While the American fleet is called upon to increase its deployments in the Pacific theater, French Admiral Pierre Vandier, chief of staff of the French Navy, called on the European fleets to replace their ally to fill the vacated spaces by the United States.
As we know, Chinese shipyards launch, each year, nearly ten destroyers and frigates, as well as many other ships, including the most imposing and modern, intended to swell the fleet of the People's Liberation Army. .
To face it, the US Navy can still rely on the mass and efficiency provided by its fleet, as well as on the renewed resources of its regional allies such as Australia, Japan and South Korea.
However, in the years to come, and despite the increase in US naval production, Washington will have to concentrate ever more of its resources in the Pacific to cope with the rise in power of the PLA, effectively reducing its presence in other theaters, no less exposed.
It is precisely to anticipate this irremediable American shift towards China that Admiral Pierre Vandier, Chief of Staff of the French Navy, called on European Marines to organize themselves to fill the spaces liberated by the US Navy , on the occasion of the First Sea Lord's Seapower Conference 2023 which was held at Lancaster House on May 16 and 17.
For the French admiral, it is not only essential that European navies increase their presence in the Mediterranean as well as in the North Atlantic, their traditional theaters of operation, but also in the Persian Gulf and in the north of the Indian Ocean, precisely to allow a disengagement of the US Navy while maintaining a significant and dissuasive presence in these critical theaters for the supply of Europeans, particularly in hydrocarbons.
Beyond the deployments themselves, Admiral Pierre Vandier also called for increasing and strengthening the interoperability of European fleets, both at the technological and operational level, so that a European multinational fleet can act as a unified fleet.
By improving this interoperability and this common experience, European deployments will therefore be much more effective and dissuasive, by acting as a unified naval force so as to deprive a potential adversary of any opportunity that could convince him to take action.
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