Maritime Studies
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Lee Cordner[1]
This paper presents the findings from a review of Australia’s national security by Fellows of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS). The review aimed to inform the 2008 Defence White Paper[2]
and concurrent Australian security policy development processes, including the Homeland and Border Security Review.[3]
The outcomes are intended for consideration by members of the National Security Committee of Cabinet and their senior advisers, and to inform the broader Australian public.
In the changing global and regional security environment, Australia needs to carefully assess the strategic position it seeks to establish and build into the future. Australia is a significant maritime nation. Australia’s national interests have far-reaching maritime congruence; national security and maritime security are extensively concordant. Despite the nature of Australia’s enduring and evolving geo-strategic, economic and international political context, the importance of the oceans and maritime security is not necessarily in the consciousness of the Australian public or fully comprehended in Australian policy circles. This is due to a strategic culture in which the land, not the sea, has been the dominant feature, combined with the lack of a national maritime tradition.[4]
The central themes and key findings of the review are outlined below.
➢ A long-term and systemic view of Australia’s national security challenges and requirements is necessary. Making significant defence and other national security capability adjustments takes considerable time and resources. Balancing the focus between immediate political and operational security imperatives with the need to maintain a long-term strategic view is essential and challenging.
➢ Strategic risk management processes should be followed to identify national security risk treatment options to define capability requirements for defending Australia and its interests in a strategic climate of change and uncertainty. The national security strategy for Australia must provide for the defence of core national interests and seek to shape a favourable strategic environment for the future.
➢ Creating a strategic decision making culture at the highest levels of government and the national security bureaucracy that can deal with current security issues and take the long view is crucial. National leaders must be able to operate effectively and decisively in a dynamic, evolving context of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge.
➢ A central and enduring feature of the Asia Pacific region is its vast maritime geography. Regional interests converge in the maritime domain, which brings rights and responsibilities, challenges and opportunities, and potential security concerns that must be managed.
➢ Shared maritime interests present obvious areas of convergence around which the concept of a regional community of nations could be further developed.
➢ Global and regional economies are heavily reliant upon maritime trade. Maritime trade is profoundly integral to economic development and national survival in the Asia Pacific region, and its importance is growing. The world merchant fleet is expanding and modernising largely to meet rapidly growing demand created by emerging Asia Pacific nations.
➢ Freedom of navigation and maritime domain security are of paramount importance. Access to straits used for international navigation and archipelagic sea lanes that provide passage through the South-east Asian archipelago is central to regional economic security. For Australia, contributing to ensuring the flow of maritime trade and ensuring maritime security presents the convergence of the enduring realities of strategic geography and national economic well being.
➢ Australia’s vast and diverse maritime geography offers a strategic depth advantage available to few nations on earth and this must be fully exploited. Australia’s national security strategy and policies must have a predominantly maritime focus. They should provide for the defence of sovereign territory and jurisdictional rights, a capacity to protect wider national interests, and an ability to contribute to shaping the regional strategic environment.
➢ The Australian Defence Force (ADF) must be capable of effectively operating throughout the national and regional maritime domain. The ADF must be designed to operate over vast distances and remain on station for extended periods. Forces must be highly combat capable, versatile, flexible, robust, sustainable and interoperable with regional and extra regional forces. Readiness for current operations must be balanced with preparing for future security challenges. Understanding the maritime environment is essential to support military operations in Australia’s region, and there are current shortcomings.
➢ Determining levels of defence expenditure is a key consideration for government. Difficult judgments are required on the adequacy of security risk mitigation in a dynamic strategic context that includes significant growth and modernisation of regional naval capabilities. Near simultaneous obsolescence of several major defence capabilities in future years intensifies resource allocation pressures.
➢ Technology and people are major cost drivers and key considerations in the Australian context. Effective use of scarce national human resources is the paramount issue given the scale and scope of the strategic challenge.
➢ Governments are presented with the choice of increasing the proportion of national resources allocated to defence or accepting higher levels of national security risk. Both options present short-term political risks. However, adopting the latter option would present the greatest risk for the nation and its future. Government failure to address major national security risks would be at odds with the fundamental obligation to provide for security with which it is entrusted by the Australian people.
The global and Asia Pacific regional security environment is dynamic, complex and evolving. The globalised world operates increasingly as an integrated system, comprising many players at multiple levels within which nations strive to protect their interests. The oceans are a central common area of interest within this system, covering 70 per cent of the earth’s surface. Maritime trade provides the essential commercial sinews of the global economic system,[5]
exploitation of ocean resource is expanding, and the seas hold the key to the world’s environmental health.
The maritime agendas are also central to Australia’s national interests due to strategic geography and place as a developed trading nation.[6] Effective management of the oceans presents opportunities and challenges for Australia’s future well being. The oceans also offer solutions for the security of the region and trading partners. For Australia, whole of nation and whole of government commitment in collaboration with regional partners and global allies is required to protect common interests in the maritime domains. All the elements of Australia’s national power[7]
need to be effectively harnessed.
Key questions to be addressed include: Which aspects of Australia’s security circumstances are enduring and which are evolving; and where is this transformation heading? How can strategic risks be mitigated? How can Australia influence and shape a favourable strategic environment? What are Australia’s strategic choices, options and opportunities? Which security obligations are critical to national survival or mandatory to continued national success as a developed nation, and how can they be met? Which security choices are discretionary? How can the temporal challenges of Australia’s national security demands be balanced; specifically the need to manage current operational imperatives in a turbulent world versus longer term requirements to protect national interests and promote national well-being? The architects of the 2008 Defence White Paper and other strategic policy documents and statements must endeavour to answer these critical questions.
