Shedding hesitations with the past, Germany now wants to develop and strongly boost its strategic defence cooperation with India in areas ranging from arms sales and joint production of advanced military hardware like submarines to military interoperability in the Indo-Pacific Region, in the backdrop of China’s aggressive muscle flexing in the region.
“We have earlier been hesitant. Now there is clear political will in Germany to increase defence cooperation with India through military visits, exercises, co-production and other areas like cyber,” German ambassador Phillip Ackermann said in an interview with an Indian media agency.
The huge paradigm shift in German strategic thinking is primarily due to the wake-up call following the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as Chinese expansionist behaviour in violation of international rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We want to boost cooperation with our strategic partners outside the NATO Area. Germany feels India is a very good partner in the region for strategic cooperation because we have so many common interests and values. In our military and strategic thinking, we think in terms of alliances and never alone,” Ackermann said.
“We feel it is important to have a very strong presence in the Indo-Pacific Region to guarantee freedom of navigation. We have seen activities in the South China Sea and Indo-Pacific, where one country (China) is showing teeth. There is a lot of global and German concern about this,” he added.
As a part of Indo-Pacific deployments, a huge contingent of 32 German aircraft including eight Eurofighter and 12 Tornado jets as well as the Airbus-300 MRTT Tankers and Airbus-400M military transport planes, along with 15 French and Spanish aircraft will participate in the IAF multi-nation Tarang Shakti exercise (Phase-1) in Coimbatore in August 2024. Then, a frontline German frigate and combat support ship will also be visiting Goa in October 2024.
“Our aim is to increase interoperability with India and other like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific like the United States of America, Japan Europe and Australia. We never go alone. There is a clear commitment from our side that we should increase our military visits and exercises with India,” the ambassador said.
On the defence production front, Germany is one of the two main contenders in India’s long delayed over RS 42,000 crore project to build six advanced stealth diesel electric submarines with foreign collaboration.
Towards this an MoU to cooperate in submarines was inked between defence shipyard Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL) and Germany company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in the presence of visiting German defence minister Boris Pistorius in June 2023. The Spanish firm Navantia is the other foreign contender in this mega Project-75 India project.
“The selection process is ongoing. The decision for India to take, but there is clear willingness from the German side to support this Indian project,” Ackermann said. The first group of Indian naval officers will be visiting Germany to evaluate the boats, which have and offer Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) for greater underwater endurance, in the next ten days.
We have put a good offer on the table and are ready to fine tune it further. The German government is very supportive of the TKMS proposal with the MDL,” he said. Germany is also ready to support A-400M transport aircraft, heavy weight torpedoes and spare parts for small arms among other things to India.
“The next level in the bilateral defence cooperation will be to sit with India and figure out what we can develop together. India does it with countries like the US and France, so why not with Germany? That will be the next step, Ackmann said.
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