“We cannot control the wind, but we can direct the sail.” German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel used this quote to remind Germany of its challenges and responsibilities as a maritime power at the 8th National Maritime Conference in April 2013.² But were the sails of German foreign policy and trade positioned correctly and has the “prevailing political sea blindness”³ been overcome? The facts speak for themselves:
A nation that imports and exports nearly two-thirds of its goods by sea is reliant on secure maritime lifelines.
A political economy in which the proportion of imported and exported goods currently accounts for...
The introductory quote from Vice Admiral (retired) Lutz Feldt, former Inspector of the German Navy, precisely describes the extensive challenges maritime policy faces today. Just as with the advances in globalisation in the early modern era or before the First World War, this most recent wave of globalisation since the 1980s is unimaginable without an unparalleled expansion of seaborne transportation capacity.
When comparing the growth rates of global trade and seaborne transport, the latter has increased by approximately one-third since 1990 (see Figure 2). The rate of foreign trade⁸ between 1970 and 2008 increased worldwide from 19.7 to 53.2 per...
1. Political and economic decision makers must create awareness of the problem of fragile maritime value chains. The German federal government has rightly raised the significance of this issue on the political agenda. The tradition of a “national maritime conference” should be continued and should take an even stronger thematic position on the security policy dimensions described here. Corresponding national and European networks of expertise should be further strengthened. With the Limassol Declaration in 201231, the EU established the terms of a maritime policy agenda for this purpose at the European level. However, this must be further interlinked with other provisions...