Sophisticated approaches are needed for defending Australia’s national interests in order to address multi-faceted security issues. Current strategic realities and future possibilities must be considered and predicted. A comprehensive national security strategy needs to extend beyond defending the continent against the unlikely prospect of direct attack or invasion. Australia needs to be capable of asserting national control in the immediate strategic environment to support national interests and objectives. Contributing to shaping a favourable wider regional strategic environment is also important.
This paper explores Australia’s security needs with an emphasis upon the maritime dimensions and managing risks, which provide the keys to defining requirements for the defence of Australia’s vital national interests. Summary deductions aimed at informing the 2008 Australian Defence White Paper and other national security policy development processes are included for each section.
The most important role and greatest challenge of government is to provide for the security of the nation. This requires comprehension of the risks to national security and effectively dealing with them. Difficult compromises in the application of resources will be involved. Importantly, there must be a capacity to hedge against miscalculation and surprises.[8] The implications of strategic continuities and potential discontinuities must be recognised, understood and addressed where possible. The track record of nation-states and the world in effectively achieving this has not been encouraging.
The capacity of a middle power to control the course of world or regional events is limited. The Australian approach to national security will be, by necessity, more reactive than proactive, except perhaps in the Southwest Pacific, where Australia is the dominant power. Effort must be applied to shaping the strategic environment, often in collaboration with others. The national security strategy should be built upon the application of risk management processes[9]
on a grand strategic scale as part of a continuous process of review and adjustment. This involves identifying and assessing security risks and vulnerabilities, understanding strategic challenges and opportunities, identifying strategic options and choices and importantly, understanding where options are constrained. Risk treatment approaches need to be devised that will present a cost effective range of options, in a context of change and uncertainty, when failure may bring dire consequences for Australia.
While strategic discontinuities may seem to emerge without warning they are rarely completely unpredictable. Realistic, insightful and perceptive analyses based upon sound and timely knowledge are vital; knowing oneself and understanding the evolving strategic context is fundamental to success. Creating a decision-making culture at the highest levels of government and the national bureaucracy that is receptive to the products of such analyses is a key factor. The ability to act decisively and intelligently upon often incomplete information when the consequences cannot be fully predicted is essential.
Balancing the inevitable and completely understandable focus upon immediate political and operational security imperatives with the need to maintain a long-term strategic view is critical. In the current global geo-strategic context some western powers, including Australia, are vulnerable to becoming overly fixated with the here and now. Nations variously engaged in prosecuting the ‘War on Terror’, an amorphous, irregular conflict with boundless requirements for Special Forces and operations, can be hard-pressed to apply serious attention and resources to preparing for vaguely defined future conflicts, and for fuzzy, psychological-based strategic concepts like ‘deterrence’. Meanwhile, those nations less directly involved are quietly positioning and seeking to influence a changing strategic landscape in their favour.[10] This circumstance presents risks that must be recognised and managed.
Assembling and maintaining the range of national security capabilities necessary to provide an acceptable level of national security risk mitigation options requires persistence, imagination and experience. A total security system approach is necessary that takes account of the interacting dynamics of software, hardware, human contributions and external factors. The flexibility to hedge against uncertainty and knowledge gaps along with the versatility to re-role capabilities is required.
Within this context, effecting major changes to Defence force structure, both equipment and personnel, takes many years and significant investment. Typically, a 10-20 year time horizon is needed. As recent events have shown, the ADF needs to be combat capable, highly professional and ready to deal with a broad range of contingencies at short notice.
Strategic risk management processes need to be followed in order to identify national security risk treatment options that will define the capability requirements for defending Australia and its interests in a strategic climate of change and uncertainty. The national security strategy must provide for the defence of core national interests and seek to shape a favourable strategic environment.
Balancing the focus upon immediate political and operational security imperatives with the need to maintain a long-term strategic view is essential and challenging. A long-term and systemic view of Australia’s national security challenges and requirements is necessary, recognising that making significant defence capability adjustments takes considerable time and resources. Creating a strategic decision making culture that can deal with a dynamic, evolving context of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge is vital.
The ADF needs to be combat capable, versatile, flexible and ready.
Although technological advances have vastly increased global connectivity, geography continues to be a defining and enduring reality in international affairs, and remains particularly relevant to security. The world community shares common vital interests in protecting maritime commerce and maintaining access to and viability of the oceans’ resources and environmental systems. The United Nations administered law of the sea[11] is the central international governance regime in the maritime domain. It enables nation-states to claim jurisdiction over territorial seas, significant exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and extended continental shelves thus extending national jurisdictions well beyond national shores. Vast areas of the world’s oceans remain high seas and represent the last vestiges of the global commons. The law of the sea and related regimes define the rights of nation-states and common and shared responsibilities to ensure freedom of access, use and care of the world’s oceans. These relatively new rights and responsibilities raise substantial strategic and trans-boundary maritime issues that need to be understood and acted upon.
Commonly held maritime interests are of vital importance in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans region. There are substantial and complex trans-boundary maritime interests that link Australia to the African and Antarctic Continents, South Asia, North and East Asia, archipelagic Southeast Asia, the island-states of the South Pacific and beyond to the Americas. Vast ocean distances, accessibility by sea to many regional countries and the challenges of a largely maritime environment have profound implications for regional and national security. The expansion and modernisation of maritime capable forces in China, India and Japan along with a number of medium and smaller states is strong evidence that the importance of maritime domain security is understood by many regional powers.
Many regional powers share maritime borders and many boundary delimitations in East and Southeast Asian waters are yet to be agreed upon.[12] While this presents sources of potential state on state friction, the implications of which can raise significant security concerns, the extent of common interests are compelling and generally the mutual benefits of cooperation are being pursued. For example, the many overlapping claimants to the South China Sea are largely seeking accommodation rather than confrontation; China and Japan are exploring cooperative approaches to exploiting potentially hydrocarbon rich areas in overlapping claims in the East China Sea. There are also many instances of cooperative arrangements in place or under consideration for managing the exploitation of regional fish stocks. The region’s dominant maritime geography presents the most obvious area of shared interests that could form the basis around which a regional community of nations approach could be built.
