Introduction

Section I: Historical summary of Australian strategic policy

Section II: The Development of an Australian Maritime Strategy

Section III: Maritime Strategy a decade after the end of the Cold War

Section IV: Current and Future Issues for Australia’s Maritime Strategy

Appendix 1: Australian/NZ Strategy : A regional contrast—a view from the West Island

Endnotes

List of Figures

Figure 1: Australia’s regional security interests and Australia’s direct area of military interest

Figure 2: The Nature of the Question

Figure 3: Extent of the Australian Ship Reporting Area, and Search and Rescue responsibilities (Source: Australian Maritime Safety Authority)

Figure 4: The Royal Australian Navy’s Three Fleet Navy

Figure 5:  Operations in the littoral environment

Introduction

If our nature is characterised by our myths and legends, then Australia is not a maritime nation. As a people, we are happy to lie at the beach and toss pebbles at the waves, or turn our back upon it and fix our gaze on the dusty enormity of our island continent. Our myths and legends, of both peace and war, celebrate the land and our impression upon it. We know all about the wartime heroism of the ‘Rats of Tobruk’ but few know of the ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’ that fiercely contested Hitler’s reach upon the Mediterranean Sea.⁽¹⁾ We celebrate Gallipoli but ignore submarine AE-1. We remember Kokoda but forget about the Leyte Gulf. This may be partly because we never had a ‘Grand Fleet‘ that sailed off to do battle with its enemy equivalent. In land and sea we provided components that plugged and merged into other forces and fleets. One side effect of this approach is that we supported the strategies of others rather than give power to our own.

The term ‘strategy’ is derived from the ancient Greek word ‘strategia’ meaning ‘generalship’. Originally reserved for the direction of military forces, the term came to be used more broadly through the idea of ‘total war’ as demonstrated through World War I and World War II. As the term implies, in such wars the total efforts of the state, through conscription and national mobilisation, were devoted to the defeat, not only of the adversary’s armed forces, but of its nation as a whole. This idea of national security being limited to the concept of military security flourished during the Cold War as the prospect of strategic nuclear war influenced all interactions between states. Much of what has been written on maritime strategies emerged from this era of Total War. Conflict for the unimpeded use of the world’s oceans between the UK and Germany, and later the US and the USSR was a constant feature of the strategic environment.

The end of the Cold War in 1991 brought about a major strategic rearrangement to the world’s maritime frontiers. The US Navy became the undisputed superpower and thus secured the world’s oceans for the allies that sailed in its shadow. These changes enabled the ideas of national security to become broader and more complex than just military security. Questions of transnational crime, of the unregulated movement of people across borders, and of environmental threats became recognised as valid security concerns for the nations of the world. As the concept of security broadened, so too did the need for security strategies that included these broader concerns. Consequently, maritime strategy needs to consider those non-military aspects of national power that govern and influence those broader security concerns at sea and on the lands which the seas influence.

This paper was originally developed under the title ‘A Foundation Paper on Australia’s Maritime Strategy’ as an aid to the deliberations of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for the enquiry into Australia’s Maritime Strategy, which published its final report in June 2004. This enquiry provided an opportunity for the questioning of some of the fundamental tenets underpinning Australia’s security thinking. This Foundation Paper is now released as a standalone document to inform public discussion in the lead-up to the development of the government’s next Defence White Paper, or National Security White Paper.

This document aims to put the debate surrounding Australia’s maritime strategy within a coherent context. Readers should note that this document gives no answers but aims solely to provide the foundations upon which meaningful questions may be asked. In Section I, this document provides an historical summary of strategic developments in Australia up to the development of the concept of self-reliance. Section II covers the development of Australia’s maritime strategy from the Dibb Report until the Defence 2000 White Paper. Section III looks at the current situation, and focuses on the issues affecting the future development of Australia’s Maritime Strategy. The paper includes an appendix which reviews New Zealand’s approach to its own maritime strategy.

Section I: Historical summary of Australian strategic policy

 ‘The ultimate source of strategy lies in the values of the people of a nation.’

                  Admiral Henry E. Eccles USN⁽²⁾

Introduction: enduring themes

The development of Australia’s maritime strategy possibly has had more to do with its relationships with its larger allies than as a direct response to its strategic circumstances, that is, to a greater or lesser extent, Australia has traditionally responded to its strategic circumstances through its relationships with great and powerful friends. To a large measure, this has been an understandable and practical response. Australia’s size, its isolation, sparse population and limited financial resources have made security difficult to even contemplate achieving alone, ‘however, although reducing the feeling of vulnerability, this reliance on allies has tended to inhibit the development of strategic independence’.⁽³⁾

The themes running through the history of Australia’s security policy and defence strategies have been identified as including: ‘the evolving nature of relationships with major power allies, the development of greater confidence in Australia’s capacity to provide for its own security in its local region, the types of defence contingencies that have driven defence planning, the development of Australia’s economic capacity’ which enabled it to sustain a defence development program ‘impressive by regional standards’, and ‘the evolution of close consultative and cooperative defence relations with most of Australia’s neighbours in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific’.⁽⁴⁾

Australia’s relationship with its maritime environment can also be explained in terms of its strategic culture. It has been argued that despite being ‘an island continent dependent on sea communications and trade’, Australia is not culturally a maritime nation, rather ‘Australians are a costal people with a continental outlook, an island-nation with an inward focus’.⁽⁵⁾ In the 20th century at least, this led to a division in Australian military thinking between continentalism and navalism (that is, land defence proponents struggling for supremacy over those who argued for the greater importance of maritime defence).⁽⁶⁾

Australia’s strategic culture has also been described as idiosyncratic with seemingly conflicting elements of ‘predilection to alliances’ juxtaposed with ‘an almost equally strong disposition towards self-reliance’. Other enduring elements of Australia’s strategic culture include: ‘a highly possessive approach’ to islands in the immediate neighbourhood; ‘an acute sense of vulnerability’ in relation to the sparse population in the north and west of the continent, manifesting as an ‘persistent anxiety about invasion’; and ‘an endemic ambivalence towards Indonesia’.⁽⁷⁾

From the founding of the colonies to Federation

It could be argued that the history of maritime strategy as it affected Australia from the founding of the colony to the fall of Singapore in 1942, and perhaps beyond, can be summed up in three words: ‘The Royal Navy’. While it is quite true that until the fall of Singapore Australian maritime strategy was dictated by British and Imperial strategy and Australia’s security was dependent on the Royal Navy, there are some milestones in the slow development of an independent Australian maritime strategy that should be acknowledged.

It can be argued that the founding of the new colony was an expression of Great Britain’s maritime strategy, especially as a means of denying expansion to imperial rivals, such as the French. The British Empire’s control of the sea was no less important to the colonists. The colony was not viable without outside assistance in its early years, and the survival of the settlements depended on the safe arrival of supplies by sea.

In second half of the 19^th century, the self governing colonies developed an increasing concern for the safety of their settlements. Australia’s dependence on safe sea routes for trade increased with the discovery of gold and the opening up of more land for primary production for export. However, Australia’s ability to influence events affecting its maritime security (that is, the security of its trade and passenger vessels) remained minimal in the littoral or coastal waters, and non-existent in blue water terms, despite colonial attempts to acquire warships and naval forces, and despite the Queensland naval force’s expedition to acquire a colony, Papua, on behalf of, but without reference to, the British authorities. Essentially, the maritime strategy of the Australian self-governing colonies was to depend on the Royal Navy for protection from a succession of possible threats from France, Germany, Russia and the United States. This dependence came at a price in the second half of the 19th century when through a series of arrangements the colonies began to subsidise the Royal Navy’s presence and protection.

