The decades long Germany-India strategic cooperation is inherited in the larger maritime cooperation between the navies of the two sides where various formats of dialogues for the flourishing of bilateral cooperation in the areas of commercial maritime security have been created. Representatives of the two countries have finalized a collaborative agreement to promote anti-terrorism and anti-piracy campaigns in the broader Indo Pacific Region (IOR). Germany, one of the European Union’s biggest economies, has formalized its geostrategic interests in oceanic politics under the conception of Indo-Pacific strategy, which is mainly designed to expand Berlin’s global outreach. The objective of securing an influential role in the IOR has convinced German leaders to cultivate a strategically close relationship with India. The bilateral connections between Berlin and New Delhi in the oceanic domain have become the key element for ensuring full scope cooperation in deepening an interstate maritime alliance. Both governments recognized each other’s maritime potential and preferred to explore various avenues for different naval collaborations. Based on its improving economic levels and growing maritime military capabilities, Indian decision makers are strategically ambitious to widen New Delhi’s sphere of influence in the IOR, preferably with the help of extra regional States where the Federal Republic of Germany becomes an important strategic partner. On the other hand, Berlin has recognized the IOR as an important area in the shifting geopolitical maritime affairs. Thus, the common economic and strategic interests laid the foundations of interstate strategic bilateralism between the two nations.
The history of diplomatic cooperation and strategic partnership between Berlin and New Delhi can be traced to the last phase of the Cold War when New Delhi supported Germany’s reunification in 1990. The end of decades-long US-Soviet confrontation based on ideological rivalry brought a major change in the world, and the states from around the world were forced to redefine their positions in the changing global politics. Analogous to various other states, Indian leaders tried to alter the conventional pattern of their strategic interaction with states beyond their home region. Despite Germany’s opposition to India’s annexation of Goa in 1961, the Indian involvement in East Pakistan in 1971, and conducting nuclear tests in 1998 by the Vajpayee government, Berlin and New Delhi were still able to construct their bilateral strategic engagement in different domains. In addition to the post nuclearization scenario, the post-9/11 was another factor that shaped various bilateral collaborations between Berlin and New Delhi based on a brief series of two-sided state leaders’ reciprocal visits. During the first decade of the twenty first century, Chancellor Angela Merkel signed different agreements with Manmohan Singh in science and commerce, business and trade, science and technology, security, and defence. Chancellor Merkel’s subsequent visits fostered Indo-German bilateral ties at different cooperative levels. To support Indian economic efforts in the world, German authorities positively viewed the Indian aim of gaining substantial progress on the Free Trade agreement with the European Union. During a brief visit to New Delhi in 2015, Chancellor Merkel signed eighteen different agreements to boost bilateral ties in a range of key sectors such as trade, energy, technology, and defence. Apart from the eighteen Memorandum of Understandings (MoU), the Merkel-Modi diplomatic interaction emphasized the up-gradation of two sided collaborations in different strategic domains.
Due to India’s active role in the IOR, the German authorities decided to vigorously participate in the multilateral frameworks of different nations in the form of the
Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
German’s inclusion in the IORA as a dialogue partner was observed internationally as an attempt by the two leaders to uphold each other in the international political landscape. The combination of strategic and political cooperation cemented in the broader diplomatic interaction propelled the leaders from Germany and New Delhi to actively pursue common interests in the four countries group of G4 Nations. In addition to Brazil and Japan, the Indian and German governments are campaigning for reforms of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) while questioning the status of five permanent members having veto power in the decision-making process of the UNSC. The common objective for empowering each other in the strategic domains led Berlin and New Delhi to conclude a bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreement in 2006 for developing annual mutual consultations on international security matters.
To diversify its relations with states ambitious for maintaining regional hegemonic statuses, the German government developed its strategically bilateral ties with India. German foreign policy decision makers considered India as a major player in the IOR, which could help Belin maintain its active global standing. The quest for securing stable access to foreign markets under a stable international order was the primary interest that led the German government to consider IOR as an important area in international oceanic politics. Under the broader concept of defending its maritime interests in the open seas, Berlin decided to not restrict the naval engagement to its formal bilateral commitments. The maritime cooperation compelled both states to arrange a bilateral naval exercise in 2008 off Kochi in the Arabian Sea. The first joint maneuver naval exercise between the Indian and German warships was a bilateral interaction for updating its anti-submarines and sea-domination capabilities. German naval flotilla, comprising of missile destroyers, frigates and advanced submarines, first time visited Indian waters for participating in a naval exercise with India off Kochi. Moreover, Germany was recognized as an observer in the India Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), a group of twenty-four members from four different sub-regions. The IONS is a maritime alliance of the IOR, consisting of a series of biennial meetings to strengthen naval security cooperation among its littoral members.
The quest to support each other in the mainstream global strategic affairs led Berlin and New Delhi to augment their primary conventional foundations of defence partnership in 2019 when their defence ministers signed an Implementing Arrangement on Enhanced Defense Industry Cooperation. Under this strategic partnership framework, the technological collaboration between both states was designed to cover the naval dimensions. With German advanced maritime Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology, India showed its intentions for empowering New Delhi’s naval forces in the surrounding waters.