Within this regional context, Australia has a vast maritime geographic responsibility. Australia’s coastline length is almost 60,000 km[13]
and there are significant, diverse and distant offshore island territories.[14] Australia claims jurisdiction over the third largest EEZ in the world[15] which is greater in area than the continental landmass.[16]
The EEZ figure excludes waters off the Australian Antarctic Territories (AAT). Were these to be included, the area would be around twice the continental landmass and by far the largest EEZ in the world. Additionally, in April 2008 the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf confirmed Australia’s jurisdiction over 2.55 million km2 of extended continental shelf seabed beyond 200 nautical miles from the coast; an area equivalent to around one third of the Australian continental land mass.[17]
Further, Australia has responsibility for one of the largest Search and Rescue Regions in the world, which exceeds one-tenth of the earth’s surface.[18]
Military operations at sea require access to high quality hydrography, oceanography, meteorology and marine sciences analyses. Environmental knowledge will often provide the operational edge necessary to prevail, particularly in submarine operations, naval surface and air operations, and amphibious operations directed ashore. Australia is poorly served in this area. Only one oceanographic vessel is currently operating[19]
and its marine science capability is small in relation to the extent and importance of the marine domain. Australia must improve maritime environmental support capabilities to meet defence and civil maritime requirements.
Geography dictates that Australia’s defence will predominantly rely on a capacity to effectively control and use the maritime domain. Australia’s maritime geography affords strategic depth available to few other nations on earth. This must be fully exploited to elicit the strategic advantage it presents. Security forces must have the capability to operate over vast maritime distances and remain on station for extended periods. Such forces must be capable of operating in a great variety of climatic and oceanic conditions. These range from the Southern Ocean that experiences the most severe weather and seas on the planet, through the temperate zones to tropical and equatorial regions, and the vast Pacific and Indian Oceans.
There must also be capacities to cooperate with intra and extra regional forces, for example, United States (US) forces, for the mutually beneficial protection of the region’s maritime domains and interests. Robustness, endurance, extended range of operations and sustainability must be key features of security capabilities, including the ADF, designed to defend Australia’s interests in a vast and complex maritime environment.
A central and enduring feature of the Asia Pacific region to which Australia belongs is its vast maritime geography. Regional interests significantly converge in the maritime domain, which brings rights and responsibilities, challenges and opportunities, and potential security concerns that must be managed. Shared maritime interests present an obvious area of convergence around which a regional community of nations can be further developed.
Australia’s maritime geography is vast and diverse. Geography offers the advantage of strategic depth that must be fully exploited. It is essential to military operations that there is a high quality understanding of the maritime environment. This requires comprehensive hydrographical, oceanographic, meteorological and marine science capabilities; and these are currently deficient.
Australia’s security capabilities, including the ADF, must be designed to operate across the national and regional maritime domains. The ADF must be able to cover vast distances and remain on station for extended periods. Forces must be robust, sustainable and interoperable with regional and extra regional maritime forces.
Global sea-borne trade has quadrupled since the 1960s, currently comprises more than 90 per cent of all global trade and the proportion is increasing.[20]
The booming economies in East and South Asia represent a major part of this increase. They are heavily reliant upon imported bulk raw materials including energy (oil, gas and coal) and export of finished goods. The volume of world merchandising trade in 2006 increased by eight per cent (double the growth of the world economy) with world seaborne trade (goods loaded) reaching 7.4 billion tons.[21]
The world merchant fleet expanded by 8.6 per cent during 2006. There are now more than 40,000 ships moving around the global maritime trade network with more than half operating in the Asia Pacific region. Greece, Japan, Germany and China along with several other nations are pursuing significant expansions and renewals of their merchant fleets. Orders for new ships are increasing at a remarkable rate with large increases in future tonnage forecast.[22]
Australia’s economy is also profoundly dependent upon seaborne trade comprising 99.9 per cent of trade by volume and more than 75 per cent by value.[23]
Australian exports by volume comprise more than 10 per cent of the world total. However, the Australian owned merchant fleet represents only 0.29 per cent of the world total dead weight tonnage.[24] In 2006, dry bulk cargoes comprised more than 60 per cent of global shipments with Australia providing 13.3 per cent of the total goods loaded.[25] Australia’s exports of bulk goods are forecast to double over the next 10-15 years.[26] Australia’s economy relies heavily upon merchant shipping almost entirely owned and operated by overseas interests. When combined with the regional economic reliance upon maritime trade, the need is underlined for Australia to be proactively involved in contributing to regional as well as national maritime security by ensuring the uninterrupted transit of shipping.
The dominance of the sea for delivering trade ‘just in time’ is predicted to endure globally and is an essential economic factor in the Asia Pacific region. Global systemic connectivity and inter-reliance has changed the emphasis on protecting maritime trade from an individual national issue to protecting the maritime trade network as a whole.[27] The global maritime trading system is closely intertwined and relatively minor and local crises between states may have significant implications for states not directly involved.[28]
The maritime trading system has withstood minor disruption in recent times. However, the longer-term closure of straits used for international navigation and choke points, for example, the Suez Canal or the archipelagic sea lanes and routes normally used for international navigation through the Indonesian Archipelago[29]
would significantly add to cargo transit times and raises serious questions about the capacity for an already stretched trading system to cope without imposing severe economic consequences. This is of particular relevance to Australia as a trading nation almost totally reliant upon the sea for the conduct trade with trading partners who are similarly reliant upon the sea.