The Jervois Report of 1877, which surveyed the condition of the Australian colonies’ defences, assessed that the greatest danger to Australia would be ‘small scale naval raids’ launched from the French port of Saigon or from Russian or American Pacific bases attacking the major Australian ports and capturing merchant trade and gold shipments.⁽⁸⁾ During the 1870s and 1880s, ‘the notion of the interdependence of the empire and the need to protect the empire’s lines of communication became accepted as the basis of imperial defence’.⁽⁹⁾ However, the colonies had a broader view of imperial security than their focus on protection from raiders would suggest. During the late 1880s, the Australian colonial troops assisted Britain in maintaining imperial discipline in the Sudan, the Boer War and 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China. Support for reliance on Britain was not universal, however, with ‘republican antecedents of the Labor Party’ arguing for ‘a more self-reliant and independent defence posture’.⁽¹⁰⁾

From Federation to the Singapore Strategy

At Federation, Australia’s maritime defence was still subject to the 1887 Agreements between the United Kingdom and each Australian colony (whereby the colonies paid a subsidy towards the cost of naval defence) and dependent on the Royal Navy. Prior to 1909, the focus of the Commonwealth’s new naval forces was local defence, such as port fortifications, with ‘little consideration of “blue-water” strategy’.⁽¹¹⁾ The primary threat to Australia was still considered to be ‘small scale raids by enemy cruisers, rather than large scale invasion’.⁽¹²⁾ The naval defence of Australia was three-tiered: the Royal Navy provided an imperial squadron as the first line of defence; the second tier comprised an auxiliary squadron of third-class vessels which had been subsidised by the colonies and were not supposed to be used outside Australian waters; and the third tier comprised the colonial fleets used mainly for harbour protection.⁽¹³⁾ The Colonial Defence Committee considered that ‘the maintenance of British supremacy at sea is the first condition of the security of Australian territory and trade in war’ and ‘the Barton government initially lacked any firm or considered policy on naval defence’.⁽¹⁴⁾

However, even if the new Commonwealth had the financial means to establish a proper navy and develop a blue water strategy, its ability to do so would have been limited as Australian warships were prohibited from operating outside territorial waters without being under the control and orders of the Royal Navy. Despite Federation, ‘the Commonwealth was still not a sovereign state and thus under international law (and in the eyes of foreign powers) her warships were not recognised as distinctly “Australian”’.⁽¹⁵⁾ This situation eased after Australia adopted the Naval Discipline Act (UK), but Australian warships were still restricted to the Australia Station ‘unless under the orders of a British admiral’.⁽¹⁶⁾

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902

In 1902, Britain made an alliance with Japan which was renewed in 1905 and 1911. Britain wanted to contain Russian ambitions in the Far East to protect its own interests in China and Korea. The alliance received initial popular support in Australia as being beneficial to Australia’s security and commercial interests as it decreased the likelihood that an expansionist Japan would threaten British or Australian interests in the Asia-Pacific region. However, Australians in general were very wary of Japan, and by 1905 with the rise of Japan, its defeat of the Russian fleet, and the growth of its military capability, it was Britain’s new ally in the Pacific which was generally seen in Australia as a greater threat to the Commonwealth than Germany, which was increasingly seen by Britain as posing the greatest threat to it. In 1908, the United States, also wary of Japan’s intentions, sent its fleet on a warmly welcomed goodwill visit to Australia to gauge Australian sentiment and military strength in advance of the possibility that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance might see Australia and the US on opposite sides in a US-Japanese conflict.

Imperial Defence: ‘One fleet one Empire’

Under the Naval Agreement of 1903 (which was strongly criticised during debates in the Australian Parliament), the Commonwealth still had neither ownership nor control of naval forces, despite paying an increased subsidy, albeit less than half the actual cost of the service.⁽¹⁷⁾ In addition, those British warships assigned to the Australia Station could be removed from Australian waters without the approval of the Commonwealth.

Captain W. R. Creswell, appointed to the new position of Director of Naval Forces in March 1904 was a proponent of an independent Australian naval force. Creswell disagreed with the London-based Committee of Imperial Defence’s theory ‘that as an attack on Australia by raiders would be met by a preponderating (sic) force sent in pursuit’, there was no ‘strategic justification’ for an expanded Australian navy. Creswell saw benefit in having suitable forces on the spot. This was especially important given Australia’s lack of internal communications, as ‘the sea provided the only means of communication with Western Australia and Tasmania, and Queensland depended totally on sea transport for contact with its northern districts’. Creswell was concerned that interstate and overseas trade valued at over 170 million pounds had been left out of consideration in Australian defence plans and he feared that the imperial squadron would be removed in war, ‘leaving local commerce unprotected and forced to seek refuge’.⁽¹⁸⁾

In 1909 during a special imperial naval conference the British Admiralty, under Admiral Fisher suggested the creation of dominion fleet units (the fleet unit concept) based on squadrons which would serve the Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa stations and combine to form a Pacific Fleet. Britain could then leave the naval defence of the Pacific almost entirely to the dominions.⁽¹⁹⁾ Unfortunately the Admiralty did not keep its commitments and by 1913 the agreement had been breached. Britain had changed its priorities and was now focussing on home waters. In the meantime, in 1911, the Permanent Naval Forces of the Commonwealth had become the Royal Australian Navy

In 1915 the Australian War Staff’s position paper noted that in 1914 the Admiralty had rejected the 1909 plan for a Pacific squadron. The paper expressed concern that, as the current war was almost purely an Atlantic affair, Pacific problems would continue to be secondary to the British authorities and Australia could not safely leave it to Britain to establish the protective fleet necessary for Australia’s defence, or even to contribute to the bulk of it. Britain might never provide the necessary assets or might change its mind as had happened in 1909 and 1914 and withdraw its ships ‘at an awkward moment’. ⁽²⁰⁾

World War One

At the outbreak of war, the Royal Australian Navy (the RAN comprised one battle cruiser, three six inch gun cruisers, three destroyers, two submarines, and some survey, harbour and repair ships) was put under the control of the British Admiralty under which arrangement RAN ships saw action in Australian waters and abroad. The RAN was able to use its assets to remove German control of New Guinea, but Australian troopships on their way to the Middle East/Europe were protected not only by RAN and RN ships, but also by the Japanese Navy under the Anglo Japanese Alliance of 1902.

The interwar years

Despite having secured a seat at the Peace Conference Australia was still bound to Imperial naval strategy and, as part of the British Empire’s quota to decrease its navy, the RAN had to scuttle HMAS Australia. In this period Australia abandoned any pretence of a blue water strategy and returned to local naval defence,⁽²¹⁾ remaining in a dependent relationship with the Royal Navy for the inter-war period. Two reports commissioned in this period identified Japan as the main potential threat to Australia’s security. Both saw the need for a large British naval presence in the region and one, by General Chauvel, recognised that in the event of an attack on Australia, Australia would have to rely on its own resources ‘for an appreciable and anxious period.’ ⁽²²⁾However, in 1925 the Committee for Imperial Defence, looking ten years ahead, dismissed any ‘aggressive action an the part of Japan’ as ‘not a contingency to seriously to be considered.’⁽²³⁾ Naval defence planning was difficult in pre war years because of this uncertainty. The revoking of Britain’s ten year no-threat assessment in 1932 prompted a reassessment in Australia and recognition, by some at least, of the possibility that Australia would have to rely solely on its own resources for its defence.⁽²⁴⁾

The Singapore Strategy

The Singapore Strategy which dominated Australian defence planning in the inter-war years had two components: the construction of a major secure naval base at Singapore and the speedy dispatch (within six weeks, extended to 90 days by 1939)of a large Royal Navy fleet to deter and defend British and dominion territories and interests in the Asia Pacific from hostile forces. The strategy was a reaffirmation of the imperial defence doctrine that had dominated the previous century – a blue-water strategy which asserted that if the Royal Navy dominated the seas, the outlying areas of the empire would be secure against a major invasion, with local forces dealing with local defence. ⁽²⁵⁾However, even in the same year as the 1923 Imperial Conference, the Australian Government was being warned by General Chauvel, the Inspector-General of Australian Military Forces, against having ‘a blind faith in the powers of the British Navy’.⁽²⁶⁾ In succeeding reports Chauvel continued to warn that a threat to Britain in Europe would delay the arrival of the promised fleet in Singapore. However, the RAN’s arguments for a blue-water imperial defence strategy won out over the Australian Army’s pursuit of continental defence.⁽²⁷⁾

The 1924 British announcement that it would not proceed with the Singapore strategy (supposedly as a matter of principle not for questions of economy) prompted the Australian Government to ‘institute a long-term naval expansion program in Australia’s own interests, including the building of two cruisers to Washington Treaty limits’.⁽²⁸⁾ However, Australia continued to request and receive assurances from Britain that a fleet would be forthcoming. Although Britain warned that it was impossible to predict what might happen, at the 1937 Imperial Conference it was still assuring Australia that the basis of its strategy was to establish as early as possible after the outbreak of hostilities with Japan, a fleet with enough strength to defend against, or deter, any threat to British interests in the Far East. Australia, lacking an independent  military intelligence capability, ‘had little choice but to accept British assurances’.⁽²⁹⁾

