This year at the biennial Exercise Rim of the Pacific — the world’s largest naval exercise — the German navy has dispatched ships to participate for the first time as Berlin begins putting its ambitious new Pacific strategy into action.
The frigate FGS Baden-Wurttemberg arrived in Pearl Harbor last week along with the FGS Frankfurt Am Main, one of three combat support ships owned by the German navy. The vessels, at nearly 571 feet long, are the German navy’s largest ships.
The Frankfurt carries a large fuel reserve that can refuel the Baden-Wurttemberg at sea, but its commanding officer, Cmdr. Hanno Weisensee, explained during a visit to the ship by reporters that it can do much more. It serves as a moving logistics hub for the German navy.
“We support the ships at sea with everything they need to stay at sea longer,” said Weisensee. “We have food, we have fuel, we have oil, we have helicopter fuel, we have water. … We also have spare parts, ammunitions, everything they need, and we can take what they want to get rid of, like garbage, for example.”
The support ship also has a 24-bed hospital on board. As it sailed from San Diego to Hawaii with other international ships participating in RIMPAC, the hospital staff was unexpectedly called into action when a Mexican navy sailor on another ship had a medical emergency. The sailor was flown from his ship to the Frankfurt, where a surgeon on board removed his appendix. The sailor was returned safely to his ship the next day.
Germany for some time has been testing the waters to ramp up operations in the Pacific. The German military deployed the frigate FGS Bayern to the South China Sea in 2021 and is sending small detachments of personnel to participate in exercises around the region.
“The Indo-Pacific region is of utmost importance for our country, as it is for all our allies and partners. So the decision was to show presence and to cooperate with our allies and partners in the region,” said Weisensee. “This time it was decided to send a frigate and supply ship. I think it’s the logical consequence out of the political guidelines with regard to the Indo-Pacific region.”
Renewed interest in the Pacific is prompted in large part by anxieties around China and its growing military power and economic influence. In 2023 Berlin released its first China strategy, which called Beijing a “systemic rival” and advocated that Germany — which boasts Europe’s largest economy — work to reduce economic dependence on China.
“China has changed,” the document stated. “As a result of this and China’s political decisions, we need to change our approach to China.”
Increasing tension in the South China Sea, which serves as a critical trade route that more than one-third of all international trade moves through, played a large role in the shift in thinking.
China has claimed the entire waterway over the objections of neighboring countries that also use resources and shipping routes in the sea, and at times has attacked fishermen and maritime workers. Countries around the world have expressed concern that escalating tensions could disrupt trade routes and send shock waves through the global economy.
The pair of German ships deploying this year sailed from Germany across the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal, where they stopped in San Diego before making their way to Hawaii. It’s the first leg of what is intended to be a world tour.
After RIMPAC the ships will sail to Japan and participate in U.N. sanctions enforcement operations against North Korea, sail through the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean and make their way to the Red Sea to join Operation Prosperity Guardian — a U.S.-led international mission to protect international merchant ships from attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen — before sailing through the Suez Canal and making their way home.
The inclusion of the Frankfurt in the mission is meant as a demonstration of the German navy’s ability to run operations anywhere in the world. Weisensee said, “Having the logistic with you is always better than to rely on shore-based logistics in a faraway country from Germany.”
But the Germans are also looking to bolster their onshore presence. In preparation for this deployment, the German navy set up liaison offices around the region, including the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet Headquarters in Japan and at U.S. Indo- Pacific Command on Oahu. In January, German navy chief Vice Adm. Jan Christian Kaack told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that “some are temporary, just for the deployment, and some will stay.”
Among the possible permanent locations being discussed is Oahu, which serves as the nerve center for all U.S. military operations in the region. German military officials had been quietly flying in and out of Honolulu in 2023 holding meetings with top U.S. military leaders.
Kaack flew to Oahu in January along with a delegation of other German navy and air force officers to participate in a military affairs conference hosted by the Honolulu-based think tank Pacific Forum. During the event he participated in a panel with then-U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Samuel Paparo, who has since taken over INDOPACOM.
During a news conference in May as the Frankfurt and the Baden-Wurttemberg prepared to set sail for their deployment, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters, “Looking the other way, showing no presence in the Indo-Pacific in support of the international rules-based order, that’s not an option for Germany. Presence matters.”
Correction: A photo caption in an earlier version of this article misidentified a boatswain’s whistle as a horn.
