“Zeitenwende” at Sea?: The German Navy’s Purchase of SeaRAMs and Bolstering Security in the Baltic Sea
The MOC
By
Dr. Sebastian Bruns
October 31, 2023
On April 14, 2022, Ukrainian anti-ship missiles hit and ultimately sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the venerable Cold War veteran cruiser Moskva. The largest warship in the area succumbed to a combination of advanced Ukrainian command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (“C4ISR”), diversion, and modern weaponry, and to no small part the inability of the Russian navy to defend itself properly. War at sea has returned to Europe, and Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and fielding a capable medium-sized navy, has had to significantly up its maritime defenses.
However, the operational situation in the Baltic Sea, Germany’s home waters and thus site of both territorial and alliance defense, is vastly different than that where Moskva came to rest on the seabed. In fact, and quite illustratively, one could say that the roles are reversed.
In the Baltic, it is the West which has major surface combatants (frigates, corvettes) on station on a permanent and rotational basis and the recurring deployment of amphibious task groups by the U.S., the Royal Navy or other naval powers notwithstanding. Here, Russia’s maritime posture is limited to military aircraft, smaller vessels such as corvettes armed with anti-ship missiles, and uncrewed aerial and naval platforms. Additionally, Moscow’s wielding of seapower remains hampered by adverse geography. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) member states, some with very recent experience of being under Soviet rule and influence, as well as a candidate country dot the littorals. The Baltic Sea may be a side water to the world ocean’s, whose access is not constrained akin to the Montreux Convention’s rules for the Black Sea. It is, in fact, open water and subject to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (“UNCLOS”).
Russia’s offensive approach to Baltic Sea security thus concentrates on hybrid warfare, information operations, cyber, threats to critical infrastructure – the sabotage of pipelines and undersea cables comes to mind – as well as wielding a formidable arsenal of land- and sea-based missiles. The Russian anti-access and area denial (“A2AD”) remains a hotly debated and contested subject. Symbolically, Russia routinely deploys high-value assets into the Baltic Sea, such as for its annual Navy Day fleet reviews in St. Petersburg or to conduct exercises with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (“PLAN”). In times of war, there would have to be serious questioning of the survivability of any warship in the confined and shallow waters of the Mare Balticum.
The German Navy has no such luxury to withdraw any larger warships from the Baltic Sea. Since 2006, it retains two separate flotillas: one centered in Kiel to include corvettes, minelayers, submarines, and special forces, and one based in Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea to include all frigates and its larger tankers and combat support ships. Despite its drastic cutbacks and drawdowns since the 1990s, Germany still fields the largest navy in the Baltic Sea, and thus retains a significant leadership role for the region.
The Deutsche Marine is a medium-sized, advanced navy that historically, operationally, and strategically almost always operates as part of alliances. At the same time, allies in the Northern flank region are looking towards Germany, which often still wrestles with its pacifism and indecision-making, to help with the defense of the Baltic should the conflict intensify. Russia’s war against Ukraine is yet another coming of age moment for Germany in what looks like a long line now of misconceptions and willful political gambles in dealing with Moscow.
On February 27, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, politicized in the late Cold War peace movement and the “peace dividend” mindset of the 1990s and 2000s, proclaimed a “Zeitenwende” (or “sea change”). His speech marked the allocation of a special budget of 100bn € to defense expenditure; a sum that as we know now will not even permanently achieve the articulated NATO goal of spending 2% of a country’s gross domestic product (“GDP”) on defense.
Vice Admiral Jan-Christian Kaack, the Chief of German Navy, responded on the question what the German Navy expected from Zeitenwende that he had seven priorities to be met: “Munition, munition, munition, spares, spares, spares – and C4ISR.” Accordingly, the German Navy awarded a contract to RAM-System GmbH (“RAMSYS”) on October 27, 2022, to purchase 600 advanced Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Block 2B guided ship self-defense missiles. SeaRAM is a close-in weapon systems (“CIWS”) to counter anti-ship aerial threats, produced by U.S. defense company Raytheon.
This purchase is the latest in a series of modernizations of the German Navy. Almost a decade ago, it became apparent to the naval leadership that the Baltic Sea would no longer be the quaint, quite and peaceful “flooded meadow” that it appeared to have been since the end of the Cold War. Rather than an area of cooperation, tourism, prosperity and amicable energy relations, the sea increasingly became one possible theatre for strategic competition.