However, at the same time, the British Chiefs of Staff were advising their government that they could not foresee a time when their defences would be strong enough to defend their territory, trade and vital interests against simultaneous threats from Germany, Italy and Japan.⁽³⁰⁾ Although Singapore was widely regarded as ‘central to Australian and British defence planning in the Asia-Pacific in the inter-war years’, cuts in British defence spending in the 1920s and 1930s meant that it was not until the mid-1930s that ‘serious attention was devoted to the task of completing the base’.⁽³¹⁾

The Singapore strategy ‘at one level … rested on an element of bluff’ that a naval base, as both a symbol and a tangible indication of British determination to protect its interests, would deter Japanese aggression. The bluff could not survive the dramatically changed strategic circumstances of a world war, that is, war against more than one aggressor and in more than one theatre. ⁽³²⁾

World War II

As with World War I, the Second Australian Imperial Force’s (2^nd AIF’s) expeditionary role was made possible by ‘the maritime supremacy of the alliances in which Australia operated’ (that is, transport of troops and equipment and sustainment of operations). It was when this maritime supremacy was under threat, as in 1941-42, that ‘Australia was most in peril’.⁽³³⁾

The RAN’s primary tasks during World War II were the protection of shipping and support of land operations, that is, supply of the besieged fortress of Tobruk and support of Australian troops in South West Pacific Area. As Captain James Goldrick puts it: ‘A navy created and trained in the form of the RAN was always more about what it enabled others to do than what it appeared to achieve in its own right’.⁽³⁴⁾ By late 1940 the strategic challenge for Australia was to establish exactly what British Far East Strategy would be and how it would relate and depend on American strategy, and where Australia’s naval effort fitted in with British plans.⁽³⁵⁾

Post-World War II

World War II demonstrated the overwhelming importance of sea power. The Australian 1947 five-year defence plan included provision of two light fleet carriers reflecting the RANs desire to possess an independent regional capability and the capability to make substantial contributions to allied operations. However, as the US and UK were so pre-eminent, ‘any Australian attempts at “independence” at sea seemed unnecessary’, and given the limited funds available ‘the question of relevance was an acute one’.⁽³⁶⁾

The 1946 Chiefs of Staff’s appreciation, or formal assessment, of Australia’s strategic position argued that Australia’s defence would continue to be based on empire cooperation because ‘the size of the country demanded more for its defence, armed forces and an industrial potential quite beyond [its] present capacity’.⁽³⁷⁾ Thus Australia’s focus remained ‘the possible contribution to the global strategies of our major allies’. The naval author Commodore Hector Donohue has remarked that it was less than two years later that, with the recognition that the British Empire was beginning to break up, the ‘first flicker of a new theme appeared in the Chiefs’ 1947 appreciation which saw the necessity for Australia to “make greater efforts for self-sufficiency”.⁽³⁸⁾

Australia was very apprehensive that Japan would again pose a threat to its security. Despite this Australia had again committed itself, under the empire defence regime, to supporting Britain in the Middle East with ground forces should war break out with the Soviet Union, with Australian naval forces remaining in the ANZAM [the term stands for Australia, New Zealand And Malaya] area⁽³⁹⁾ and the air force being deployed to Malaya. Commentators have argued that, given the events of 1942, Australia and New Zealand ‘were less sanguine about leaving the defence [of their countries] to chance, and sought security guarantees from the United States’.⁽⁴⁰⁾ At a meeting between the British and American chiefs of staff in Washington in October 1950, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff made a secret undertaking that the US would counter seaborne threats to either Australia or New Zealand, allowing them to plan Middle East deployments. It was fortunate for Australian maritime strategy that during this period the greatest threat to the security of the United States was considered to be a Soviet submarine offensive in the Far East. Therefore the United States recognised the value of ‘some form of cooperation with British and Commonwealth forces for the contingent defence of the ANZAM and CINCPAC [Commander-in-Chief Pacific] areas’.⁽⁴¹⁾

Indeed, the threat of the expansion of communism, with the communist victory in China and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 along with communist insurgency in Malaya and the conflict in Indo China, replaced the threat of Japan in Australian strategic perceptions and ANZUS [the Australia New Zealand and United States Alliance] proved flexible enough to accommodate the change. It has been argued that Australia’s support for the US position on Korea earned the gratitude of the Truman administration leading to the eventual tripartite alliance with the US and New Zealand.⁽⁴²⁾ The ANZUS alliance was a continuation of the tradition of collective defence practised by necessity by both Australia and New Zealand, and, while this policy arguably limited external policy choices, it was relatively inexpensive and enabled government to direct resources to economic development.⁽⁴³⁾

In 1951, Australia, New Zealand and the United States also negotiated an agreement—the Radford-Collins Agreement—to provide for the protection and control of shipping in wartime in the ANZAM area, and regular peacetime surveillance, that is, tracking potentially hostile vessels and submarines in the area.

The era of forward defence (mid 1950s to mid 1970s)

In considering the development of the naval dimension of national strategy in this period we are to some extent talking about things that did not happen. Apart from its role in the defence of military shipping en route to operational areas in Southeast Asia, and despite an era of ‘moderately high military activity … the RAN was in general denied the opportunity to discharge any of its major functions’ as identified in a Defence Committee minute in 1962. These functions were to provide an effective and sustained naval contribution to allied forces maintaining command of the seas in our areas of strategic interest; to contribute to and defend military shipping en route to areas of operations in Southeast Asia; to protect within the Australia station shipping carrying essential imports and exports; and to cooperate with sister services in the defence of Australia.⁽⁴⁴⁾

The US focus on the threat of expanding communism in the Asia Pacific facilitated the development of Australia’s policy of forward defence. Forward defence had actually been the basis of Australian defence policy since Federation, but in this instance, it referred to Australia’s attempts to ensure that the gap between itself and the ‘southward flow of communism’ did not narrow. To this end, Australia contributed to the British Commonwealth Strategic Reserve (Far East) (FESR) and became involved in the US-initiated Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO).  For Australia, this was an insurance policy which, like the later Vietnam War, was seen as the means of keeping the US interested and engaged in the region. Underlying all this was the Australian government’s growing fear of China and suspicions of its intentions which were seen as menacing and expansionist, despite the fact that by 1964, China had become Australia’s fifth largest trading market.⁽⁴⁵⁾

The British announcement in 1967 that it would withdraw half of its forces from Malaysia and Singapore by 1971, with the rest being withdrawn by 1976, and President Nixon’s Guam Doctrine of 1969 which required US allies to provide the main forces for their own defence, caused Australia to reassess its forward defence policy. Without major allies actively engaged in the region, forward defence became impractical for a defence force the size of Australia’s, and Australia had been put on notice that a degree of self-reliance was going to be necessary in conflicts other than with the Soviet Union.

Self-reliance

In 1968, following the Britain’s east of Suez announcement, the Australian Minister of Defence argued for greater independence in defence planning. In the next few years the Liberal Country Party government moved away from the overtly hostile view of Communist China and the Soviet Union. The Gorton and McMahon governments began to examine alternatives to forward defence and the Gorton government made statements ‘to the effect that Australia faced no immediate or obvious threat’.⁽⁴⁶⁾

In 1971 The Strategic Basis for Australian Defence paper broke free of tradition in stating ‘a uniquely Australian strategic perspective, eschewing traditional notions of dependence on allies and down playing Australia’s global security role’. The 1971 paper recognised the Asia-Pacific region as of vital importance to Australia’s security. It identified the sea-air gap between Australia and Indonesia as being the most likely route of any military threat to Australia. It also proposed greater emphasis on continental defence without ruling out overseas deployments in support of regional security.⁽⁴⁷⁾

In the early 1970s, the recognition that Australia could no longer rely on the military assistance of allies forced a rethink of the threats Australia was likely to face. In a conceptual turnaround Australia’s geography and isolation (long seen as a liability and the reasons for the need for great and powerful friends) was now recognised as an asset, as it made Australia a difficult target to attack. Only the two superpowers had the capability to invade Australia. Regional nations would need to develop such capabilities over many years, giving Australia time to expand its defences.⁽⁴⁸⁾

The focus of Australian strategy from 1972 was the defence of Australia which ‘emphasised the importance of the capabilities of strike and interdiction based on naval and air forces rather than land forces.’⁽⁴⁹⁾ The 1972 Australian Defence Review ‘proposed that the concept of self-reliance become a ‘central feature in the future development of Australia’s defence policy’’.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Self-reliance did not, however, mean that Australia no longer valued its major ally as ‘the move towards self-reliance [was] accompanied by Canberra’s desire to strengthen alliance ties with the US’⁽⁵¹⁾.

