After years in search of a geopolitical identity, Europe is aiming to become a much bigger player in one of the most contentious spaces in international relations: maritime security, including in Asia.
After years in search of a geopolitical identity, Europe is aiming to become a much bigger player in one of the most contentious spaces in international relations: maritime security, including in Asia.
Rebounding from years of anemic defense spending and a seeming aversion to hard power, Europe as a whole and many key member states are quickly boosting their attention to maritime security, both close to home and half a world away. That’s evident not just in the flurry of ambitious strategy papers raining out of Brussels, Paris, and London, but also in the increasing deployments of Europe’s small but capable navies to do more and in more places, securing contested waterways and clawing back respect for free navigation and global rules.
European naval missions are already operating in the Red Sea against Houthi missile attacks from Yemen, and more and more European frigates and even aircraft carriers are making tours of the Pacific as part of a continentwide shift to bigger and more sprawling responsibilities.
What began almost a decade ago with local maritime policing operations in the Mediterranean is now spreading to more ambitious deployments farther afield, including the Indian Ocean. Just last month, the European Union launched a naval operation to secure shipping lanes in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea, separate from the more belligerent U.S. and U.K. mission in those same waters.
Even with a major land war in Ukraine entering its third year, Europe is getting increasingly serious about playing a bigger role in Indo-Pacific security. The European Union has both an Indo-Pacific strategy and a new maritime security strategy that puts renewed emphasis on the region.
“What is striking about the latest maritime security strategy from the EU is a real shift in gear, to recognize the importance of interstate disputes and conflicts at sea and the changing political dynamics,” said Timothy Edmunds, a naval expert at the University of Bristol. “That’s particularly the case for the Indo-Pacific region and the role for the EU within that.”
Individual countries are getting in on the act, too. The United Kingdom is aiming to double down on its own “tilt” to Asia. France, the only European Union country with territorial interests in the Indo-Pacific, is all in on bolstering its naval and diplomatic presence in the region to balance the rise of China and protect vital French and European economic interests. Even middle-sized geopolitical players such as Germany and the Netherlands have an Indo-Pacific strategy. Britain, France, and several other European countries have backed up aspirations with hulls in distant Pacific waters.
“The deteriorating security environment in the Indo-Pacific poses a significant threat to French and European interests,” said Jérémy Bachelier, a military fellow at the French Institute of International Relations. “While deterrence and military response efforts in the Indo-Pacific primarily rely on the United States, EU member states must now fully comprehend the global consequences of crises or conflicts in the region, such as those in the Taiwan Strait, North Korea, or the South China Sea.”
The war in Ukraine has absorbed European attention and European arms. Even so, the European shift to the east continues and is even gaining pace. That’s in part because the Ukraine war was a wake-up call for Europe about the real risks of conflict—especially in the Indo-Pacific, the lynchpin of global trade and energy flows upon which Europe, like much of the world, relies.
“The intention to increase European presence [in the Indo-Pacific] is still going on despite the war in Europe. It would be easier to get resources if there wasn’t a war in Ukraine, but on the other hand, there is now a new seriousness,” said Paul van Hooft of the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. The European pivot to Asia is so noteworthy because, France and perhaps Britain aside, no European countries are naturally Indo-Pacific players. And yet, in addition to French and British carriers making regular deployments in the region, smaller surface ships from Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are also showing the flag.
The reasons that Europe is increasingly muscling up for conflicts half a world away, despite plenty of challenges on its doorstep, are several: the rise of an aggressive China, the need to protect free flows of commerce and energy, and a desire to show the United States that the old continent can step up and play a major role in what is shaping up to be the critical security challenge of coming decades.
For years, Europe tried to manage a balancing act with China, welcoming investment from the country while sidling away from Washington’s increasingly belligerent stance toward Beijing. But China’s combination of predatory trade and economic practices, coercion in the South China Sea, threats to free navigation in the Pacific, and overt plans to annex Taiwan have now pushed Europe toward a more clear-eyed approach.
“The direction of travel on China is changing across the EU, and the disruptive role of China is increasingly recognized,” Edmunds said, “whether that’s foreign investment, or the Belt and Road Initiative, or what it’s doing in the Pacific. The scales are being lifted from those countries’ eyes on a daily basis.”
Middle-weight countries like the Netherlands see a future for themselves in the Indo-Pacific not so much as war-fighting navies but rather as diplomatic powers that can leverage investment, capacity building, and security assistance to court Asian countries into a broader grouping that could serve as a bulwark against China’s domination. “What we can do is tell partners, ‘We really care, but our support will have to be in other forms,’” van Hooft said.
France, which for years under President Emmanuel Macron has sought to pursue what many see as a balancing posture, is increasingly leaning toward a more pragmatic view of what’s to come in the Indo-Pacific, Bachelier said. “While Paris has yet to formally join groups like the Quad, composed of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, it is taking part in more exercises than before with like-minded countries, such as the La Pérouse naval exercise” with India, he said.
Beyond a potential conflict over Taiwan or the Western Pacific, what has France and the rest of Europe especially concerned are threats to free navigation and the free flow of vital commodities, such as energy. This has been highlighted by the monthslong Houthi campaign in the Red Sea as well as Iran’s on-again, off-again threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, and underscored by China’s apparent willingness to turn one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes into a private lake. That translates into a shared European desire to uphold the law of the sea and protect shipping—not just close to home, but wherever it affects Europe.
“It’s clear to everyone that waterways are increasingly vulnerable, and maritime security is inevitably shifting to the Indo-Pacific,” van Hooft said. “Given our dependencies, we cannot ignore the question of keeping the routes open.”
The big European push to do more at sea carries a message not just for partners and potential rivals in Asia but for the United States as well. For years, if not decades, Washington has lectured European members of NATO on the need to increase defense spending, and some are belatedly starting to do so. But increasing Europe’s maritime security capabilities, especially in and beyond its immediate backyard, is one area where the continent can provide real assistance to the United States, experts said.
That includes constabulary actions like the European missions in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, but it also includes the regular dispatch of European surface ships to flesh out U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups on long deployments.
“All these missions are very concrete ways that small navies can also play a role,” van Hooft said.
But what role is that, exactly? The two most powerful navies in Europe—Britain and France—together have three modest-sized aircraft carriers and 40-odd major surface ships. The U.S. Navy has at any given time more than that just in its Pacific Fleet. And the smaller European navies—those of Italy, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands—mostly comprise smallish frigates and a handful of amphibious ships. Still, French and British carriers, escorted by ships from other European nations, plan to head to the Indo-Pacific later this year and next, and both have trained to become increasingly interoperable with U.S. forces.
But that doesn’t mean that European warships would be able to directly support the U.S. and partner navies if war breaks out in the Pacific, either over Taiwan or the South China Sea, Bachelier said. The tyranny of distance—from northwest Europe to the South China Sea is about two weeks’ steaming—and the lack of local logistical support would make it tough for European navies to do much in the event of a conflict, even if they were willing.
A more indirect but ultimately more helpful role shaping the maritime environment in Asia could be played a little closer to home. European navies that have already begun operating against pirates and terrorists in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean could take that sea lane protection mission entirely on board, freeing up the U.S. and its partner navies to focus on the Pacific.
“If any conflict occurs in Asia, Europe will probably have to ensure the security and control of maritime flows and monitor the ‘rear bases’ between the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca,” Bachelier said.
“European navies operating in the zone ranging from the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to the opening of the Strait of Malacca in the Bay of Bengal could constrain Beijing’s strategic supplies while preserving European energy interests, without committing too far to the east.”
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