Consequently, Vice Admiral Andreas Krause, Kaack’s predecessor as Chief of German Navy (2014-2021), led such innovations as the Baltic Commander Conference of chiefs of navies, a focus on operating in the Baltic Sea, and the creation of the German Maritime Forces (“DEUMARFOR”) staff and command structure. DEUMARFOR forms the core staff of a Maritime Component Command (“MCC”) Headquarters, can assume the function of the Baltic Maritime Component Command (“BMCC”) with regional responsibility, and will in future be deployable as High Readiness Forces (Maritime) Headquarters (HRF (M) HQ) of the NATO Response Force (“NRF”) throughout the Alliance´s geographical Area of Responsibility (“AOR”). In addition, German Navy leaders have drawn on an intellectually blossoming community of strategists and experts in their country. Not to be relegated to a “Cold War 2.0” scenario of exclusively fighting in the Baltic Sea such as operational plans 1956-1991 mandated, Krause and others have stressed the Baltic’s role in the larger Northern flank and North Atlantic security realm.
The German Navy is faced with a dilemma familiar to a number of European navies, namely how to grow fleet size as well as maintaining a balanced fleet at the same time. Just how much should be invested in high-end capabilities? In the European context, that means answering the key question just “how high”(-intensity) planning for naval operations should proceed. The United States with its commanding defense-industrial base and an articulate “warfighting first” attitude is an ally with whom to interoperate at sea and politically, a market to purchase material from, and a powerful agent of defense change. Germany comes off decades of low- and medium-intensity operations such counter-piracy off the coast of Somalia, and rotational deployments to the central and eastern Mediterranean to contain human trafficking and smuggling.
The purchase of SeaRAM missiles thus has a number of implications. First, it means a palpable improvement of ship defense, signaling the changing threat in the Baltic Sea and beyond. Second, it displays that naval modernization should not be limited to the number of ships, aircraft, or €, but rather focus on capabilities as well. Third, the investment should be seen as part of a wider package of American-built material (think: Boeing’s P8-A “Poseidon” maritime patrol aircraft or Lockheed Martin’s F35A joint strike fighter for the Luftwaffe), which will bolster transatlantic relations in the long run. Fourth, allies should take note that Germany is shifting its focus on high-end threats and challenges. Finally, the investment should deter Russia from adventurism against the German Navy in the Baltic Sea. War at sea is back in the mindset and it took a Soviet-era cruiser to drive that point home.
Dr. Sebastian Bruns is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Policy Kiel University (“ISPK”). Previously, he was the inaugural McCain-Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and a defense staffer for the 112th U.S. Congress.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
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Center for Maritime Strategy
By Dr. Sebastian Bruns
On April 14, 2022, Ukrainian anti-ship missiles hit and ultimately sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the venerable Cold War veteran cruiser Moskva. The largest warship in the area succumbed to a combination of advanced Ukrainian command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (“C4ISR”), diversion, and modern weaponry, and to no small part the inability of the Russian navy to defend itself properly. War at sea has returned to Europe, and Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and fielding a capable medium-sized navy, has had to significantly up its maritime defenses.
However, the operational situation in the Baltic Sea, Germany’s home waters and thus site of both territorial and alliance defense, is vastly different than that where Moskva came to rest on the seabed. In fact, and quite illustratively, one could say that the roles are reversed.
In the Baltic, it is the West which has major surface combatants (frigates, corvettes) on station on a permanent and rotational basis and the recurring deployment of amphibious task groups by the U.S., the Royal Navy or other naval powers notwithstanding. Here, Russia’s maritime posture is limited to military aircraft, smaller vessels such as corvettes armed with anti-ship missiles, and uncrewed aerial and naval platforms. Additionally, Moscow’s wielding of seapower remains hampered by adverse geography. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) member states, some with very recent experience of being under Soviet rule and influence, as well as a candidate country dot the littorals. The Baltic Sea may be a side water to the world ocean’s, whose access is not constrained akin to the Montreux Convention’s rules for the Black Sea. It is, in fact, open water and subject to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (“UNCLOS”).
Russia’s offensive approach to Baltic Sea security thus concentrates on hybrid warfare, information operations, cyber, threats to critical infrastructure – the sabotage of pipelines and undersea cables comes to mind – as well as wielding a formidable arsenal of land- and sea-based missiles. The Russian anti-access and area denial (“A2AD”) remains a hotly debated and contested subject. Symbolically, Russia routinely deploys high-value assets into the Baltic Sea, such as for its annual Navy Day fleet reviews in St. Petersburg or to conduct exercises with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (“PLAN”). In times of war, there would have to be serious questioning of the survivability of any warship in the confined and shallow waters of the Mare Balticum.