Section II: The Development of an Australian Maritime Strategy

Defence of Australia and the emerging Maritime Strategy

This new era in Australian defence policy, largely driven by the United States’ Guam Doctrine and the British withdrawal from Suez was formalised in the 1976 Defence White Paper, Australian Defence. The shift in defence policy that this represented was significant, as for the first time in history Australia attempted to develop a uniquely Australian military strategy that was not dependent on allies. This represented a difficult period in Australia’s military history as previously Australia’s military strategy, doctrine, training, equipment, command structure, and importantly culture was structured around, or dictated by our powerful allies.⁽⁵²⁾ However, with hindsight it can be seen that the 1976 White Paper was an immature statement of Defence policy that did not adequately address the significant shift from ‘forward defence’ to ‘defence of Australia’, and from coalition operations to joint operations. The White Paper did not detail how a strategy of defence of Australia might be achieved. It lacked force structure implications and strategic guidance, resulting in a protracted debate between Defence planners over how to achieve a defence of Australia policy. The lack of guidance in a period that was also marked by strategic uncertainty over the expansion of the Soviet Union’s power within the region, resulted in a strategy of ‘defence of Australia’ and self-reliance not being realised.⁽⁵³⁾

The Dibb report – Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities

By 1985, the protracted debate over military strategy had reached an impasse.⁽⁵⁴⁾  As a result, the then Minister for Defence, Kim Beazley, commissioned Paul Dibb, a former member of the Department of Defence, to examine the rationale of defence forward planning and to advise on capabilities appropriate for Australia’s defence requirements.⁽⁵⁵⁾  

The Dibb report was a detailed analysis of Australia’s Defence strategy. It reiterated that defence of Australia was Defence’s priority task and proposed a strategy of denial, which was to be achieved through a layered defence within our area of direct military interest (see figure 1).⁽⁵⁶⁾ The direct area of military interest extended between 1000 and 1500 nautical miles from our shores and it is within this area, Dibb argued, that Australia must be able to project independent and comprehensive military power in order to ensure the defence of Australia from a military attack.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Dibb argued that there was no apparent threat to Australia, large scale invasion was unlikely and therefore forces should be structured around credible low level conflict scenarios such as incursions, harassment and raids in northern Australia. The strategy of denial was to be achieved through a layered approach that focused on defending the sea-air gap to Australia’s north, presenting the enemy with a series of interlocking barriers to an attack on Australia. The layers are as follows:

Dibb’s strategy was largely continental, with force structure determined solely on the capability to defend the sea-air gap. A strategy of denial gave little emphasis to promoting regional security, alliances and force projection in order to assist in shaping the regional and global security environment, specifically Dibb placed less emphasis on ANZUS and the Radford-Collins agreement than previous policies.⁽⁵⁹⁾ Critics of the Dibb report argued that it was too defensive and was isolationist, specifically the report raised some concerns internationally about Australia’s commitment to the region and its alliances.⁽⁶⁰⁾

Figure 1: Australia’s regional security interests and Australia’s direct area of military interest

 

The Defence of Australia 1987: Self-Reliance Within an Alliance Framework

The 1987 White Paper, The Defence of Australia, largely reflected the line of thought identified in the 1976 White Paper, however it was significant as it marked the first clear articulation of Australia’s military strategy. The Dibb report formed the basis of the White Paper. However it overcame some of the criticism of the Dibb report by increasing the emphasis on developing closer security ties within the region and by reiterating the importance of alliances.⁽⁶¹⁾

The White Paper focused on defence of Australia, emphasising the need to defend our northern maritime approaches through a strategy of defence in depth. This strategy was a revamped version of Dibb’s strategy of denial with a greater emphasis on offensive strike. Defence in depth gave priority to operations within Australia’s direct area of military interest, emphasising the need for:

Similar to the Dibb report, land forces were largely confined to the Australian continent.

The 1987 White Paper shaped to a large extend the current Australian Defence Force’s (ADF’s) force structure as it commenced the move of the Army to the north of Australia, the establishment of bare aircraft bases and a squadron of F/A-18 aircraft in northern Australia, as well as the establishment of a second RAN fleet base to be located in Western Australia. Despite the increased focus on regional security ties compared to Dibb, force structure priorities were still based solely on capabilities that contributed to a strategy of defence in depth.

Australia’s Maritime Strategy 1987–1994

The defence of Australia focus was quick to be tested after the release of the 1987 White Paper, as changing regional and global dynamics saw Australia’s military commitments focused far outside our area of direct military interest, emphasising that Australia’s national interests were not confined by our geography.⁽⁶²⁾ The apparent disconnection between Australia’s declared military strategy versus the operational reality raised questions about the appropriateness of our force structure priorities. However in 1989 the then Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister, Gareth Evans, stated that while the ADF was designed for a defensive role, its capabilities ‘provide a foundation for our capacity to contribute to a positive security environment through the exercise of what might be described as military diplomacy’.⁽⁶³⁾ He proposed that in light of fundamental changes that were taking place in the wake of the end of the Cold War, there was a need for a strategy of ‘constructive commitment’ towards the South Pacific. He suggested that Australia would be prepared to use its military forces in the South Pacific in ‘pursuit of security interests not directly affecting the defence of Australia’⁽⁶⁴⁾.

The end of the Cold War in 1991 led to a considerable change in the global strategic environment. The Department of Defence however, argued that the strategic changes were of ‘little direct relevance to the formulation of Australia’s defence policy and force structure development’ and therefore Australia’s military strategy remained focused on sea-denial operations in northern Australia.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Leading up to the release of the 1994 White Paper, it was evident that the Department of Defence had finally recognised that the end of the Cold War had a significant impact globally and that Australia’s military strategy needed to account for the changes in the regional security environment that had resulted.

Defending Australia: Defence White Paper 1994

At the tabling of the 1994 White Paper, the Minister of Defence, Robert Ray, stated that the end of the Cold War had ‘fundamentally changed the global security environment’, that no part of the globe was unaffected, and that strategic circumstances have changed in the region and worldwide.⁽⁶⁶⁾ The end of the Cold War ended the threat of global war but also ended the stability which it imposed on the Asia-Pacific region. The increased economic growth within the region was predicted to continue and with it the expansion of military capabilities. This expansion of military capabilities within the region created a potentially destabilising effect which resulted in Australia’s strategic environment being more demanding than before.⁽⁶⁷⁾

Despite the significance of events in the global and regional security environment between 1987 and 1994, this change was not reflected in the White Paper. It continued to focus on defence of Australia and operations in the sea-air gap through a strategy of depth in defence which was similar to the 1987 strategy of defence in depth.  The 1994 White Paper gave increasing priority to regional engagement but placed less emphasis on ties with the United States compared to previous White Papers. Despite the slight shift in emphasis to regional engagement, defence of Australia still was given primacy, and force structure determinants were solely based on defence of Australia roles.

Australia’s Strategic Policy 1997

In 1996, the new Liberal-National coalition government was faced with growing tensions between the need for self-reliance and regional engagement. The release of the Australia’s Strategic Policy (ASP97) in 1997 saw Australia’s strategic interests broadened from previous policies to encompass the Asia-Pacific region ⁽⁶⁸⁾ and it also saw a return in emphasis on the US alliance.

Defence of Australia was renamed Defeating Attacks on Australia and remained the ADF’s priority task. However ASP97 argued that ‘we need to recognise that regional conflicts–which may well relate directly to our security, or at least have a knock-on effect–are more likely than direct attacks on Australia’.⁽⁶⁹⁾ ASP97 recognised the importance of regional security on a defence of Australia policy, gave more emphasis to Australian operations within the region and to contributing to peace operations.  ASP97 concluded that because of Australia’s unique geography, a maritime rather than a continental strategy is best suited to our geo-strategic situation. However, the declared maritime strategy did not represent a significant shift in focus from previous White Papers as force structure was still centred on defeating aggressors in our maritime approaches though capable intelligence, surveillance, command and control, air superiority, maritime interdiction and strike. However, ASP97 did recognise that greater consideration needs to be given to the capabilities needed to defend our regional interests and that it cannot be assumed that forces developed for defence of Australia would be adequate for defending Australia’s regional interests.

