Pitch Black Exercise 2022

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The News

Pitch Black air combat exercise is a biennial warfare exercise hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
The exercise is normally held in Northern Australia, primarily at RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal.
The last exercise was held in 2018 from 27 July to 17 August.

France is participating in Pitch Black 22, although not for the first time.
The French embassy in New Delhi called the 16,600-km long deployment by the French Air and Space Force a “major long-range mission in the Indo-Pacific.”
The mission has been codenamed “Pegase 22,” the first stage of this complex deployment “aims to demonstrate France’s capacity for long-distance air power projection by deploying an Air Force contingent from metropolitan France to the French territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean in less than 72 hours.

German contingent will have 13 aircrafts
- Six Eurofighter jets
- Three A330 tankers
- Four A400M transporters
It amounts to one of its largest peacetime deployment so far. Berlin is calling it the “Rapid Pacific 2022 deployment.”
Germany has set a target to reach Singapore within 24 hours and then quickly deploy to Darwin in Australia’s northern coast.
German deployment is noteworthy largely because German military assets are not frequent visitors in what is now known as the Indo-Pacific region.

In September 2020, under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel, Berlin announced its arrival in the region by releasing the “Policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific.”
Government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who succeeded Merkel in December 2021 is also keen on expanding his predecessor’s core commitments to Indo-Pacific security.

Germany has been overly cautious about pushing the wrong buttons in the region.
German Air force chief:
- Jets will “barely touch” the South China Sea and won’t pass through the Taiwan Strait.
- He further said that Germany wasn’t “sending any threatening message towards China by flying to an exercise in Australia.”

Compared to the Germans, the French have been more provocative – in challenging China in its own “backyard.”
Back in 2020 and 2021, the French deployed several navy ships including a nuclear submarine – to patrol the hot waters of the Indo-Pacific.
In 2019, France even sent a frigate through the Taiwan Strait.
Its latest long-range air mission is just another addition to that line of deterrence-centric balancing moves.

More and more European players are showing interest in Indo-Pacific region in recent times. Do you think European influence in Indo-Pacific is rising due to outgrowth of China’s growing influence in the region?