Energy security is an issue of great importance globally and regionally, and requires special mention in this analysis. Energy security is heavily reliant upon maritime trade, and increasingly on access to offshore oil and gas. World energy consumption is forecast to increase by more than two thirds over the three decades to 2030, with oil remaining the dominant energy source. Asia, particularly China and India, accounts for almost half of the projected increase in world oil demand.[30]
World natural gas consumption is projected to grow at 2.0 per cent per annum, almost doubling by 2030, accounting for approximately one quarter of world energy consumption and will approach coal as the world’s second most important energy source.[31]
The offshore oil and gas industry has also become increasingly important. The exploitation of oil and gas offshore has increased in priority as onshore resources have become harder to obtain, the onshore security environment has become more challenging, and as technological advances make offshore extraction technically feasible and economically viable. The offshore oil and gas industry, with its vast investment in large fixed and floating platforms and vessels, in locations extending to the edge of continental shelves and beyond, presents a range of unique factors for international and national security regulation and enforcement.
There are reported to be significant reserves of oil and much larger natural gas reserves in the South and East China Seas, although official estimates vary widely. Market analysts predict a 60 per cent increase in Asia offshore oil and gas activity during the period 2008-12 over the previous five years. There are 2,746 development wells and 432 new fixed platform installations contracted and an increased emphasis on floating production.[32]
World liquid natural gas (LNG) shipments grew 11.6 per cent in 2006. Australia is ranked as the fifth largest LNG exporter and predicted to be the world’s third largest exporter by 2010.[33]
Importantly for this analysis, Australia is a net importer of oil products being heavily reliant upon imported refined products with very small domestic reserves, producing primarily light sweet crude.
Energy security is vital to the world economy and of paramount importance in the Asia Pacific region. Maintaining the flow of oil from the Middle East is particularly important to Australia’s major trading partners, the growing north Asian economies and the US. Australia’s national interests are both directly and indirectly affected.
Australia’s commitment to world order and economic stability, the rule of law, support for international efforts to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the US-led ‘War on Terror’, and support for global and regional energy security has been exemplified by the involvement of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in the Middle East for the past 18 years.[34]
Importantly, through the ongoing commitment of naval forces to the Persian Gulf Australia continues to make a significant contribution to protecting the flow of oil from Iraq. Income from oil provides 90 per cent of Iraq’s foreign exchange. The strategic and economic importance of Iraqi oil terminals in the northern Gulf is clear. Oil income is vital to progressing Iraq’s stability and prospects for improvement.[35]
Maritime trade flows are also vital to global and regional food security as they facilitate the transfer of bulk cargoes like grains and livestock, both important exports for Australia. The importance of fisheries is also set to increase markedly in the Asia Pacific region due to population increases and economic growth in China, India and other Asian countries.
Global and regional fish stocks are under significant stress with conservative estimates indicating 87 per cent of marine fish stocks in crisis or fully exploited.[36]
The incidence of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing is predicted to increase markedly as fish stocks in the East and South China Seas are exhausted and fishers are forced to move in to deeper and more distant ocean areas. Australian fisheries protection operations will need to expand and intensify to cover areas managed by regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) in which Australia participates. RFMOs are likely to expand to include more than 50 per cent of Southern Hemisphere ocean areas with Australia, South Africa and New Zealand looked to for leadership in policing and management.
The range and complexity of fisheries security tasks will increase greatly. The implications
of effective fisheries management, including enforcement of conservation and management measures will be vital not only for food security but also for the very survival of some smaller Pacific Island Countries whose economies are heavily reliant upon migratory fish stocks.
Maritime environmental security issues also have food security implications and much broader and potentially dire consequences if not effectively managed. The advent of measures to conserve marine biodiversity such as marine protected areas and other environmentally related initiatives are receiving increased emphasis and add to the maritime security tasks.
Given the importance of maritime trade and energy and food security, it is central to exporting and importing nations that necessary measures are taken to ensure freedom of navigation. The unimpeded flow of shipping and therefore trade is vital. Security of the maritime domain is underlined by the increasing emphasis on offshore oil and gas, fishing and marine environmental management. The thriving economies in the Asia Pacific region are heavily dependent upon maritime trade and the maritime domains. This dependence will increase markedly into the future.
While the security focus is currently on the Middle East as the starting place for much of the world’s oil highway, Australia and its international partners must continue to demonstrate capability and commitment to ensure the flow of shipping along the entire global and regional sea lanes, including through critical maritime choke points. For example, access to the archipelagic sea lanes and routes normally used for international navigation through the Indonesian archipelago is important to Australia and its trading partners. Attempts to close these routes or impede navigation would become a significant security problem to be dealt with collectively or by individual nations, whether the closure is generated by state on state or wider regional conflict, maritime terrorism or piracy, or a regional state seeking to exercise arguable jurisdictional interpretations.
For Australia, reliance upon maritime trade and the responsibility for a vast maritime domain present the convergence of the enduring realities of strategic geography and economic and environmental well being. Australia’s capable warships are employed contributing to the classic maritime mission of ensuring the flow of vital international trade. This requirement, like the requirement to trade, will endure and increase. Similarly, the requirement to assert effective control over Australia’s vast maritime domain and to assist regional neighbours with controlling their domains will expand.
Global and regional economies are heavily reliant upon maritime trade, the importance of which is rapidly increasing in the Asia Pacific region. The world’s merchant fleet is growing and modernising while Australia’s merchant fleet remains comparatively negligible. Australia’s economy is profoundly dependent upon maritime trade. It represents more than 10 per cent of the world total volume and is carried almost entirely in foreign flagged and owned vessels. This fact underscores the need for Australia to be proactively involved in contributing to maritime security by ensuring that shipping can move freely along the sea lanes.
Global and regional energy security is vital and largely dependent upon seaborne trade. With capable naval forces, Australia continues to make an important contribution to supporting world energy security. Regional food security is also heavily dependent upon maritime trade. Fisheries and maritime environmental security are increasingly important considerations that will require the application of maritime security resources.
