Hi all, I’m new here but I’m keen to join the discussions on ADF matters following the release of the DSR. I’ve been following the discussions on this thread, which I’ve found very interesting. I’ve been out of the RAN for about 8 years now but still have many friends serving in the RAN, RAAF and Army with whom I speak on a regular basis. In this (my first post – please be kind) I’m going to add some thoughts of my own to the discussions in this thread around the future strategic environment in which the RAN will need to operate, which I hope will stimulate discussion about what the future capabilities of the RAN should feature. I welcome other views in response to mine, whether in agreement or to the contrary, as long as they are expressed respectfully.
For me, the most positive outcome of the DSR is a clear, coherent and very welcome focus on deterring, and if necessary defeating, potential threats to Australia’s interests in the Indo-Pacific region, most particularly threats to the security of Australia’s key maritime trade routes. The DSR (or at least the publicly-released version of it) doesn’t name any country specifically as a future threat; however, clearly what is being primarily considered is the increasing assertiveness and rapid military expansion of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the implications that has to tip the balance of power away from the United States (US) in the Indo-Pacific region. The region is no longer unipolar; great power competition is back in the Indo-Pacific region.
From my reading of the publicly-released version of the DSR, it appears to me that the following two high level capabilities underpin the DSR's thinking in the sense of what the ADF (and within it the RAN) needs to be able to do in the coming decades to effectively defend Australia's interests:
- First, the capabilities required to unilaterally deter, and if necessary defeat, any threat to Australia’s interests within our immediate geographic region (our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the waters and airspace adjacent to our EEZ); and
- Second, the capabilities required to contribute to deterring, and if necessary defeating, threats to Australia’s key trade routes and interests in the wider Indo-Pacific region as part of a coalition of forces.
The DSR is short on detail – and deliberately so. Fine detail is not what the DSR was for – I don’t think any single document could possibly detail everything that needs to be considered in shaping Australia’s defence policy for the coming decades. The detail that is missing from the DSR is to be filled in by subsequent, more focused analysis and decisions, including the review of the RAN’s future surface warfare capabilities announced with the release of the DSR.
The DSR assesses that the risk of an invasion of the Australian mainland is low and is very likely to remain low for the foreseeable future, and I think that assessment is quite correct. In the absence of a real risk of an invasion of the Australian mainland, the key strategic realities for Australia, at least as far as anyone can reasonably foresee, are the following.
- Australia is a middle power, not a great power – we cannot, and should not attempt to, compete militarily on an equal footing with either the U.S. or the PRC.
- The ADF (and within it the RAN) needs to have the capabilities required to enable it to effectively deter any potential adversary from acting against Australia’s interests, and to defeat any actions against Australia’s interests that might occur.
- If the ADF (and the RAN as part of it) has to deter or defeat threats to Australia’s interests, this should be done as far as possible from Australia’s shores.
- If it is necessary to deter or defeat threats, this should preferably be done in collaboration with Australia’s allies, friends and neighbours in the Indo-Pacific region.
What is missing from the publicly-released version of the DSR, and what I think is contributing to the debate around what the future ADF (and within it, the RAN) should look like, is an analysis of what future conflicts in the Indo-Pacific might involve. The publicly-released version of the DSR has been carefully sanitized of any such analysis, most likely to avoid exacerbating existing tensions with the PRC – and understandably so. But the absence of that analysis is what is stimulating much of the debate on this forum, in the media and in the defence community – and again, understandably so.
Fortunately, those who participate in this thread are not bound to refrain from specifically identifying potential threats to Australia’s interests. Personally, I can foresee a range of potential scenarios where the ADF may need to contribute to deterring, and if necessary defeating, threats to Australia’s interests and those of its allies, friends and neighbours in the Indo-Pacific. In no particular order of likelihood or relative importance to Australia’s interests, the potential threats I can foresee the ADF (and within it the RAN) being called upon to deter and if necessary defeat (whether on its own or as part of a coalition of forces) are as follows.
- Land-based conflict between North Korea and South Korea on the Korean Peninsula.
- Conflict between North Korea and South Korea in the airspace and waters around the Korean Peninsula.
- Ballistic missile attacks (conventional or nuclear) by North Korea on South Korea, and potentially Japan and more distant locations, including the U.S. and (however unlikely) Australia.
- Ballistic and/or cruise missile attacks (conventional or nuclear) by the PRC on Taiwan and more distant locations, potentially including Australia.
- Attempted maritime and aerial blockade of Taiwan by the PRC.
- Attempted invasion of Taiwan by the PRC.
- Attempted assertion by the PRC by military force of its claims to ownership and control of islands and waters in the East China Sea (e.g. the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands north of Taiwan) and/or the South China Sea (e.g. the so-called “nine-dash line” encompassing Pratas Island, the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and at least part of the Luzon Strait).
- Conflicts over the extent of the Exclusive Economic Zones of various nations in relation to oil, gas, fisheries and other resources in the East China Sea (e.g. the PRC, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia) and/or the South China Sea (e.g. the PRC, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia).
- Opportunistic establishment by the PRC of alliances with, and bases in, Indo-Pacific nations which have (at least by comparison to the PRC) limited military capacity to defend themselves (e.g. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Bangladesh) to expand its sphere of influence and enhance its ability to project power in key strategic areas (e.g. the Gulf of Thailand for access to the South China Sea, the Bay of Bengal for access to the northern Indian Ocean, and the Pacific island nations for greater reach into the broader Pacific Ocean).
- Border conflicts between countries in continental Asia that have coastlines on the shores of the western Pacific and northern Indian Oceans (e.g. the North Korea and South Korea, the PRC, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan).
- Threats to the safe passage of maritime traffic to and from Australia through key strategic points such as the East China Sea (especially the Taiwan Strait and Luzon Strait, the South China Sea and north-east Indian Ocean (especially the Strait of Malacca, Sunda Strait and Lombok Strait) from either state actors (see the above points), or non-state actors (e.g. piracy or terrorism).
- Threats from either state actors or non-state actors affecting territories, waters and resources within Australia’s EEZ (e.g. the Cocos Islands, Christmas Island, and oil, gas and fisheries in our EEZ).
With the above points in mind, the ADF’s mission for the foreseeable future should not be primarily focused on conducting the type of grinding, attritional, relatively short-ranged land-based fighting that characterizes the current conflict in Ukraine and which characterised some of the Indo-Pacific conflicts in which Australia has had involvement in the post-WWII period (e.g. Korea and Vietnam). Of course, future conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region could well occur in which high-intensity, short-range, attritional land fighting is a major factor, and potentially the determinative factor. However, if a conflict involving such fighting does occur, it is likely to occur far to Australia’s north. Australian governments on both sides of politics should be, and I hope would be, very cautious about committing ADF ground forces to such a conflict on anything more than a modest scale. In any case, the numbers of ground forces that the ADF could deploy effectively to a high-intensity land conflict far from our shores is fairly limited. What the ADF will need to be able to do is to deter and if necessary defeat state and non-state actors that might seek restrict the free flow of maritime and air traffic to and from Australia through the Indo-Pacific region. That requires the ability to project power effectively at a long distance from Australia's shores.
In my next post, which will take me a few days to prepare given other commitments, I’m going to discuss what I think the future RAN’s capabilities should be in order to enable it to effectively contribute to the management of the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific, and how those capabilities can be achieved, both in the medium term (the next 10-15 years) and the long-term (the following 30-40 years).
