The Polish Navy may be small, but it actively participates in many international exercises and NATO operations. Its core consists of two unmodernized Olivier Hazard Perry frigates (short hull), three Fast Attack Craft (FAC) upgraded with RBS Mk3 missiles and Thales C2, three minesweepers turned modernized mine-hunters, four German-designed Kobben-class diesel coastal submarines, and a Soviet-era Kilo-class. In March 2012, the Polish Ministry of Defense announced a long-awaited Navy modernization plan. In contrast with previous practice, the plan has been made public (unsurprisngly, but perhaps unfortunately for readers of NextWar, in Polish).
The new plan foresees replacing virtually all existing ships (except the newly modernized Orkan-class FAC) within more than 25 years. In simple terms, we’re talking about the complete reconstitution of all Navy platforms. Yet, many people remains skeptical. One reason is a previous plan, stalled for 10 years, to build a series of Gawron corvettes. Recently Ministry of Defense decided that the ship will be finished as a patrol corvette with ASW capabilities. But this skepticism has a deeper roots and to understand it better we need to look at broader context.
Role of the Navy
Beyond the superficial popular arguments about inadequate military funding, we find more useful reasoning, surprisingly in A.T. Mahan works:
The necessity of a navy, in restricted sense of the word, springs, therefore, from existence of a peaceful shipping, and disappears with it, except in the case of a nation which has aggressive tendencies, and keeps up a navy merely as a branch of the military establishment.
“I know I left my sub somewhere….” A former Kobben-class, now a museum.
The Polish Navy finds its purpose from the first part of the above phrase, while the General Staff is more concerned about other countries taking theirs from the latter portion. In fact, both the MoD and BBN (National Security Bureau), following the logic “home first,” have defined the area of interest for the Navy as “Baltic Plus.” BBN’s recently concluded survey on the security environment of Poland stated that there is no danger of open armed conflict in foreseeable future. However, Prof. Stanislaw Koziej, who leads BBN, is concerned about the fact that Poland is a frontier country of the European Union and as such is exposed to some tensions and conflicts. Not surprisingly the most recent investment for the Navy was a shore battery of the Kongsberg anti-ship Naval Strke Missile (NSM), while the next priority is for new submarines, mine hunters, and then ASW helicopters.
Traditions
Defeating the dasterdly Swedes
Poland is geo-strategically located between two traditional European powers – Germany and Russia. All armed conflicts with these two powers have been resolved on land. Likewise, the 17th century wars with Turkey ended with a great Polish victory at Vienna, far from the sea. The only war with an important, although not decisive, naval episode was the war with Sweden. In 1627, the Polish fleet achieved victory over the Swedish squadron at Oliwa. The Polish Navy was restituted immediately after regaining independence in 1918. 20 years later, a young and small navy unable to save the country continued its fight at the side of the British Royal Navy. One participant of these struggles, the destroyer Blyskawica has been depicted by CDRSalamanderin his Fullbore Friday series. The Polish Navy, rightly proud of its traditions, nevertheless historically had little influence on the outcome of wars of the past. And this is probably the General Staff’s point of view.
Budgeting
A few years ago, the investment budget of all the Armed Forces was centralized. All projects now compete for resources within the same structure of the MoD. Such centralization theoretically allows for better spending of scarce money, but it leaves Services without control over their own future. Even much bigger navies have from time to time had problems in justifying their mission, a problem amplified for a small navy in a continentally oriented country.
Industrial Base
Although there are shipbuilders in Poland with profitable operations, none of them is now involved in warship design and construction. The dilemma therefore follows: should a navy rely on foreign construction and unknown support or on a local industry which has no expertise. It is possible to build such expertise over time, but is Poland’s new modernization plan enough to support such a venture?
As outlined above, some skepticism has well-founded reasons. On the other hand, my belief is that a navy should be confident in its better future, and the reason is simple. Poland, as a young member of the European Community, wants to be active in the international arena. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan allowed our Armed Forces and politicians to learn a lot. The price of these lessons is high and the next step is discovering that using a navy to express political will is typically much cheaper.
The basic assumptions of the concept include: · Permanent financing at a level of PLN 900 million per year · Abandoning modernization of current old equipment in favour of obtaining modern ships ·A three-phase modernization of the Polish Navy, implemented until 2022, 2026 and 2030 respectively · By 2030, in line with the modernization plans, the Ministry of National Defence plans to acquire, among other things: – 3 new submarines – 3 coastal defence ships with a displacement in excess of 1,000 tonnes – 3 patrol ships with minesweeping abilities – 3 modern minesweepers – 2 rescue ships – 2 electronic reconnaissance ships – 7 support ships, including an operational support ship and logistic support ship – 6 SAR helicopters and 6 anti-submarine helicopters – unmanned aerial systems: 6 reconnaissance planes (3 ship-based, vertical take-off and landing type, and 3 land-based) and 10 mine identification and destruction systems – Rearmament of the Coastal Missile Unit – Purchase of two short-range anti-aircraft systems for the defence of main naval bases
Przemek Krajewski alias Viribus Unitis is a blogger In Poland. His area of interest is broad context of purpose and structure of Navy and promoting discussions on these subjects In his country
A violent and extremist, but what of its organization?