ASP97 represented a shift towards a maritime strategy. However defence of the sea-air gap is only one element of classic maritime strategy, the strategy of sea denial, which seeks to deny an adversary freedom to operate within the sea-air gap, but not assuring freedom of action for your own forces.⁽⁷⁰⁾ ASP97 could be best described as continental strategy, however it is primarily navalist in orientation, albeit with a significant air component.⁽⁷¹⁾

Michael Evans, Head of the Australian Army’s Land Warfare Studies Centre, has made the observation that ASP97 ‘upholds the narrow primacy of defending the sea-air gap between Australia and the northern archipelagos rather than the sea-land-air gap that reflects the reality of littoral battlespace’.⁽⁷²⁾ Evans also notes that a credible maritime strategy needs to take account of the requirement for land forces to secure forward operating bases for sea and air assets, emphasising the need for force projection capabilities and amphibious operations.⁽⁷³⁾

Defence 2000: A Maritime Strategy at last?

In June 2000, the government released Defence Review 2000: Our Future Defence Force – A Public Discussion Paper, which sought input from the public on national security issues to inform the White Paper. The discussion paper came at a time when Australia was at a level of operation commitment not experienced since the Vietnam War. The paper sought to gain public support for an increase in defence funding as the ADF faced the prospect of the block obsolescence of some of its most important capabilities.⁽⁷⁴⁾

The Prime Minister, John Howard, presented Defence 2000 as ‘the most comprehensive reappraisal of Australian defence capability for decades’.⁽⁷⁵⁾ The significance of the White Paper, however, is possibly more along the lines of (as described by Dibb) an ‘evolutionary rather that a revolutionary’ change.⁽⁷⁶⁾ It was evolutionary in that it further matured the concept of defence of Australia and marked a shift towards the development of a maritime strategy, however it was not a significant change from previous defence policies.

Defence 2000 continued along the same lines as ASP97 emphasising that ‘the key to defending Australia is to control the air and sea approaches to our continent, so as to deny them to hostile ships and aircraft, and provide maximum freedom of action for our forces’ and concluding that this requires a fundamentally maritime strategy.⁽⁷⁷⁾  Defence 2000 however, was the first White Paper to recognise that controlling our sea and air approaches was a joint operation and that maritime forces included all three services. Compared to previous policies, the White Paper clearly recognised the role of maritime forces in maritime security of the wider region, the protection of Australian ports from sea mines, support of civil law enforcement and coastal surveillance operations. However Australia’s maritime strategy was then narrowly described as a strategy of sea denial across the sea-air gap and hence only represents a small tenet of a true maritime strategy.

The shift to a more considered joint maritime strategy was evident in the White Paper as it highlighted that land forces had a ‘vital and central’ role in a maritime strategy.⁽⁷⁸⁾ Despite this welcomed statement, the White Paper then described role of land forces primarily in the same vain as Dibb: defending vital assets and conducting offensive operations against threat forces that land on Australian territory. It can be argued, however, that while the ADF has considerably matured in its ability to conduct joint operations, the declaratory policy of defence of Australia lacks detailed consideration of joint operations, which is essential for medium powers to be truly effective and for the development of a mature maritime strategy. The White Paper highlights the requirement for maritime forces to achieve sea control stating that ‘the ability to operate freely in our surrounding oceans, and deny them to others is critical to the defence of Australia, and to our capacity to contribute effectively to the security of our immediate neighbourhood’. However the ADF’s ability to achieve sea control in the sea-air gap—which implies denying freedom of action to the enemy while maintaining your own freedom of action—except in confined areas for short periods of time, is questionable given the current and planned force structure. In particular the limited air defence capabilities of our surface ships until the air warfare capable ships come into service would mean that the ADF is reliant on land-based aircraft for air defence. Such aircraft characteristically lack permanence and to some extent ‘reach’ even with air-to-air refuelling.

The White Paper emphasised that the ADF may be deployed on operations within the region and beyond, and importantly that operations in the region will be considered in force structure development. However, defence of Australia still has primacy. The White Paper details a need for a high level of preparedness to respond to short notice crises in the region, giving priority for the Army to sustain a brigade deployed on operations for extended periods whilst maintaining a battalion group available for deployment elsewhere. ADF operations in support of East Timor’s independence highlighted the importance of air and sea lift which was reflected in the White Paper. However, importantly, the White Paper only planned to upgrade and replace the current amphibious lift capabilities,⁽⁷⁹⁾ not to increase the capability of these platforms, and therefore highlighting that there is no priority to structure the ADF for expeditionary operations in any level of conflict that may involve an opposed landing. This means that, primarily, they will be used for sea transport rather than force projection.

Section III: Maritime Strategy a decade after the end of the Cold War

In 1815, the world changed in ways similar to the end of the Cold War in 1991. Napoleon was defeated and France rendered prostrate before British power. The end of the Napoleonic Wars shattered the basis for Britain’s military strategy and made obsolete the roles, tasks and intimate knowledge that generations of naval officers had developed in response to Napoleonic expansionism. As a result, the British maritime strategy of confining French freedom of action by close blockade of the French ports became obsolete. This strategic discontinuity was so total that it took the British almost a century to come to terms with the new circumstances.⁽⁸⁰⁾

We are currently in the aftermath of a change of similar scope to that of 1815. However, the evidence suggests that many commentators have failed to grasp what the new environment means, and thus cling to anachronistic ideas about the utility and power of conventional thinking about sea power and maritime strategy.

Western military thinking on expeditionary warfare and power projection has undergone significant changes since the end of the Cold War. This has been precipitated by the new strategic realities and by the changes in military doctrine, organisation and equipment that together come under the rubric of the Revolution in Military Affairs.⁽⁸¹⁾ The result has been a growing difference between the US approach and that of other Western middle powers. This dichotomy is evident in the different strands of Western thinking regarding expeditionary warfare and power projection.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has assumed the ability to exert its power globally and unhindered by any real competition. It does not have to fight for the strategic space to reach across the world’s oceans. It just assumes that capacity and focuses instead on the application of national power from the sea to influence events ashore in the littoral regions of the world across the operational spectrum of peace, crisis and war.⁽⁸²⁾

This assumed capability means that the United States is therefore able to use the sea to wield power over land. This is reflected in its 1994 Maritime Doctrine White Paper ‘Forward … From the Sea’.⁽⁸³⁾ That paper outlines a concept for the use of maritime expeditionary forces to project the power and influence of the United States to foreign waters and shores in both peace and war. The White Paper notes that the country’s economic, political and military interests are truly global in nature and scope. This will be discussed in more detail further in this Research Paper. To promote and protect those interests, the US requires military forces able to operate globally across the full spectrum of conflict, from peacetime through to crisis intervention, through to regional wars and beyond. The US approach in this regard will be explored in a later section of this document.

The assumption of command of the seas that is inherent in the current United States maritime strategy also applies to other Western middle powers⁽⁸⁴⁾ if operating in concert with the US (but not if using maritime capacity to achieve their own strategic ends). The distinguished naval author Rear Admiral J. R. Hill makes the point that as medium powers existing in the shadows of greater powers (such as the United States), the chief distinguishing characteristic of their middle power status is autonomy.⁽⁸⁵⁾ In other words, medium (or middle) powers such as Australia are defined as such by their capacity to create and keep under national control enough means of power to initiate and sustain coercive actions (upon both sea and land) whose outcome will be the preservation of their vital interests. Consequently, their maritime strategy must bring together the elements of such power in such a way as to maintain their ability to use the sea to achieve their national interests. It should be noted that the term ‘means of power’ refers to the full spectrum of national power, though military power is their ultimate guarantor.

The Nature of the Question

A fundamental question in any discussion of maritime strategy is whether the topic is considered as a subset of a broader national military strategy (shown below as a ‘small s’ maritime strategy), or whether the discussion is one of the bias within a national security strategy (a ‘big S’ maritime strategy). In the former case, the question is one strictly of the application of military power across a narrow range of security sectors. In the latter case, the term encompasses a national approach to its security that is either continentalist or maritime-focused and considers responsibilities, not only for military forces, across a wide spectrum of security sectors.