Freedom of navigation and maritime domain security are of paramount importance in the Asia Pacific region where thriving economies are heavily and increasingly dependent upon the sea. Access to straits used for international navigation and sea lanes for guaranteed passage through regional archipelagos is important. For Australia, ensuring the flow of maritime trade and the security of our vast maritime domain presents the convergence of the enduring realities of strategic geography and economic and environmental well being; vital to the national interest. Maintenance of the free flow of trade may involve the formation of ad-hoc security arrangements where both suppliers and customers share a common need for protecting just-in-time logistic continuity.
The US continues to be the largest economy in the world, has by far the strongest military capabilities and therefore remains the dominant global power. However, the relative strength of the US in comparison to other nations is declining, as is the US ability to influence the course of world events. The change has been magnified by domestically unpopular US military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan impacting US capacity and probably political appetite to engage militarily elsewhere. The US intent to pursue a pre-emptive defence stance[37]
has also been dampened; and the overall US strategic position has been worsened by an economy in danger of recession.[38]
Concomitantly, China, India and some other Asian nations are experiencing unprecedented economic growth and are pursuing an aggressive path of qualitative military improvements, with particular emphasis upon maritime capabilities.
For more than 50 years the cornerstone of Australia’s national security has been the Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America [ANZUS Treaty].[39] Australia’s national security has been underwritten by the Treaty and successive Australian governments have been able to justify conservative defence spending because of perceived security risk mitigation provided by the ANZUS ‘insurance policy’. Alliance arrangements afford benefits and also bring obligations and commitments between the parties involved. The significance of this is particularly important between countries with large power disparities, like Australia and the US. Although Australia and the US share many common values, their interests, or at least the priority given to various interests, will not always coincide.
As Australia pursues a more independent course, including closer engagement with regional powers, the possibility of divergence from the US on some issues is likely to increase. The threshold for triggering a supportive treaty response is uncertain and a response cannot be guaranteed. The capacity of the parties to respond and wider security commitments, priorities and interests at a particular time will be significant determinants to decisions to invoke treaty responses or not, including the level of response.
The ANZUS Treaty has been formally invoked on one occasion; by Australia in support of the US after the September 11, 2001 attacks.[40]
Importantly, the Treaty has provided an umbrella under which defence cooperation between Australia and the US has flourished, including high level Australian access to US technology and intelligence.
US military support short of invoking the Treaty has been sought by Australia. For example, during the Australian-led, United Nations authorised intervention in East Timor in 1999, the US Navy provided an Aegis cruiser for air defence.[41]
This contribution was extremely valuable during the early stages of the landing of Australian ground forces because it provided critical risk assurance against any likelihood of air attack. This was particularly significant as the RAN did not have adequate air defence capabilities to cover amphibious and air transport activities in the operational area. Although a relatively low intensity conflict, the East Timor campaign was a close-run military endeavour that stretched the capacity of the ADF. Capability deficiencies were highlighted including the lack of fully deployable maritime air defence capabilities essential to enable independent offshore operations in a predominantly maritime region, even when the operational area was in relatively close proximity to Australian mainland air bases at Darwin and Katherine.
The strategic risk implications of changing regional and great power dynamics need to be carefully considered from Australia’s perspective as a regional middle power. Australia remains a close ally of the US. Australia is also increasingly engaged economically, politically and militarily in the region, particularly with Japan, China, India, Southeast Asian and the Pacific Island Countries. Australia’s future security and prosperity and that of the Asia Pacific region are inescapably concordant.
Due to evolving regional power dynamics and the uncertainties of invoking alliance obligations, Australian governments may increasingly seek security options to support independent policy objectives in the future. A considerable spectrum of military commitments could be envisaged. These could include defending against attacks on Australia and its direct interests and controlling Australia’s vast maritime interests in the immediate region. Wider involvement could include contributing to regional maritime coalitions in a range of conflict scenarios (including the potential for high intensity conflict), contributing to the freedom of maritime navigation, responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises, assisting with the rescue of failed states, and contributing to shaping the regional strategic environment.
Australian governments may require the ability to project military power across the seas, exercise control over areas of national or regional sea space and proximate land areas, and prevent or disrupt the activities of opponents in various scenarios. Force packages need to be tailored for each operational mission. They would draw upon long range, deployable and sustainable sea, air and land capabilities, able to operate autonomously or as part of international coalitions, US-led or otherwise.
The US continues to be the dominant global economic and military power. However, the relative power balance is changing. US power is declining in relative terms as regional powers, like China and India, emerge. The ANZUS Treaty continues to be vital to Australia’s national security interests. Australia’s expanding political, economic and military engagement in the Asia Pacific region combined with changing regional power dynamics and US global commitments elsewhere require Australia to pursue a more independent course. Evolving strategic circumstances compel Australia to hedge against the strategic implications of changing regional power balances.
A range of capable military forces will provide significant defence utility for asserting control over Australia’s immediate and wider national interests, and to support aspirations and obligations as a regional power. Maritime capabilities offer cost effective options for Government at acceptable levels of risk. They enable military presence to be selectively asserted across Australia’s geographic areas of highest security interest thus demonstrating Australia’s commitment to the preservation of a benign security environment.
Australia’s strategic thinking has evolved and matured considerably over the past 30 years. The 1986 recommendation that Australia’s defence be based largely on a strategy of denying a potential invading force access to the mainland[42] is now recognised as too narrow and too risky. Such a strategy is far too limiting for a developed, middle power engaged in a globalised world that aspires to be a significant regional power. Successive governments have recognised that Australia’s national interests extend well beyond immediate sovereign territory. Contemporary Australian governments would be unlikely to support a core national security strategy that essentially entails ‘pulling up the drawbridge and defending the northern moat’ while the nation reverts to a subsistence existence for survival. This would be perceived domestically and internationally as weak and displaying a gross lack of comprehension of strategic realities.