What can zombies teach the military and law enforcement about asymmetric warfare and counter-terrorism? San Diego is about to find out thanks to a privately run conference coinciding with Halloween. (Note: NOT part of International Maritime Satire Week):
“This is a very real exercise, this is not some type of big costume party,” said Brad Barker, president of Halo Corp, a security firm hosting the Oct. 31 training demonstration during the summit at a 44-acre Paradise Point Resort island on a San Diego bay. “Everything that will be simulated at this event has already happened, it just hasn’t happened all at once on the same night. But the training is very real, it just happens to be the bad guys we’re having a little fun with.”
Hundreds of military, law enforcement and medical personnel will observe the Hollywood-style production of a zombie attack as part of their emergency response training.
In the scenario, a VIP and his personal detail are trapped in a village, surrounded by zombies when a bomb explodes. The VIP is wounded and his team must move through the town while dodging bullets and shooting back at the invading zombies. At one point, some members of the team are bit by zombies and must be taken to a field medical facility for decontamination and treatment.
“No one knows what the zombies will do in our scenario, but quite frankly no one knows what a terrorist will do,” Barker said. “If a law enforcement officer sees a zombie and says, ‘Freeze, get your hands in the air!’ What’s the zombie going to do? He’s going to moan at you. If someone on PCP or some other psychotic drug is told that, the truth is he’s not going to react to you.”
It’s an interesting way to generate interest and use an outside-the-box scenario to develop insights into parallel reality based situations, similar to the way that military academics mine history for case studies or futurists use the intelligent prognostications of science fiction to think about the future of society and technology and its implications for warfare. Hopefully this scenario doesn’t fall into the latter category. Click on the link above for the full story.
The Dutch have done it again. HNMLS Rotterdam, flagship of NATO’s OCEAN SHIELD counter-piracy operation yesterday decisively won an engagement with a suspected pirate dhow just off the coast of Somalia. NATO’s Allied Operations site has the story:
A boarding team from Rotterdam was making an approach on a suspect dhow near the coast when they came under fire from ashore and from the dhow itself. Rotterdam returned fire in accordance with Rules of Engagement, during which the dhow was seen to ignite and crew members were observed leaping into the water. One crew member of the dhow was killed in this action and 25 people were subsequently rescued from the water by Rotterdam. Commodore Ben Bekkering, the commander of the NATO Task Force, said that the Rotterdam and her boats remained under sustained fire from the shore throughout, even while attempting to rescue the crew of the stricken dhow and one of Rotterdam’s rigid inflatable boats was damaged.
H/t Lucien. Check out the above site for more details.
Dutch vs Dhow: Small boat from HNMLS Rotterdam exchanges fire with suspected pirate dhow.
Late last year, Iran began threatening to close the strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. At their narrowest point between Iran and Oman, the Strait are only 21 miles wide, but they have a perceived significance out of all proportion to their size, as some 17 million barrels of oil pass through them every day.
This story was recently brought home in a long article in the Financial Times on 5 October by author, Javier Blas. His source was a report by the US Energy Information Administration published 22 August 2012 entitled World Oil Transit Chokepoints.
Here is the gist of Blas’ argument. International sanctions have taken a grim toll on Iran. The Iranian economy is in horrendous shape, and the oil has lost 60% of its value since the beginning of the year. Merchants have gone on strike as a result. President Ahmadi-Nezhad is in his final term in office and he and his supporters have been increasingly sidelined by more conservative elements within the Iranian regime. Could it be, as Blas suggests, that Iran has less to lose now than ever before and that closing the strait — even if only a diversionary tactic by the president — is now more likely than ever?
It should be remembered that the 17 million barrels passing through the strait of Hormuz daily constitute only 35% of the world’s oil. Apart from Iran itself exporters of oil primarily threatened by closure of the strait would be the Gulf states of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar. All their oil goes through the strait. Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, would also be affected, but not all their oil moves through the strait (the respective figures being 87%, 55%, and 48% of exported oil). So these countries, in so far as they are exporters of oil, would suffer greatly if the strait were closed.