The Modi government outlined the Indian objective for getting an influential position in the IOR in the form of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) in 2015.
The concept of SAGAR is a maritime cooperation doctrine for the IOR, which later tried to foster Indian international maritime vision under the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). In the form of reciprocal responses from their Indian counterparts, Germany’s Federal Government published a formal document
Policy Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific Region: German – Europe – Asia: Shaping the 21st century Together
in September 2020 and communicated to the whole world the scope of Indo-German naval ties. It was globally considered Berlin’s new approach for its international maritime strategy’s IOR and potential strength.
Apart from conducting war games with nuclear carriers and submarines of the US, France, Russia, UK and Singapore, New Delhi decided to conduct joint naval exercises with Germany. The Indian selection of Germany for naval cooperation is inherited in the German industrial potential in maritime affairs. Germany has dominated the list of Indian trading partners from Europe due to Berlin’s strong international oceanic politics role. Germany holds the world’s fourth-largest merchant fleet of 2,250 merchant vessels, and 20% of the market share in Global Container vessel capacity, carrying 300 million tons of goods and generating 400,000 jobs. The German government explaining the German maritime industry’s future plans in a detailed document Maritime Agenda 2025: The Future of Germany as a Maritime Industry Hub, published by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in 2017, announced future plans of Berlin’s naval industrial capabilities. German’s highly developed ports equipped with advanced digital infrastructure have made Germany one of the most efficient port-managing states, which became a primary point of attraction for New Delhi. In response to the German naval industry’s multidimensional progress levels, Indian leaders started considering Berlin as an appropriate partner in maritime affairs. In other words, India preferred Berlin as a close strategic partner in the naval affairs due to its maritime economic plans for building new ports and upgrading previously constructed ports under the broader concept of port-led economic development, formally introduced by New Delhi as the Sagarmala Program in 2015. In addition to the Sagarmala Program for modernizing and upgrading Indian potential in the surrounding waters, New Delhi has published various formal documents explaining its plans for promoting and empowering its concept of Blue Water Navy in global maritime affairs. German corporate sectors attached to its shipping industry have contributed to the Center of Excellence in Maritime and Ship Building (CEMS), established by the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS) under the Ministry’s flagship Sagarmala Program in 2017. Apart from designing different bilateral engagement formats in the marine sector, the emerging cooperating trends in bilateral strategic ties between Germany and India further were confirmed by the 2019 visit of Chancellor Merkel to India. Merkel’s visit was based on a resolution passed by the German parliament to upgrade bilateral cooperation with India. In this way, the Merkel-Modi diplomacy focused on various avenues for mutual collaboration in different fields parallel to exclusively focusing the maritime projects.
In this way, the increasing Indo-German naval cooperation parallel to expanding military ties between Berlin and New Delhi has led the two governments towards an enhanced level of strategic bilateralism. Both governments are trying to explore different dimensions of strategic bilateral interaction based on a more coordinated and more cooperative approach and are planning to explore further dimensions of bilateral cooperation in the form of goodwill visits, port visits, training initiatives, and combined patrol deployment in maritime affairs. The German government’s planning to upgrade its naval forces to meet the new geopolitical challenges in the global oceanic politics, and the objective of securing an active position beyond the immediate waters raised Indian significance in Berlin’s strategic calculations. Moreover, Modi’s empowering India in international oceanic politics has augmented India’s way of treating Germany as a potential strategic partner. Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative started attracting German manufacturers in the Indian shipyard industry, which will further serve both nations’ strategic interests. The reciprocal visits of German-Indian authorities have served to connect their naval industries and bolster their commercial relations by initiating various maritime projects. Now the German state officials are willing to expand their bilateral strategic connections with India to acquire a stable and secure position in the IOR. A common approach for addressing global strategic issues in international maritime affairs has resulted in different political consensus and diplomatic supports in international oceanic politics. In short, the Indo-German naval engagement has convinced both to explore various avenues of strategic bilateralism in the waters of IOR, which could let Berlin and New Delhi stretch their naval muscles in the global maritime order. The scope of bilateral strategic ties between the two governments is intended to cover various dimensions, mainly in science and technology, to achieve common strategic interests. With Germany’s help, Indian leaders intend to secure an actively influential role in the world beyond their home region. Given the situation mentioned above, South Asian politics has accepted an influential German role in the nuclearized subcontinent in which the two-sided maritime collaboration could allow New Delhi meet its strategic objective of acquiring a regional hegemonic status. Indian leaders have already contacted various extra-regional states for empowering New Delhi’s standing in the South Asian region while affecting the role of other South Asian nations in the subcontinent’s regional nuclear order. The evolving strategic bilateralism between Berlin and New Delhi is becoming an essential feature of the South Asian nuclear order, which needs the international community’s serious attention generally and the German authorities’ particularly. In the presence of an Indian aggressive role in the South Asian region, Germany’s political leaders need to consider the impact of their strategic connections with New Delhi while paying special attention to South Asia nuclear politics. No doubt, the strategic ties between Berlin and New Delhi is purely a matter of interstate interaction based on bilateral cooperative interaction of two states, still its impacts on South Asian nuclear politics cannot be marginalized.
