06.12.2023, Berlin.
The Bundeswehr announced the German Navy’s objectives for 2035 and beyond in a special report published on April 20 on the agency’s website.
The document states that the plans were drawn up in fulfillment of a statement by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a conference of Bundeswehr commanders in 2022. In particular, he said that the Bundeswehr should “become the cornerstone of conventional defense in Europe, the best-equipped force in Europe,” and its main mission is national and collective defense.
The chancellor’s position is based on NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, which sets deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and resolution, and cooperative security as its main tasks, the document states. These objectives required the German Navy to be combat-ready in peacetime and to be present in the North Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
The German Navy is required to have the most complete and regularly updated picture of all activities in the area of operations; the means of warfare on, over, and under water as well as in the air; the sustainability of the entire system, which requires structural, functional and individual reserves and sufficient decentralization in case of failure of central systems.
To fulfill these goals, the Navy is required to provide warships capable of conducting multidimensional maritime warfare over long distances in the future. They must have high strike power and survivability. Unmanned systems should be used to increase coverage.
Currently, the Navy needs to be prepared for intense combat, utilize artificial intelligence, and procure unmanned systems in large quantities, which is especially important for monitoring and assessing the situational picture. This can be accomplished if the Navy is funded on a sustainable basis and testing of the use and operation of unmanned systems begins now.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
