The German Navy will continue to build on past deployments into the Indo/Pacific during 2024, sending a frigate and a combat support ship to the troubled region.
German Navy Chief Vice Adm. Jan Christian Kaack announced the build up Thursday at the International Maritime Security Conference (IMSC) 2023 in Singapore.
“We are looking forward to joint operations and exercises with our partners in the region,” Kaack said.
USNI News reports the mission of the two-ship task force will include freedom of navigation operations with partner navies in the South China Sea.
At the same conference, senior naval leaders in the Indo-Pacific called for greater collaboration between naval forces to offset the problem of scarcity of resources and diminishing fleets due to budget constraints and costs.
Kaack did not identify the German ships that will deploy in 2024, the USNI report noted.
The German Navy Bayern frigate at Changi Naval Base in Singapore, on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021. Bayern, as part of Germany’s strategic Indo-Pacific presence, moved on to Vietnam after the New Year. (Ore Huiying/Bloomberg via Getty)
He did say it would be one of its newest frigates – one of the four 7,200 tons Baden-Württemberg class. The four ships entered service between 2019 and 2022.
The assigned group will also join in the U.N. embargo on North Korea via maritime surveillance operations.
Germany’s planned future presence in the South China Sea and beyond follows a recent rise in activity in the region.
In 2020, Berlin published a new Indo-Pacific strategy with a focus on strengthening alliances with democracies in the region, marking a turning point beyond other commitments in Europe.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February pledged a dramatic hike in spending on the military after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even as Australia and Japan looked to boost their levels of regional cooperation.
Germany, which has been frugal on military spending in the second half of the 20th century, looks to have defense spending above two percent of its total GDP in coming years.
The NATO member sent its first warship in almost 20 years to the disputed waters of the South China Sea in 2021 – at the risk of irking its top trade partner – and last August sent 13 military aircraft on exercises in Australia, as Breitbart News reported.