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Australia’s many ‘maritime strategies’
Posted By Peter Layton on March 28, 2013 @ 05:00
[1]The combination of the rise of China, interest in new submarines and debates on the Army’s future role has sparked a renewed interest in maritime strategy. There are several alternative maritime strategies in play, often with stark differences, but perhaps all have a similar fundamental shortcoming.
But first what is a maritime strategy? Most quote the early 20th Century British naval strategist Sir Julian Corbett, who believed that a strategy is maritime when ‘the sea is a substantial factor’. Crucially, he stressed that such a strategy involved joint forces working cooperatively to win a conflict rather than fighting their own separate wars.
Maritime strategies have loomed large in Australian strategic thinking, generally as part of someone else’s maritime strategy or, relatively rarely, independently. In this debate, there are some (PDF) [2] who devise an Australian ‘continental’ strategic school to rail against, but in so labeling specific strategies they disagreed with, the sea remained a substantial factor. The fundamental reason for disagreement was that the Army didn’t have a role—and thus a funding priority—which they considered essential.
So what maritime strategies are in play today?
This criticism highlights what is missing across the various proffered maritime strategies. They don’t clearly communicate how they’ll lead to a successful conclusion of a conflict. If the aim of war is a better peace, not just a return to the conditions that necessitated the war, these strategic alternatives don’t offer a path to this outcome. At the least they need locating within an overarching grand strategy [20] that does. In this regard, the maritime strategies advanced are more operational concepts than strategies.
Justin Kelly and Michael Brennan [21] have criticised such a focus on the operational level of war at the expense of considering the ‘bigger’ strategic level picture as at least partly explaining the limited success of recent large scale military campaigns. Historically, free-floating military thought bubbles have proven dangerous. Political leaders can unwittingly allow military forces to act out their aspirations and preferred operational models if there are no other ideas in play. At the start of WWI Kaiser Willhelm II [22] famously complained of just such a conceptual straitjacket when he realized the Germany General Staff could not conceive of any alternatives or even modifications to its preferred Schlieffen Plan [23].
A sensible maritime strategy might require some more thought to develop and need to be subordinate element of an overarching grand strategy. Fortunately there may be some thinking (here [24] and here [25]) thinking that could be useful in this regard.
Peter Layton is undertaking a research PhD in grand strategy at UNSW. Image courtesy of US Department of Defense Current Photos [26].
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[1] Image: https://aspistrategist.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/3766448950_8fe6f86e8a_z.jpg
[2] some (PDF): http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/DARA/Our-publications/~/media/Files/Our%20future/DARA%20Publications/Archived%20pubs/WPs/WP%20101%20Role%20of%20the%20Army%20in%20a%20Maritime%20Concept%20of%20Strategy.ashx
[3] missiles: #http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%255Bswords%255D=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnews%255Bany_of_the_words%255D=denial&tx_ttnews%255Btt_news%255D=40542&tx_ttnews%255BbackPid%255D=7&cHash=a51a561572c9398329b80f4abd70dd2
[4] 1987 Defence White Paper: http://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/se/publications.htm
[5] advanced this idea further: http://www.themonthly.com.au/why-australias-defence-all-sea-middling-power-hugh-white-6161
[6] Amphibious capabilities: https://aspistrategist.ru/a-capability-of-first-resort-australia-and-amphibious-warfare/
[7] large submarines: http://www.submarineinstitute.com/SIA-input-to-DWP13.html?fp=26
[8] Big LHDs: https://aspistrategist.ru/all-ashore-the-utility-of-amphibious-operations/
[9] big submarines: https://aspistrategist.ru/why-submarines-for-australia/
[10] Chief of Navy: http://www.navy.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/Submarines_as_part_of_a_maritime_strategy.pdf
[11] James Goldrick: http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2012/10/15/False-thinking-and-Australian-strategy-Part-1.aspx
[12] tensions between the US and Iran: https://aspistrategist.ru/iran-and-the-approaching-nuclear-red-line/
[13] Ross Babbage believes (PDF): http://www.kokodafoundation.org/Resources/Documents/KP15StrategicEdge.pdf
[14] Andrew Davies sees: https://aspistrategist.ru/how-to-choose-an-australian-submarine/
[15] Michael Evans: http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/10/the-essential-service
[16] concept owes much to the successful island hoping campaigns of WWII: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=jfadt/maritime/subs/mssub15.pdf
[17] the operational capabilities Australia should aspire to: http://www.williamsfoundation.org.au/sites/default/files/Williams%20Opnl%20ScenarioV2%20AUG12.pdf
[18] operations against by-passed Japanese forces: http://www.couriermail.com.au/extras/ww2/bitterfighting.htm
[19] unnecessary war: http://www.couriermail.com.au/extras/ww2/balikpapanfighttothefinish.htm
[20] grand strategy: https://aspistrategist.ru/grand-strategy-what-does-that-do-for-me/
[21] Justin Kelly and Michael Brennan: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=939
[22] Kaiser Willhelm II: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor#CITEREFLudwig1927
[23] Schlieffen Plan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan
[24] here: http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/130219-asialink.html
[25] here: http://www.nsc.anu.edu.au/documents/caf-symposium-20130225.pdf
[26] US Department of Defense Current Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39955793@N07/3766448950/sizes/z/in/photostream/
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