Figure 2: The Nature of the Question

 

The Modern Context for Maritime Strategy

As noted above, the end of the Cold War gave to the US and its allies an almost unprecedented⁽⁸⁶⁾ ability to use the oceans without serious challenge. Consequently, the focus of maritime strategies moved away from overcoming such challenges towards the manner in which this new freedom could be exercised to apply power to areas of interest on the world’s coastlines and inland. These areas are known as the littoral.

The Littoral in Modern Warfare (Projecting power ashore in a complex environment).

The littoral is defined as the areas seaward of the coast which is susceptible to influence or support from the land and the areas inland from the coast which are susceptible to influence from the sea.⁽⁸⁷⁾ At the turn of 21st Century, the littoral accommodates over three quarters of the world’s population, hosts over 80 per cent of the world’s capital cities and nearly all of the marketplaces for international trade. Following the end of the Cold War, the littoral’s aggregation of trade and people make it the most likely arena for important conflicts. Such conflict is likely to challenge not just regional military security, but all other sectors. That is, such conflict will have implications for political, environmental, societal and economic security.

For the United States, the expected ‘chaos in the littorals’⁽⁸⁸⁾ is seen as requiring the ability to project military power ashore against all forms of obstacles, ranging from devastated infrastructure to disaster relief and the full spectrum of armed threats. This may mean non-state actors such as terrorists, hostile regional powers, or a newly emerged rival super-power.

For medium powers, the challenges presented by the littoral are made more complex by the lower level of resources that can be applied to the issue. Australia is a good example as our littoral concerns include enforcement of sanctions in the Persian Gulf, protection of fisheries in the Southern Ocean, criminal activity across the Torres Strait and enforcement of migration legislation across the northern edges of our continent.

National Power

National security is no longer merely military security. Similarly, national power is not merely military power but the sum total of a nation’s efforts to achieve its goals. It is both directed (such as through its government domestic policies, foreign relations, and military capabilities) and emergent (such as its international reputation, image, attractiveness and success in economic, sporting, scientific and artistic domains). Government policy may directly affect some elements of national power but affect others only indirectly. For example, a nation’s foreign and security policies may address the challenges of the unregulated flow of people across borders, whilst a culture of self-reliance and environmental consciousness may address challenges across the economic and environmental sectors of national security. National power is translated into national security when it addresses successfully the challenges facing the country across the various security sectors.

The corollary of the above is that military power (and military strategy) should have a role to play across all security sectors. As noted by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade:

As national power is harnessed through a broad national security policy to achieve the vital national interests, so must all elements of the nation’s maritime power be harnessed through a broad maritime strategy to achieve its vital national interests in the seas and its environs.

Asymmetric Warfare and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

In military and national security terms, ‘asymmetric warfare’ can be defined as:

Naval history abounds with examples of asymmetric strategies, such as:

Our small population, our western culture and predilection for high-technology solutions limit Australia’s strategic options. Asymmetric responses to our strategies may include anti-access strategies,⁽⁹¹⁾ dispersed approaches that stress our numerically inferior forces, and protracted tensions that consume scarce resources in ongoing operations.

A key concept that has pervaded Western military debate over the past decade is that of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). At its heart, the concept articulates a belief that innovations in information sciences and related computing advances have created a discontinuous shift in the level of knowledge and precision that can be applied to the battlespace. Changes created by the RMA extend to military doctrine, organisation and equipment. Whilst evolution in military hardware such as Global Hawk—a robotic reconnaissance aircraft—is the most visible example of these changes, evolution in doctrine and organisation may have the more reaching of impacts.

In the maritime sphere, the impact of the RMA is already apparent in terms of broad area surveillance and similar tasks. Over the next decades the cumulative effect of stresses associated with the RMA are expected to reduce the flexibility of maritime forces by making them easier to find and hit. Other changes only now being presaged relate to the application of the same technologies that make uninhabited air vehicles (UAV) like the Global Hawk possible in maritime applications. This could result in a significant reduction in the number of people engaged in maritime activities in both peace and war and  bring significant benefits to an environment that is both stressful and intensely dangerous.

Maritime Strategy after 9/11

The terrorist attacks upon the United States on 11 September 2001 have been claimed by various commentators as a trigger for a reassessment of Australia’s security strategies.⁽⁹²⁾ The argument for this is that it highlighted the capacity of non-state actors to inflict damages on a nation-state which previously could only be inflicted by another nation-state. So, if a non-state actor can inflict such damage, then they need to be considered alongside nation-states in considerations of national security and strategy.

It must be said that terrorists have long held the potential for catastrophic strikes, but until the end of the Cold War such actions were likely to have been perceived through the ideological prism of East-West conflict. In the past decade, the global security agenda has been extraordinarily fluid, and thus open to influence by non-state actors using terrorism as a political tool. Many writers warned of the dangers that non-state actors posed, but they were largely dismissed in favour of the more traditional preoccupations with regional states and their capacity for traditional warfare.⁽⁹³⁾ In other words, nothing changed for national security and maritime strategy in 2001. The changes arose in 1991 with the end of the Cold War, but we failed to give them due regard.

‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.’ (The more things change, the more they stay the same).

Whilst significant, the changes in the strategic environment that were brought sharply into focus by the events of 11 September 2001 did not invalidate the continuing requirements for a comprehensive maritime strategy that addresses both the new security concerns and the old defence concerns. The sections below outline the two conceptual approaches to a maritime strategy in terms of concepts, roles and responsibilities.

A ‘small s’ maritime strategy

In this version, maritime strategy is a subset of a broader military strategy aimed at meeting the requirements of a government’s security policy.  The current Australian policy was outlined as a listing of strategic interests in the Defence 2000 White Paper. In order of priority, these enduring strategic interests are:

These strategic interests are to be achieved through an Australian Military Strategy. The aim of this strategy is to shape the strategic environment, conduct military support operations, and provide combat ready forces to accomplish five major strategic tasks. These tasks are:

It is worth making two points about the above. First, the maritime component of DAA is one of the denial of the sea-air gap to our north to any potential aggressor wishing to launch attacks upon our soil. This is a very limited aim and will be discussed further below when addressing the difference between sea control and sea denial.

Second, the order of these strategic tasks also reflects their importance as a basis for acquiring new equipment, or force-structure development. Until recently, only DAA was a valid force-structure determinant. Since the attacks on 11 September 2001 this has been relaxed somewhat but it is still the case that most acquisitions are justified by their contribution to the DAA task. The danger with this approach is that, because military capabilities in the region are low, there is little pressure to develop capabilities that can operate successfully in high-threat environments. This constrains government options in terms of what capabilities it can contribute to coalitions operating in high-threat environments such as the Persian Gulf.

A ‘small s’ maritime strategy contributes to the achievement of the strategic tasks outlined above through military diplomacy, through constabulary tasks in the enforcement of national sovereignty, and through combat operations. These three roles are addressed in more detail below.

Diplomatic

A Man-o-War makes the best ambassador

Oliver Cromwell

Maritime forces are visible, mobile, and potent symbols of the nation-state and as such are useful instruments of foreign policy.⁽⁹⁶⁾ This role can be as part of the shaping of the strategic environment through their sheer presence and port visits, or as more direct enforcers of national power in the defence of regional or global interests.

Deterrence

In its simplest form, deterrence means discouraging the enemy from taking military action by posing for him a prospect of cost and risk outweighing his prospective gain.⁽⁹⁷⁾ Deterrence is an exercise of national power which, like coercion or seduction, uses elements of national power, more likely the military, to prevent an adversary from undertaking a course of action that the nation regards as undesirable, by threatening to inflict unacceptable costs upon the adversary in the event that the action is taken.⁽⁹⁸⁾ Deterrence strategies may be divided into two sets. The first relies on denial; conventional land, sea and air forces deter by their effect on the aggressor’s estimate of the probability of gaining his or her objective. The second relies on the potential for punishment and the associated costs to the aggressor.⁽⁹⁹⁾

The effectiveness of deterrence can rely either on denial capabilities, typically conventional land, naval and air forces, which deter by their effect on the aggressors estimate of the probability of gaining his objective; or on ‘punishment’ capabilities which deter by acting on the aggressor’s estimate of possible costs.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ During the Cold War, the effect of both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons relied on this latter aspect of deterrence. In an Australian context, the speed, range and payload of the F-111 strike aircraft fulfilled this same role within the region.

