegemonic policy in Europe," experts judge. 12] Its bilateral alliance with the USA is a "political lever" with which Warsaw seeks to create a "counterweight" within the EU against Berlin and Paris, also judges the Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP), financed by the Federal Chancellery. Germany was initially excluded from the Three Seas Initiative initiated by Poland, in which the Baltic States and the USA are also involved. 13] Poland positions itself as a "regional leadership power" and thus as the "first point of contact" of the USA in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States, according to the SWP.[ 14] And also militarily: Poland is "a hub for the US presence on the entire NATO eastern flank." 15] Thus, it rivals Berlin and its pursuit of supremacy in the Baltic States.
Unlike Germany, Poland does not rely on strengthening the EU's military capabilities, but exclusively on cooperation with the USA. Double structures between the EU and NATO, such as Berlin built them, for example, with the Naval Command in Rostock, meet with criticism in Poland. 16] In addition to the EU level, Warsaw also has resentment with Berlin in bilateral relations. Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS), the current Polish governing party, positions itself in the current election campaign as a force that frees Poles from a dependency relationship from dominant Germany. 17] And Berlin's refusal to recognize Poland's demands for reparation payments for the countless German crimes in the Second World War also weighs on relations. Warsaw claims a sum of more than one trillion euros. 18]
More on the topic: Influence struggle in the Baltic States.
[1] Northern Coasts 23: Major maritime maneuver in the Baltic Sea under German leadership. Press release of the German Navy No. 48/23. Berlin, 31.08.2023.
[2] Overview Northern Coasts 2023. Press and Information Center Marine, as of 28.08.2023.
[3] Northern Coasts 23: Large-scale maritime maneuver in the Baltic Sea under German leadership. Press release of the German Navy No. 48/23. Berlin, 31.08.2023.
[4] Overview Northern Coasts 2023. Press and Information Center Marine, as of 28.08.2023.
[5], [6], [7], [8] Northern Coasts: Germany invites you to the Baltic Sea maneuver. bundeswehr.de.
[9], [10] Northern Coasts 23: Large-scale maritime maneuver in the Baltic Sea under German leadership. Press release of the German Navy No. 48/23. Berlin, 31.08.2023.
[11] Kai-Olaf Lang: Warsaw's confrontational German policy. swp-berlin.de 04.11.2022.
[12] Poland's foreign and security policy. Poland Analysis No. 310, 18.04.2023.
[13] S. on Eastern Europe's geostrategic drift.
[14] Kai-Olaf Lang: Poland's irreplaceable partner. swp-berlin.de July 2019.
[15] Poland's foreign and security policy. Poland Analysis No. 310, 18.04.2023.
[16] Lena Strauß, Nicolas Lux: European Defence Policy - Discourses in and about Poland and France. swp-berlin.de 24.01.2019.
[17] The PiS boss, the chancellor and a fictitious phone call. tagesschau.de 11.09.2023.
[18] Republic of Poland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Information campaign on reparations from Germany sets off. gov.pl 02.06.2023.