Australia must be able to deal effectively with security threats to its national interests. Strategic vulnerabilities need to be identified and protected and strategic strengths enhanced. Security risk management processes need to recognise the integrated nature of global and regional systems. Australia can choose to be strategically passive or proactive. Successive Australian governments have sought to be proactive in contributing to shaping a positive strategic environment. Much of the shaping objective is pursued through the application of soft power means like diplomacy, economic, intellectual and social engagement.[43]
A central consideration for all regional participants is the provision of a secure environment to enable economic and social development to flourish.
Australia’s national defence strategy must have a predominantly maritime flavour. Australia needs the capacity to control its sovereign maritime domain and interests, and to contribute to the security of regional maritime domains and interests. This includes military capabilities able to deter and project power into and across the seas and if necessary, on to the shore for medium level combative and peaceful purposes.
Strategic choices are heavily affected by the willingness and economic capacity to allocate national resources to security. In recent years Australia has committed approximately 1.9 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to defence. Governments have increased defence expenditure consistent with economic growth.[44] The extent of Australia’s security challenges, small population and competing demands upon a small workforce are significant considerations in determining whether this level of defence expenditure is adequate. The availability of skilled and motivated people is a major determining factor for Australia’s approach to providing national security.
High-technology and multi-role solutions that make optimum use of scant people resources are essential considerations. This is necessary to produce the capacity, flexibility and versatility to conduct sustainable military operations over large distances in a maritime environment. Options exist to take advantage of Australia’s access to some unique aspects of US and other countries’ advanced technologies that will continue to give a qualitative capability advantage. Options also exist for self-interested approaches to investment in and advancement of innovative niche security related industries within Australia. Getting the people technology mix right for Australia’s circumstances presents challenges. Technological-based solutions to national security will come at a price.
Whether current levels of defence expenditure will provide an adequate level of security risk mitigation in a strategic context of dynamism and uncertainty must be a vital consideration for government. Several defence capabilities will reach obsolescence almost simultaneously in the coming years including naval surface forces and submarines along with some air, land and important information support capabilities. Combined with rising technology and people costs, governments are faced with stark choices of either increasing the proportion of national resources allocated to defence or accepting higher levels of national security risk. Both options present short-term political risks for government, however adopting the second option would present the greatest security risk for the nation and its future.
Australia’s national defence strategy must have a significant maritime flavour. It should provide for the defence of sovereign territory and jurisdictional rights, a capacity to defend wider national interests, and an ability to contribute to shaping the regional strategic environment.
Determining the levels of defence expenditure necessary to provide for Australia’s national security is a key consideration for government. It requires difficult judgments on what represents an adequate level of security risk mitigation in a strategic context of dynamism and uncertainty. Near simultaneous obsolescence of several significant defence capabilities in future years exacerbate resource allocation pressures.
Technology and people costs are key drivers. In the Australian context, highly capable, versatile and flexible forces able to support sustained operations over great distances in a largely maritime environment are essential. High-technology and multi-role solutions that make optimum use of scant people resources must be key considerations. Access to unique advanced technologies from the US and elsewhere will continue to give a qualitative capability advantage along with investment in innovative niche security systems within Australia.
Governments are faced with the difficult choice of increasing the proportion of national resources allocated to defence or accepting higher levels of national security risk. Both options present short-term political risks. However, adopting the second option would present the greatest risk for the nation and its future. Government acceptance of potentially major national security risk failure is unconscionable.
Understanding Australia’s national security challenges requires balancing the focus on immediate political and operational security imperatives with the need to maintain a long-term strategic view. Strategic risk management processes offer a well-tried methodology for identifying national security risk treatment options. These will define the capability requirements for defending Australia and its interests in a strategic climate of change, uncertainty and incomplete knowledge. The national security strategy for Australia must provide for the defence of core national interests and also seek to shape a favourable strategic environment for the future.
For Australia, contributing to ensuring the flow of maritime trade and ensuring security of the vast maritime domain presents the convergence of the enduring realities of strategic geography and national economic well being. Australia’s geography offers a strategic depth advantage available to few nations on earth, and this must be fully exploited. It is clear that Australia’s national security strategy and policies must have a predominantly maritime focus. They should support effective national governance requirements by providing for the defence of sovereign territory and enforcement of jurisdictional rights. There also need to be a capacity to protect wider national interests, and an ability to contribute to shaping the regional strategic environment, itself largely maritime.
The ADF must be capable of effectively operating throughout the national and regional maritime domain. Forces must be highly combat capable, versatile, flexible, robust, sustainable and interoperable with regional and extra regional forces. Readiness for current operations must be balanced with a clear eye on preparing for future security challenges.
Determining adequate levels of defence expenditure requires difficult judgments on what represents adequate levels of security risk mitigation. A major contextual issue that must be considered is the significant growth and modernisation of regional naval capabilities. Near simultaneous obsolescence of several significant Australian defence capabilities in future years intensifies resource allocation pressures. Technology and people are major cost drivers. Both are key considerations in the Australian context, with effective utilisation of scarce national human resources the paramount issue.
Governments can either increase the proportion of national resources allocated to defence or accept higher levels of national security risk. There are political and strategic risk calculations to be carefully considered. Government failure to address major national security risks would be at odds with the fundamental obligation to provide for security with which it is entrusted by the Australian people.
The evolving realities of globalisation and governance combined with Australia’s enduring geography dictate that the maritime case is vital to defending Australia’s interests. This imperative must be given appropriately significant weight in developing Australia’s national security policies and strategies.