The German Navy has no such luxury to withdraw any larger warships from the Baltic Sea. Since 2006, it retains two separate flotillas: one centered in Kiel to include corvettes, minelayers, submarines, and special forces, and one based in Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea to include all frigates and its larger tankers and combat support ships. Despite its drastic cutbacks and drawdowns since the 1990s, Germany still fields the largest navy in the Baltic Sea, and thus retains a significant leadership role for the region.
The Deutsche Marine is a medium-sized, advanced navy that historically, operationally, and strategically almost always operates as part of alliances. At the same time, allies in the Northern flank region are looking towards Germany, which often still wrestles with its pacifism and indecision-making, to help with the defense of the Baltic should the conflict intensify. Russia’s war against Ukraine is yet another coming of age moment for Germany in what looks like a long line now of misconceptions and willful political gambles in dealing with Moscow.
On February 27, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, politicized in the late Cold War peace movement and the “peace dividend” mindset of the 1990s and 2000s, proclaimed a “Zeitenwende” (or “sea change”). His speech marked the allocation of a special budget of 100bn € to defense expenditure; a sum that as we know now will not even permanently achieve the articulated NATO goal of spending 2% of a country’s gross domestic product (“GDP”) on defense.
Vice Admiral Jan-Christian Kaack, the Chief of German Navy, responded on the question what the German Navy expected from Zeitenwende that he had seven priorities to be met: “Munition, munition, munition, spares, spares, spares – and C4ISR.” Accordingly, the German Navy awarded a contract to RAM-System GmbH (“RAMSYS”) on October 27, 2022, to purchase 600 advanced Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Block 2B guided ship self-defense missiles. SeaRAM is a close-in weapon systems (“CIWS”) to counter anti-ship aerial threats, produced by U.S. defense company Raytheon.
This purchase is the latest in a series of modernizations of the German Navy. Almost a decade ago, it became apparent to the naval leadership that the Baltic Sea would no longer be the quaint, quite and peaceful “flooded meadow” that it appeared to have been since the end of the Cold War. Rather than an area of cooperation, tourism, prosperity and amicable energy relations, the sea increasingly became one possible theatre for strategic competition.
Consequently, Vice Admiral Andreas Krause, Kaack’s predecessor as Chief of German Navy (2014-2021), led such innovations as the Baltic Commander Conference of chiefs of navies, a focus on operating in the Baltic Sea, and the creation of the German Maritime Forces (“DEUMARFOR”) staff and command structure. DEUMARFOR forms the core staff of a Maritime Component Command (“MCC”) Headquarters, can assume the function of the Baltic Maritime Component Command (“BMCC”) with regional responsibility, and will in future be deployable as High Readiness Forces (Maritime) Headquarters (HRF (M) HQ) of the NATO Response Force (“NRF”) throughout the Alliance´s geographical Area of Responsibility (“AOR”). In addition, German Navy leaders have drawn on an intellectually blossoming community of strategists and experts in their country. Not to be relegated to a “Cold War 2.0” scenario of exclusively fighting in the Baltic Sea such as operational plans 1956-1991 mandated, Krause and others have stressed the Baltic’s role in the larger Northern flank and North Atlantic security realm.
The German Navy is faced with a dilemma familiar to a number of European navies, namely how to grow fleet size as well as maintaining a balanced fleet at the same time. Just how much should be invested in high-end capabilities? In the European context, that means answering the key question just “how high”(-intensity) planning for naval operations should proceed. The United States with its commanding defense-industrial base and an articulate “warfighting first” attitude is an ally with whom to interoperate at sea and politically, a market to purchase material from, and a powerful agent of defense change. Germany comes off decades of low- and medium-intensity operations such counter-piracy off the coast of Somalia, and rotational deployments to the central and eastern Mediterranean to contain human trafficking and smuggling.
The purchase of SeaRAM missiles thus has a number of implications. First, it means a palpable improvement of ship defense, signaling the changing threat in the Baltic Sea and beyond. Second, it displays that naval modernization should not be limited to the number of ships, aircraft, or €, but rather focus on capabilities as well. Third, the investment should be seen as part of a wider package of American-built material (think: Boeing’s P8-A “Poseidon” maritime patrol aircraft or Lockheed Martin’s F35A joint strike fighter for the Luftwaffe), which will bolster transatlantic relations in the long run. Fourth, allies should take note that Germany is shifting its focus on high-end threats and challenges. Finally, the investment should deter Russia from adventurism against the German Navy in the Baltic Sea. War at sea is back in the mindset and it took a Soviet-era cruiser to drive that point home.
Dr. Sebastian Bruns is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Policy Kiel University (“ISPK”). Previously, he was the inaugural McCain-Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and a defense staffer for the 112th U.S. Congress.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.