The deterrent aspect of maritime strategy is based on three related ideas. These are reach, presence and power. In other words, the ability to carry out and sustain operations in the area of interest which may be a significant distance away from Australia to reassure allies or deter adversaries; the recognised capacity to inflict damage on an opponent; and finally the ability to graduate the response as circumstances evolve. In other words, maritime strategy sets the parameters within which maritime forces can deter an adversary by demonstrating sufficient power to deny him his objective, or by sustaining operations from where punishment can be inflicted upon him. Of course, this capacity is dependent on the specific capabilities of the maritime forces available.

Deterrence is central to maritime strategy because of the capacity of maritime forces to influence events on land, both upon one’s homeland, but also on the homeland of a potential aggressor. Furthermore, the level of deterrence, particularly through punishment, can be adjusted with exquisite precision. The noted American author Norman Friedman suggests that maritime forces can project force to influence events on land in four main ways:

An appropriate balance of capability and strategy enables the use of maritime forces in the deterrent role either to dissuade a potential aggressor (such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) or to modify their behaviour through the graduated and flexible application of force to their homelands. However, such maritime strategy can only succeed if the maritime forces giving it effect enjoy appropriate reach, power and presence.

Unfortunately, there is no way of determining in advance if inaction on the part of the adversary is due to successful efforts at deterrence (with all its attendant costs in terms of equipment and manpower) or is due to an absence of hostile intent on the part of a putative adversary. This uncertainty helps to explain why critics argue that deterrence institutionalises worst-case thinking about the adversary’s intentions and ignores all other constraints upon their decision making, which may be so compelling that they render deterrence superfluous.⁽¹⁰¹⁾

Coercion

Coercion can be defined as the open application of power where one party secures another’s compliance by a threat of sanctions.⁽¹⁰²⁾  Maybe the clearest example of the role of coercion as part of a maritime strategy involved the American naval squadron under the command of Commodore Perry, who on July 8, 1853, anchored his four ships, including the powerful steam frigates MISSISSIPPI and SUSQUEHANNA, in lower Tokyo (then Edo) Bay. The Japanese ordered him to go to Nagasaki, the only port open to foreigners, but Perry firmly declined. He presented his papers to the Japanese emperor, requesting protection for shipwrecked American seamen, the right to buy coal, and the opening of one or more ports to trade. The expedition then retired to the China coast. He returned in February 1854 with a larger fleet at which time a treaty was concluded that acceded to American requests, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to US trade.⁽¹⁰³⁾ Commodore Perry’s actions carried the unmistakably coercive message that the United States was a technologically-advanced country, willing to use military force to achieve its foreign policy objectives. The Japanese Government correctly understood this and acceded to Commodore Perry’s requests.

It should be noted that to be effective as a strategic tool, coercion has to be believable. This requires not just actual or perceived military capability, but also the belief that the government will use its power if compliance with its wishes is not forthcoming. Therefore, coercion is not only a military strategic issue, but a national strategic issue.

Seduction

Seduction can be seen as the flip-side of coercion. In this case one party secures the compliance of another because of the expected benefits that the second party expects to receive. This can be preferential access to technology, security guarantees or other strategic benefits. Examples of such power relationships may include alliances between partners of different strategic standing, such as ANZUS or the US-Japan alliance.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ In this latter case, the security guarantees contained in the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security ensure Japan’s compliance with the US desire to curb nuclear proliferation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Constabulary

The extension of sovereign rights associated with the Law of the Sea Convention have greatly complicated the responsibilities of governments.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ In Australia’s case, the declaration of a 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1994 brought with it the responsibility to watch over and manage an area of 8 148 250 square kilometres. This area is larger than the sum total of the land area of Australia. Keeping in mind the number of vessels patrolling that huge area, it is equivalent to only fifty police cars in the whole of Australia.

Sovereignty

In its simplest definition, sovereignty means self-government. It is a claim by the state to supreme authority both within its territory and over its citizens.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ However, the concept itself is not uncontested due to the leaching away of classical sovereignty from the nation state upwards into supra-national bodies, and downwards into regional or provincial jurisdictions. Similarly, questions remain as to whether sovereignty is an inherent right or a concept that exists only when exercised. Under this latter reading it behoves a nation-state to maintain forces capable of exercising its sovereignty to the full extent of its claimed borders.

Under the Law of the Sea Convention, Australia has claimed a territorial sea over which it claims full sovereignty out to 12 nautical miles from its coasts.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ Beyond that, Australia claims a Contiguous Zone out to 24 nautical miles over which it enforces customs, fiscal, immigration and sanitary laws.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ One of the requirements of a maritime strategy with respect to sovereignty is the ability to exercise such sovereignty throughout the nation’s territorial sea and contiguous zone.

Natural Resources

The Law of the Sea Convention also gave effect to a system of EEZ under which nation states have sovereign rights over natural resources out to 200 nautical miles from its coasts (but not sovereignty). Australia claimed such rights in 1994 under the Maritime Legislation Amendment Act 1994. The convention also allows states to claim sovereign rights over seabed resources where the continental shelf extends beyond 200 nautical miles.

The actual definition of this extended continental shelf is a geological problem, and information to support it must be submitted to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf by 16 November 2004.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ In Australia’s case there are a number of areas that extend significant distances beyond the limits of the EEZ and this will extend further the requirements of our maritime patrol capabilities to enforce Australian jurisdiction over the resources found in such areas.

Good Order at Sea

As stated above, Australian sovereignty extends out to 12 nautical miles from the coastline whilst laws governing customs, immigration, fiscal and sanitary matters extend out to 24 nautical miles. However, Australian jurisdiction also extends to vessels of Australian nationality or registry (known as Flag State jurisdiction) wherever they may be. Furthermore, some offences such as piracy are subject to universal jurisdiction when they occur on the high seas.

If we accept that sovereignty only exists when enforced, then also sovereign rights exist only when enforced. The legal regime delineated by the Law of the Sea Convention therefore creates certain expectations that states which take advantage of the provisions contained in the convention will also ensure that its provisions are adhered to.

Warfighting

Despite the central place that warfighting has had in the development of maritime affairs, there was until the nineteenth century a dearth of writing on the subject. This was of course due to several factors, not the least that such things were not necessary as they were all perfectly obvious. During the battle of Camperdown in 1797, one of Admiral Duncan’s commanders was so bewildered by the stream of signals made to him by his admiral that he swore soundly, threw the signals book to the deck in disgust and simply ordered his quartermaster to steer into the middle of the enemy’s fleet. This was exactly what was needed, and required no strategic or doctrinal guidance. It just required a professional officer with a good measure of commonsense to see what needed to be done.⁽¹¹⁰⁾

This belief in the ‘school of experience‘ as the best source on maritime strategic affairs changed in 1890 with the publication of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s book The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783. The book became immensely popular and remains in print to this day. Both Mahan and later writers such as Sir Julian Corbett⁽¹¹¹⁾ wrote in time when various nations could and did contest for supremacy on the world’s oceans. Consequently, both writers emphasised on the requirement to wrest either command or control of the sea from adversaries. Where these two writers differed was that Mahan advocated naval supremacy as an enabling end in itself, whereas Corbett saw maritime strategy as merely one component of an overall national strategy aimed at the pursuit of national political goals. Despite the differing viewpoints, their ideas are not mutually exclusive, and are detailed further below.

Command of the Sea

This has been defined as the possession of such a degree of superiority that one’s own operations are unchallenged by an adversary, while the latter is incapable of using the sea to any degree.⁽¹¹²⁾ This is an unqualified concept, achievable only through the destruction or neutralisation of the adversary’s fleet. The end of the Cold War brought the US to this position without having to face what Mahan called the ‘decisive battle’.  This unchallenged supremacy on the world’s oceans has allowed the US and its allies to concentrate their focus on the projection of power ashore.

Sea Control

Julian Corbett understood that it was not command of the oceans that mattered, but the ability to use them. Consequently, he distilled the idea of command of the sea to a much more limited concept of sea control, which entails the ability to use an area of ocean for one’s purposes. This control is often limited in both time and space. This task is sometimes achievable by the maritime forces of a medium power. The duration and extent of such sea control is a function of the resources available to enforce it, and the requirements of the task to be performed.