But Gulf states such as Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia have built pipelines which, when fully operational, will vastly reduce their reliance on the strait. It must be said, however, that the pipelines will only be ready in about 18 months, which may be too late. This strategy, though, is sound in principle, and other gulf states should find similar means to avoid relying on a single route of export.
What about the West? Though the effect of closing the strait would not be negligible, it would not be catastrophic either — at least as far as oil supply is concerned. Only 16% of America’s imported oil passes through the strait, followed by Germany’s total of 5% — numbers which are dwarfed by statistics for Japan, South Korea, India, and China whose respective figures are 82%, 74%, 63%, and 43%. So it would seem that western countries have much less to fear from a closure of the strait than does Asia, at least as far as oil supply is concerned.
None of this is to say that closure of the strait would not have a profoundly negative economic effect, which it certainly would. But the effect would not be permanent. And in every crisis lies opportunity. In the event that the strait were indeed closed, thereby denying enormous amounts of oil to Japan, South Korea, India and China, two countries may stand to gain from supplying them.
The first is Russia. Russia produces 10.41 million barrels of oil a day, just slightly higher than Saudi Arabia’s output. According to the CIA, Russian reserves must be about 60 billion barrels, and there is much more to be discovered, so we can expect output to go up. But this would surely be augmented by the supposed 100 or so billion barrels of oil in Central Asia, historically within the Russian sphere of influence, and which Russia would almost certainly monopolize. In theory Russia and Central Asia could well end America’s partial reliance on gulf oil and supply large amounts to Japan, South Korea, India, and China at the same time.
But the strategic concerns here would be enormous. Thanks to Presidents Putin and George W. Bush, Moscow now has renewed ties with Kabul, where it exercised influence throughout the 20th century. Could Russia pass up the opportunity to restart its drive towards the Indian Ocean in search of an ice-free port? Much of the necessary infrastructure is already in place, and if Russia developed oil reserves in the former Soviet Central Asian republics (as well as its own), transport to China and India via the Wakhan corridor in Afghanistan and rail links from Uzbekistan via Mazar-i Sharif through Afghanistan and Pakistan would be essential. Construction of such links has been in planning for some time. But a port on the Indian Ocean, perhaps with Pakistan’s coerced permission, would be ideal for transport of Russian oil to India and beyond. Thus American naval superiority in the Indian Ocean (based on the tiny British atoll of Diego Garcia) would be entirely outflanked, and the Fifth Fleet, stationed on Bahrain, could not offset this. The result might be naval race of terrifying scale.
If closing the strait of Hormuz could lead to Russian dominance of the Asian oil market, many will argue that it would be best to keep them open at almost any cost. Many may therefore be pleased to know that the second country standing to profit from closure of the strait is Canada. Alberta’s Oil Sands are expected to yield about 4 million barrels a day by 2015, a puny amount that is easily outstripped by Russia’s colossal daily output. But Canada’s reserves are greater than those of Russia and Central Asia combined. In 2008, the government of Alberta estimated that 1.75 trillion barrels of oil could be extracted from the OilSands. Admittedly, however, only about 10% of this can be extracted in an economically viable manner at present. But 1.75 billion barrels is still a formidable amount and might well match or surpass Russian and Central Asian reserves. Output could also be increased with more investment that would further benefit Canada by creating jobs.
Canadians might look forward to a day when domestic oil reserves foster a massive national industry with international reach, both to America to the south and across the Pacific — and this without the alarming geostrategic concerns attending the rise of Russia. It is also worth noting that exporting oil from Canada across the Pacific would obviate another oil transit chokepoint: the strait of Malacca connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans. Canada’s dominance as an ‘energysuperpower’, as some have said, would require an enormous amount of investment in infrastructure and political will to see it through, but it might well be worth it.
The high potential of the Oil Sands is not in doubt, but transport of oil through pipelines (notably the proposed expansion of the Keystone XL and the Gulf Coast Project) remains highly controversial both in Canada and the United States. And the environmental questions hanging over the Oil Sands themselves cannot be ignored either. So it may be some time before Canada can compete seriously with other oil-exporting countries — if ever. In the meantime, it will be best for everyone that the strait of Hormuz remain open. But Canadians may well wish to consider that Canada’s role as an ‘energy superpower’ may be infinitely preferable than other alternatives.
Michael Bonner studied Iranian history at Brasenose College in the University of Oxford. He is widely published on pre-Islamic Iran in both English and French, and his master’s thesis was published a year ago by Studia Iranica in Paris. Michael is a member of the Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage project, an archeological team based in Oxford devoted to the study of the ancient city of Balkh near modern-day Mazar-i Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Any views or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and the news agencies and do not necessarily represent those of the Atlantic Council of Canada. This article is published for information purposes only.