Contributions to the ANCORS Workshop and to this paper by the following ANCORS Fellows are gratefully acknowledged: Rear Admiral Brian Adams, Professor Sam Bateman, Professor Richard Kenchington, Commodore Jack McCaffrie, Dr Chris Rahman, Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie, Vice Admiral David Shackleton, Dr Clive Schofield, Professor Martin Tsamenyi and Dr Robin Warner.
[1] Lee Cordner is a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of Wollongong. He was formerly Managing Director of Future Directions International Pty Ltd and a naval officer for 33 years; he retired in the rank of Commodore. Email: lcordner@uow.edu.au.
[2] Fitzgibbon, J. The Hon. MP, Minister for Defence, Media Release New Defence White Paper, Min 10/08, 22 February 2008, Department of Defence website <http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/Fitzgibbontpl.cfm?CurrentId=7444> at viewed 14 August 2008.
[3] This review was led by Mr Ric Smith AO PSM, former Secretary for the Department of Defence. He was directed to report to government by 30 June 2008. The outcomes of the review remain to be announced. Prime Minister of Australia, Media Release Homeland and Border Security Review, 22 February 2008, Department of Defence website <http://www.pm.gov.au/media/ release/2008/media_release_0084.cfm> at 11 August 2008.
[4] Michael Evans, ‘Strategic culture and the Australian way of warfare: perspectives’ in David Stevens and John Reeve (eds), Southern Trident: Strategy, history and the rise of Australian Naval Power (2001) 92-95.
[5] World maritime trade is expanding in all sectors. See UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2007, Report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD, United Nations New York and Geneva, 2007. UNCTAD website <http://www. unctad.org/en/docs/rmt2007_en.pdf> at 14 August 2008.
[6] Ibid, 5 and Table 4. In 2006, dry bulk cargoes comprised more than 60 per cent of global shipments with Australia providing 13.3 per cent of the total goods loaded.
[7] The elements of national power typically include economic, military, diplomatic and information. To this can be added social, natural resources, human resources, intellectual capacity, industrial capacity, national culture and national morale. Concepts like ‘hard power’ and soft power’ are sometimes encompassed and increasingly concepts like ‘knowledge power’ are included. See John T Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage (4th ed, 1993), 226-256. For a typical national military view of the elements (sometimes called instruments) of national power see US Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, 14 May 2007. Defense Technical Information Center website <http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1.pdf> at 14 August 2008.
[8] Kennedy, P. Grand Strategies in War and Peace (1991), 6 and 184.
[9] Generic risk management processes as outlined here are defined in AS/NZS 4360:2004 Risk Management and AS/NZS HB 436:2004 (Guidelines to AS/NZS 4360:2004) Risk Management Guidelines Companion. Standards website <http://www.standards.com.au> at 14 August 2008.
[10] Nations like China and India fit this description in the Asia Pacific region.
[11] Convention on the Law of the Sea, opened for signature 10 December 1982, 1833 UNTS 396, (entered into force 16 November 1994).
[12] See Park Hee Kwon, The Law of the Sea and Northeast Asia: A Challenge for Cooperation (2000) 122-123 for a summary of maritime boundary delimitation challenges in the East China Sea. Similar challenges exist in the South China Sea, with many claims to be resolved.
[13] The total estimated length of the Australian coastline is 59,736 km (35,877 km mainland and 23,859 km islands). Geoscience Australia website <http://www.ga. gov.au/education/facts/dimensions/coastlin.htm> at 14 August 2008.
[14] Offshore island territories include Christmas and Cocos Islands; the islands of the Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef; Heard, McDonald and Macquarie Islands; and Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands.
[15] Australia has the 3rd largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the world after the US and France.
[16] The Australian EEZ is 8,148,250 km2 which is greater in area than the Australian landmass of 7,692,724 km2. Geoscience Australia <http://www.ga.gov.au/ education/facts/dimensions/oceans.jsp
and http://www. ga.gov.au/education/facts/dimensions/areadime.htm> at 11 August 2008.
[17] Ferguson, M. The Hon MP, Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, Media Release, UN Confirms Australia’s Rights Over Extra 2.5 Million Square Kilometres Of Seabed, 21 April 2008. Resources Energy and Tourism website <http://minister.ret. gov.au/TheHonMartinFergusonMP/Pages/UNCONFIRMSAUSTRALIA ’ SRIGHTSOVEREXTRA.aspx> at 14 August 2008.
[18] The Australian Search and Rescue Region is 52.8 million km2 in area. It extends into the Indian Ocean, west and north to maritime boundaries with Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, east to maritime boundaries with the Solomon Islands and Fiji, and south to Antarctica, Australian Maritime Safety Authority website <http://www.amsa.gov.au/ search_and_rescue/Australian_Search_and_Rescue_fact_sheet.asp> and <http://www.amsa.gov.au/ search _and_rescue/Search_and_Rescue_in_Australia/Arrangements_in_Australia.asp> at 14 August 2008.
[19] The RV Southern Surveyor, owned and managed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), is Australia’s only national facility available to marine scientists to explore and study Australia’s oceans. It enables oceanographic, geo-science, fisheries and ecosystem research, CSIRO Website <http://www.marine.csiro.au/nationalfacility/ features/vessel.htm at 14 August 2008.
[20] Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) (2008) 52 Shipping and Statistics and Market Review: World shipbuilding and shipbuilders 7. Seabase website <http://www.seabase.isl.org/index.php? module = Pagesetter & func=viewpub & tid=1 & pid=1> at 14 August 2008.
[21] UNCTAD above n 4, x-xi.
[22] At 1 July 2007, 7,433 ships totalling 415.8 million dead weight tons (dwt) were on order with South Korea, China and Japan the leading shipbuilding countries comprising 81.7 per cent of the world order book. Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) Shipping and Statistics and Market Review: World shipbuilding and shipbuilders 51 (2007) 9/10, 6-12. Seabase website <http://www.seabase.isl.org/index. php?module=Pagesetter & func=viewpub & tid=1 & pid =1> at 14 August 2008.
