So, who in the "region" has a superior tactical force structure and why is ours, so obsolete?
Barely capable of operational deployment?
Er, I think you'll find we have somewhere in the vicinity of 12x declared operational deployments, running simultaneously...
What is a significant strategic mission? Does Timor count? What about the Solomans? Bearing in mind YOU said strategic.
What does TNCG mean to YOU at a "strategic" level?
Part of the problem in answering these questions is that the Australian Governments never really had any idea of what the strategic role of the ADF is supposed to be when decoupled from the US defence policy. What should the ADF do as a means of projecting Australian national security policy even where there is no US support for it, or where support can not be provided due to a lack of capability? It seems that neither of these options were ever considered as part of security planning for a sovereign and independent national policy. Being a member of the ANZUS does not diminish the Australian Government's responsibility for just such a policy approach as a primary consideration.
The answer has always been that protecting Australian global economic links is the
strategic mission of the ADF. Protecting Australia's territorial claims is the reason for ADF's existence, and need not even be written into the policy that seeks to underwrite sovereignty! Because Australian global economic links are quite obviously very different to the US economic links, clearly the reliance on the US to support keeping them open and not threatened has been the core
hope of the ANZUS alliance. Can national security policies be really based on assumptions of everlasting good will and support? Home security is ultimately the responsibility of the owner, and not the Neighbourhood Watch or the Police Service. Right?
However, there are two big oceans out there, and the RAN has no capability to patrol, never mind control the shipping lanes should someone try to force their trade policy on ours. Control of large expenses of ocean require far more than a few frigates or robotic surveillance aircraft. The announcement that the RAN submarine fleet will be expanded to 12 boats should have been made in the 1990s at the latest. How these are going to be crewed is an entirely different matter when the RAN is struggling to crew all available boats now.
In any case, its about time the Australian political parties came clean with the public and explained that we are a maritime nation, and that we are therefore dependent on keeping maritime lanes of trade that assure our desired collective standards of living secure. This can not be done indefinitely with reliance on the USA, and at some stage we will have to take responsibility for our own national security.
The difficulty of exerting control and protecting shipping is being illustrated off the coast of Somalia now by rag-tag populations of pirates using nothing more than ramshackle fleet of rust buckets and inflatables. If such a campaign was initiated against Australian trade lanes in our region, could the RAN cope?
Control of sea can not be achieved with just frigates or the odd submarine since they lack the surveillance capability in a very large area of responsibility. The only way to exert this control is through use of carrier-born aircraft because control implies having an offensive capability with a fairly quick response time that neither the Global Hawk, nor the P-3 or the yet-to-fly P-8 will offer.
What I'm suggesting is that the RAN should be able to put into a potential naval combat area a balanced task force with the usual naval "combined arms" configuration used by other maritime nations. There is no reason that the RAN can't do this given other nations with similar defence expenditures can manage to deploy such task forces.
Operational deployment to me means moving sufficient force over required distance in required time to make a strategic difference. In a conventional warfare scenario with confronting any number of threats in the two-ocean region the best RAN can do now is a couple of frigates and a submarine on at best a week's notice (assuming Darwin station). Given the growth in regional naval forces, this is just not good enough any more. The unfortunate truth is that small rich populations are going to be increasingly seen as valid targets in a world of large poor populations, and we have three of some of the largest in the World in the region. Only a task force with organic logistic support can offer the sort of operational response required, given the strategic considerations above.
12x declared operational deployments? There is some confusion over the terms since the movement of an Army company by sea to Solomons is also an "operation" but it is not operational. All RANvessels are of course deemed to be operational when not undergoing work being done to them. East Timor was the last, and only second, RAN operational deployment since the Vietnam War.
East Timor does count as a strategic mission because essentially Australia is now underwriting Timor Leste's national security, and this means the increase in the potential confrontation with Indonesia, or any entity/s that it may evolve into in future.
The Solomons do not constitute a strategic mission because regardless of the changes in Solomons, or Australia's willingness to influence them, they will not create a significant impact on the Australian national security unless something drastic happens, like PRC commencing the building of a naval base in the Solomons.
Operation Catalyst is not strategic for the ADF since it is operating as part of a much larger force for which it is strategic. At best it can be considered 'strategic; in the sense that the ADF personnel are gaining valuable experience in operating within a strategic environment, but the role they play is tactical.
Operation Resolute is actually a part of what national navies do anyway! I don't even understand why it has an operation name because operations by definitions are sort of deployment projects, and not ongoing use of assets as mandated by the Australian Constitution. Is the Australian Government committed to ending Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone patrolling?
I think that above all the Australian Government must realise, and voice this realisation to the Australian public to garner political support, that the global strategic situation has in the recent few years changed dramatically, undoing the development in our region that took five centuries to evolve. The routes across the Indian and the Pacific are no longer just those of seeking out new markets by the Europeans, but also the means of competitors reaching the European, and now the US markets, a proposition that was never envisaged when the liberal economic theory was developed. Moreover, the major players in the new global economic trade are not even playing by the liberal economic rules. The creation of the NEW freight route and Central Asian overland options, and the projected reduction in dependence by the developed countries of the Northern hemisphere on West Asian oil will reduce the importance they attach to force projection in the Indian-Pacific region. The development of the P-4 may be a precursor to the realignment of regional trade routes. Australia will need to find own resources from which to secure its national well being in future.
Please enlighten me on what TNCG stands (for you) for as it seems to be new to me, and is not found elsewhere in Defence Talk forums, so I can't even get an idea of what it means had you had used it here before.
