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

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wherever you aggregate your podcasts. Look us up, find us, go ahead and subscribe that way. If next show you can't join us live, we'll be there waiting for you on the podcast when you have a chance. And enough of that, let's go ahead and dive into today's show and springtimes in the air and so, like all right 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 back to Midrats.

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.

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 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.

eight of them are NATO countries. Now kind of talk about how this, how that, what the interplay is between them, 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.

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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. 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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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. 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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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.

a good look at all that aside. I'm sitting there 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 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 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.

it was uh they're one of their naval bases. And this is the time when in the nineteen nineties when the Russian navy went didn't go anywhere.

and this is called the Slovak Gap. To anyone who's familiar of the of the Cold War, this is the 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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,

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

Air Force. And you know, a lot of the spending also goes into things like border defense, civil civil defense, 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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, 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 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

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 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 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. 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 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.

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 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. 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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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

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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 deter Russia.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 about expanding the partnership between North America in Europe and the ship building arena.

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 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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.

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

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 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 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?

ressults vessels. Currently actually last week last week they were 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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.