Germany, France and Italy will take part in joint exercises with Tokyo this summer, as the threats from Moscow and Beijing grow.
Japanese F35 fighter jets teamed up with German Eurofighters for a joint training exercise at the adjacent Chitose base, which brings happy holidaying families back to reality. Russia’s Sakhalin island is a mere 25 miles from the northern tip of the Japanese tourist spot of Hokkaido. One unusually frequent visitor this week was the boss of the German air force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, who’s on his second visit in as many years. […]
”I cannot speculate about the threat perception of Japan, but [the training] shows that both regions — Europe and Indo-Pacific — [form] one big space of security,” Gerhartz told POLITICO, standing next to a Japanese warplane printed with the German, Spanish and French flags. ”You cannot separate those two regions.”
That’s a big statement for Europe, and a big shift from the old thinking. Since 2022, European defense chiefs have been almost singularly focused on their own theater, busy making plans for an increasingly assertive Russia, which is not only sustaining the war against Ukraine but is also posing a potential threat to NATO’s eastern flank countries. Läs artikel