The risk scenarios for Spain increase. There is no choice but look at South Asia as well as the Maghreb, the Sahel, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. The instability that supply chains of key products have been showing since the 2020 pandemic, Russian unpredictability and Chinese military strength have made the Indo-Pacific areaor in a key area for Spanish interests.
It is the underlying reason for a tour that Admiral General Antonio Piñeiro, Chief of Staff of the Navytakes place these days in Indonesia and Australia. Two epicenters of the defense of that area, of redoubled importance in the geostrategic balance, and which the Navy considers “essential partners in the region”, have been chosen for the official trip.
Piñeiro travels, as reported by the Navy, with the objective of “strengthen naval cooperation and promote international maritime security.” The visit will last until November 7 and includes contacts with the chiefs of the navies of the two countries, in addition to participation in the Indo-Pacific Sea Power 2025 conferenceconvened by the Royal Australian Navy in Sydney.
The Navy considers the area as an “area of strategic interest shared with our European partners” – it considers in a note issued this Friday -, a key point for logistics chains world, where 60% of global GDP is concentrated and where 40% of EU trade passes.with two points of extreme importance: the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea.
“The stability of the region is essential for the prosperity of Europe and Spain and for the well-being of Spanish citizens,” says the Navy in its statement
Naval industry
Spanish naval involvement with the area goes beyond the purely military. In Australia, the public company Navantia – builder of the Monturiol Isaac and Narcissus and of the new F110 frigates– has a subsidiary that operates with a strategic alliance with the SAGE Automation brand. The agreement develops the SICP, or Integrated Platform Control System, a ship steering program for the Royal Australian Navy.
Navantia also maintains in Austrialia the Marintec (Martitime Institute of Technology) that connects the University of Technology of Sydney with Spanish universities.
Navantia Australia staff in Sydney, in an institutional photo after the signing of an agreement to support the design of the Australian Navy. / Navantia
In Jakarta last June, Navantia attracted visits from seafarers from Southeast Asia andn Indo Defense 25, the local defense industry fairin which it promoted its capacity for the construction of large aircraft carriers such as LHD Juan Carlos I, and the frigate modernization program that it now has in development.
Indonesia is one of the countries to which Navantia transfers data within the framework of its offshore platform construction programs for installation of energy plants in the sea. Indonesia was the first buyer of the Spanish CATIZ naval combat management system, within a contract to modernize that country’s corvettes.
Oceans (and problems) connected
The Conference on Maritime Power in the Indo-Pacific that Sydney hosts this year, and which the Chief of Staff of the Navy will attend, will be held between November 4 and 6 with Australia increasing its focus on the maritime routes through which it sells and supplies, not only manufactured products and raw materials, but also energy and data and communications.
The meeting is held in a crucial stage of surveillance of the area by Australiawhose Royal Navy has been reflecting on Australia’s dependence on the sea for a long time. “In defending the Australian coasts and guaranteeing our access to the sea and the security of vital infrastructure in the maritime domain, our Navy is fundamental to the security and economic success of our nation,” they say in the invitation document to military personnel and international observers.
A Philippine helicopter lands on the Australian Navy frigate HMAS Ballarat. / SBLT Jake Badlor
That Sydney conference will focus the area on the south. Another strategic meeting is planned for December 8, also of Anglo-Saxon inspiration, to address maritime security looking from the north.
It is the Sea Power Conference 25. It will be organized in London by the British Admiralty and the think tank Council on Geostrategya private group of experts in geopolitical analysis and international military power. In its initial statements for the conference, the Council makes this consideration to its guests: “The United Kingdom and its allies face a dangerous world. Russian aggression threatens the Euro-Atlantic region and the Arctic. Strategic competition intensifies and it becomes unpredictable”, and points out another risk: “Extremist ideologies are on the rise and rapid technological advances are transforming war.”
But it not only addresses the Russian threat in northern western waters. The approach is set in a future in which, with the Arctic melted due to rising temperatures, the Pacific and Atlantic have their waters connected to the north… with Russia and China in the middle. It is the “Wide North”, a new challenge area to which the Sea Power Conference is going to dedicate a side event to be held aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Price of Wales with the collaboration of another geostrategic debate entity: the Pacific Future Forum.
It is the mthat round “The “Expanded North”: A new front that connects the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific? exclusive access for military leaders and a small group of experts. To this group he makes this approach: “As climate change opens up the Arctic and geopolitical competition intensifies, the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions They are increasingly interconnected. “Russia’s geographical position, potentially reinforced by Chinese support, allows it to exert influence over this emerging ‘Wider North.'”
The approach gives an idea of the global nature of the new challenges, and helps to explain the turning of the Navy’s gaze towards an area in which the Spanish Armed Forces have been absent since the loss of the Philippines to the United States in 1898.
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