It should be noted that sea control is an active role, requiring the elements of presence, reach and power which characterise maritime forces. Furthermore, sea control is not merely an idea exercised in wartime. Recent examples of sea control include the RAN’s operations in the Persian Gulf, and Operation RELEX. In this latter example, maritime patrol aircraft, surface combatants and minor war vessels combined to exercise sea control over an area of ocean to the north of Australia to deal with the unregulated movement of people towards Australia.

Sea Denial

This can be defined simply as the ability to prevent an adversary from making use of a particular area of the world’s oceans. It can take many forms ranging from blockade to the submarine and air operations by the Argentine military in the 1982 Falklands War.

In Australia’s case, recent Defence White Papers have pursued a strategy of denial of the sea-air gap to our north as the primary focus of our defence effort. Such denial strategies can be pursued through the combination of effective surveillance and strike capabilities, that is, to find and destroy any putative adversary before it reaches our shores. As can be seen in Operation RELEX, ongoing sea control operations are demanding of both people and platforms.⁽¹¹³⁾ Sea denial in the littoral environment can be pursued over wide areas on an ongoing basis with much lower resource implications.

Sea Lines of Communications (SLOC)

It was Julian Corbett who pointed out that maritime conflict was about control of communications.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ The protection of the ‘Sea Lines of Communications’ (SLOC) is, in fact, a misnomer as there are no physical highways or lines to protect; what matters are the ships that use various routes. In the protection of our national interests, the protection of SLOC takes on a particular importance for two main reasons. First, the majority of our sea-borne traffic passes through numerous straits and other chokepoints as it moves to and from our trading partners in Asia. Second, shipping in the Indian and Pacific Oceans can be identified from some distance away as being bound only for Australia or New Zealand. The protection of such SLOC is not only a wartime role. Piracy and the danger of terrorist action since 11 September 2001 have increased the security requirements for vessels whose cargo is seen as environmentally sensitive, attractive or strategically-significant. Maritime strategy needs to consider the role of maritime forces in the protection of SLOC in other than wartime tasking.

Power Projection Ashore

With the end of the Cold War, it has become the orthodoxy that the purpose of maritime power is to directly influence events on land. After all, that is where people live. The reach, poise and flexibility of maritime forces enable such forces to strike at the land from unexpected and/or advantageous directions, making them, in the words of one of Great Britain’s most famous strategists Liddell Hart ‘the greatest strategic asset that a maritime nation can possess’.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ However, in the 1970s serious doubts emerged about the effectiveness of contested amphibious operations in high threat scenarios. Such doubts were heightened by the casualty rates during the 1975 MAYAGUEZ imbroglio in which the US attempted to rescue that ship’s crew by means of a helicopter-borne amphibious assault.⁽¹¹⁶⁾

No significant amphibious operations have taken place since then,⁽¹¹⁷⁾ but significant doctrinal advances have taken place, such as the US Marine Corps ‘Operational Manoeuvre from the Sea’ concept which focuses on the ability to move directly from the ship to the objective on land by taking advantage of high-speed capabilities such as the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV) and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. Such capabilities allow the US to maintain the capacity to perform forcible entry operations in high threat environments. Australia is not capable of performing such operations, and its much more modest doctrinal approach is encapsulated in the Manoeuvre Operations in the Littoral Environment (MOLE) Concept document.⁽¹¹⁸⁾ Nevertheless, the capacity to influence events on land in areas such as the South Pacific, as well as maintaining the capability to, for example, evacuate Australian civilians from a conflict situation, are important parts of Australia’s maritime strategy.

The ‘Big S’ Maritime Strategy

This reading eschews the narrow definition of security as strictly military security and thus opens the door to an integrated security strategy able to bring together relevant elements of national power across all aspects (or sectors) of security.

Several naval strategic concepts, such as power projection and sea control are similar under both readings and will not be discussed further.

Broad Security

A shift occurred in Western strategic thinking at the end of the Cold War in 1991. From the advent of total war, and during the decades when strategic nuclear war was a probability, all aspects of security were subjugated to the idea of military security. With the threat of strategic nuclear war extinguished,⁽¹¹⁹⁾ national security was properly recognised as being broader than just military security. It also encompasses economic, environmental, societal and political security.⁽¹²⁰⁾ Whether it is unregulated movement of peoples, transnational crime or unlawful exploitation of resources, threats to Australia’s national interests are multi-dimensional. A comprehensive maritime strategy must consider the implication for national security of the full gamut of security sectors.

Environmental Security

This security sector concerns the maintenance of the local and planetary biosphere as the essential support system on which all other human enterprises depend. The environmental security aspect of a maritime strategy has relevance not only for security policy but also for oceans policy and related topics.

Ecological security threats can damage the physical base of the nation state and its institutions.⁽¹²¹⁾ Whilst some threats are global and thus beyond the scope of any sole nation’s strategy, others are caused, for example, by transborder pollution. In Australia’s case such pollution may arise from commercial enterprises such as poorly controlled mining activity in PNG⁽¹²²⁾ or clearance-burning for agriculture in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Economic Security

Economic security concerns access to the resources, finance, and markets necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power. In the main, economic threats are part of the normal discourse of nations and do not often stray into the realm of national security. Such leakage can occur however through the relationship between economic capability on the one hand, and military capability, power and socio-political stability on the other.⁽¹²³⁾

The links between maritime strategy and economic security are based on the importance of seaborne trade and of the exploitation of the ocean spaces (and of the seabed). Basic policy work in understanding the overlapping nature of many maritime control regimes would be a useful tool in enhancing this aspect of maritime security.⁽¹²⁴⁾

A more immediate threat to economic security arises from the growth of transnational crime, including people and drug smuggling. Such threats have the dual effect of draining economically significant amounts from the national economy, but also create expensive social and health related concerns in the target population.

In Australia’s case, the absence of land borders with any other country makes such security threats a valid focus for a national maritime strategy.⁽¹²⁵⁾ Such threats bring together law enforcement and military capabilities in ways which are uncomfortable for the culture of both areas and which create difficulties in terms of surveillance and intelligence cooperation and coordination.

Political Security

Political threats to security are aimed at the organisational stability of the state. Their purpose may range from pressuring the government on a particular policy, through to overthrowing the government or inciting secessionism.⁽¹²⁶⁾ Terrorism is one aspect of political security that has taken on a new importance after the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. The possibility of terrorists using ocean spaces to pursue their political or ideological agenda (for example, through acts of ecological destruction) could have significant impacts on national security as a whole.

In Australia’s case, examples of such acts could include the deliberate introduction of diseases into the country or the break-up of an oil tanker upon sensitive areas of the Great Barrier Reef. Either of these two events would have significant impacts on our national interests.

Figure 3: Extent of the Australian Ship Reporting Area, and Search and Rescue responsibilities

(Source: Australian Maritime Safety Authority)

Societal Security

Threats to national security at the social level amount to attacks on the national identity. At the higher end of the threat spectrum, they are often part of a broader package of military and political threats, such as that faced by the Israelis from the Arabs.⁽¹²⁷⁾ In Australia’s immediate region, a lower level of threat exists, largely associated with nation-states suppressing, or at least homogenising, sub-state social identities. Examples include the Javanese and others transmigration into less heavily populated areas of Indonesia, tensions between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians, and the conflict between Malaitans and the Guadalcanese in the Solomon Islands.⁽¹²⁸⁾ While such threats are overwhelmingly internal to the respective nation states, they do raise security concerns for Australia in its engagement with the region.

Military Security

The use of military force can wreak major undesired changes very swiftly and can even threaten the very existence of the nation-state itself. Consequently military security concerns are granted the highest priority in the national security considerations by the government of any nation state. The strategic response to military threats has long been the skeleton of any maritime strategy. However, as the spectre of global annihilation through strategic nuclear war receded with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it opened the door to a more comprehensive treatment of all sectors of security and their treatment through integrated strategies, such as a national maritime strategy.

Expeditionary Strategies: The United States and United Kingdom

As stated above, the end of strategic competition upon the high seas has brought about a new focus on the role of maritime forces in projecting power into the littoral areas of the world. Both the US and the UK have outlined their approaches in this matter. Their primary guiding documents are summarised below as examples for consideration.

The US Navy Doctrine ‘Forward … From the Sea’

This 1994 Doctrine is the second maritime strategic concept arising from the US in the aftermath of the Cold War. Like its 1992 predecessor ‘From the Sea’, this document articulates the idea that the primary purpose of forward-deployed naval forces is to proje