[23] In the year ending 2007 this amounted to more than 669 million tonnes of exports by sea, worth $A141 billion, and over 80 million tonnes of imports by sea, worth more than $A138 billion. Australia’s International Cargo Statistics <http://www.btre.gov.au/ Info.aspx?NodeId=85> at 14 August 2008.
[24] UNCTAD above n 4, 31-34 and Table 16.
[25] Ibid, 15-19 and Table 7. Australia ranked as the largest exporter in the world of iron ore (37.7 per cent of the world total) and coal (32.3 per cent of the world total), and the third largest exporter of grain (9.5 per cent of the world total).
[26] Meyrick Consulting Group Pty Ltd, International and Domestic Shipping and Ports Study (2007), 6-8.
[27] Lee Willett, British Defence and Security Policy: The Maritime Contribution (2008) Occasional Paper, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, 4.
[28] Ibid, 5.
[29] Vijay Sakhuja, ‘Malacca: Who’s to pay for smooth sailing?’ Asia Times Online, 16 May 2007. Traffic density is projected to increase from 94,000 ships in 2004 to 141,000 in 2020 Asia Times Online <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IE16Ae01.html> at 14 August 2008.
[30] United States Government, Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2006, (2006) Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting, U.S. Department of Energy, 1, 25 and 37. Energy Information Administration website <http://www.eia. doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html> at 14 August 2008. IEO projections are for overall energy consumption to increase by 71 per cent between 2003 and 2030, with oil demand increasing 47 per cent and non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Asia, including China and India accounting for 43 per cent of the increase. The natural gas share of total world energy consumption is forecast to increase from 24 per cent in 2003 to 26 per cent in 2030.
[31] International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2006, 66-68. International Energy Agency website, <http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2006/weo2006.pdf> at 14 August 2008.
[32] Infield Energy Data Analysis available at <http://www.infield.com/> at 14 August 2008.
[33] Australia’s LNG exports are worth $A7 billion, increasing to $A10 billion per annum. Australian Government, Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, Energy in Australia 2008, 32-33. Resources, Energy and Tourism website <http://www.ret.gov.au/ energy/Documents/facts%20statistics%20publications/energy_in_aus_2008.pdf> at 14 August 2008.
[34] The 40th separate deployment of RAN surface forces to the international coalition in the Persian Gulf area commenced in April 2008. The nature of the mission has varied over the years. The Navy’s capable warships and well trained personnel have exhibited high degrees of versatility, flexibility and professionalism in dealing with evolving Middle East security tasks. Tasks have included enforcing United Nations trade sanctions through the imposition of maritime blockade and participation in naval strike and air defence forces during the two Gulf Wars. Sea Power Centre – Australia, Department of Defence, Offshore and Out of Sight: The RAN in the North Arabian Gulf, Semaphore Issue 06, June 2008. Department of Defence website <http://www.navy.gov.au/spc/semaphore/2008_6.pdf> at 14 August 2008.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Conservative estimates of the global fishing situation in 2007 are summarised as follows: seven of the top 10 marine fish (30 per cent of all marine production) are fully or over-exploited; 25 per cent of stocks are in crisis; 52 per cent of stocks are fully exploited (fished at their maximum biological productivity level); 21 per cent moderately exploited (modest increase in fishing possible); and three per cent of stocks are underexploited. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Rome 2007, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2006. FAO website <http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/A0699e/A0699e00. htm> at 14 August 2008.
[37] George W Bush, President of the United States of America, ‘Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction’, White House website, <http://www. whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html> at 15 August 2008.
[38] ‘United States Economy’, The New York Times, 14 August 2008. In 2007, the American economy began to slow significantly, mostly because of a real-estate slump and related financial problems. Many economists believe that the economy entered a recession at the end of 2007 or early in 2008. New York Times website <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/ reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_states_economy/index.html> at 15 August 2008.
[39] Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America [ANZUS], opened for signature 1 September 1951, enter treaty citation here , entered into force 29 April 1952.
[40] Howard, J.W. The Hon, Prime Minister of Australia, ‘Aust to invoke ANZUS treaty’, 14 September 2001. Encyclopaedia website <http://www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/1P1-46919326.html> at 15 August 2008.
[41] Adam Cobb, ‘East Timor and Australia’s Security Role: Issues and Scenarios’, Current Issues Brief 3 (1999-2000), Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group, Parliament of Australia, Department of the Parliamentary Library, 21 September 1999. The Aegis-class cruiser USS Mobile Bay was available to provide air defence cover. Australian Parliament House website <http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/1999-2000/ 2000cib03.htm> at 15 August 2008.
[42] Paul Dibb, Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities: Report to the Minister for Defence (1986) 2-6. In 1986, Dr Dibb suggested that the importance of trade to the Australian economy was over emphasised and that Australia could ‘become highly self-sufficient in basic commodities’. Further, it was recommended that Australia’s defence should be based upon a “strategy of denial” where the aim was to be capable of ‘denying the sea and air gap to an adversary, thus preventing any successful landing of significant forces on Australian soil’.
[43] Joseph S Nye Jr., ‘The Benefits of Soft Power’ (2004) Spring Compass: A Journal of Leadership. Harvard Business School Website <http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ archive/4290.html> at 15 August 2008.
[44] Australia Government, Defence 2000: Our Future Defence Force (2000) 117-118. In the 2000 Defence White Paper the government committed to ‘the same proportion of GDP on defence as we are today. That remains 1.9 per cent.’ There was also an ongoing commitment for defence expenditure to ‘grow by an average of about three per cent per annum in real terms over the next decade’. So far the Rudd government has indicated a similar commitment.
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