On Deploying German Military Presence in the Pacific
https://doi.org/10.31249/kgt/2022.02.07
Abstract
For a long time, the Far East was not one of key regions of the FRG's efforts to ensure strategic positions at the global level. The tendency has changed dramatically in 2020-2021, despite the “freezing” the majority of the world political processes during the COVID-19 pandemics. The article explains it, using the methods of event-analysis and the analysis the structure of German diplomatic missions and the profile department of the FRG`s MFA. The goal of the article is to study the features and «narrow places» of deployment German military presence in the Pacific (first of all the political-diplomatic preparations of the process).
The article issues the usage of the Indo-Pacific region concept in FRG`s foreign policy at conceptual and practical levels. The author stresses that at the beginning of 2020s Germany really focused not in the Indo-Pacific region as a whole, but in the «extended» Far East. This process is considered in the context of achieving geopolitical and image compensation for the ending of the Bundeswehr long-term presence in Afghanistan (2021).
The present paper shows the key regional partners of Germany. The development of bilateral relations with them has become the key way to provide FRG`s military and political presence in the Far East. In most cases, a significant export of German military production was transformed into a willingness for bilateral cooperation of the armed forces. The author issues the features of German political and military dialogue with Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Australia in 2020-2021. The position of the USA during Donald Trump`s presidency made German plans difficult to implement. But most difficult for Germany was the search for balanced forms of support for the United States in their confrontation with the PRC already during the rule of Joe Biden`s administration. The article issues the dispatch to the Pacific Ocean of the first German military ship that was the frigate “Bayern” (2021, August – 2022, February). Special attention is paid to the factor of AUKUS.
Keywords
Germany,
the Indo-Pacific region,
the Far East,
Japan,
Singapore,
Australia,
the USA,
Trump,
Biden,
AUKUS
About the Author
Ph. O. Trunov
Institute of Scientifi c Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAN)
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Philipp O. TRUNOV, PhD (Political Sciences), Senior Researcher, Department of Europe and America
117418, 51/21 Nakhimovskiy prospekt, Moscow
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Review
For citations:
Trunov P.O. On Deploying German Military Presence in the Pacific. Outlines of global transformations: politics, economics, law. 2022;15(2):133-153. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31249/kgt/2022.02.07
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