{"id":10568,"date":"2013-11-07T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T19:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=10568"},"modified":"2014-04-10T13:12:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T03:12:44","slug":"amphibious-capability-is-exactly-what-australias-maritime-strategy-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/amphibious-capability-is-exactly-what-australias-maritime-strategy-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Amphibious capability is exactly what Australia\u2019s maritime strategy needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

Hugh White got it wrong last week<\/a>. He erroneously asserted that the two amphibious Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD<\/a>) and three Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD<\/a>) ships currently being built for the Navy are destined for a \u2018pointless and unachievable mission.\u2019 But last week\u2019s offering is just more<\/a> of<\/a> the<\/a> same<\/a> anti-large ship rhetoric that Professor White has pushed over the last ten or so years. It\u2019s an argument which is becoming quite weary. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Professor White\u2019s assumptions are wrong. Australia\u2019s nascent amphibious capability, centred on the LHDs, isn’t intended to land ground forces into high-intensity conflicts in Asia. And the AWDs aren’t exclusively designed to escort the LHDs in a major war scenario. (For this discussion hereon, I\u2019ll focus on the amphibious capability. James Goldrick last Tuesday<\/a> ably retorted Professor White\u2019s misrepresentation of current naval thinking in another<\/a> chapter<\/a> of their ongoing<\/a> banter<\/a> worthy of reading!)<\/p>\n

The prevailing conception of what amphibious manoeuvre entails today has been distorted by modern Hollywood depictions of history. Horrific scenes portrayed in film such as Saving Private Ryan<\/i>, The Thin Red Line<\/i> and The Pacific<\/i> reflect the tactics and capabilities of a bygone era that have been well and truly usurped by modern technology, evolved mission sets and dramatically reduced tolerance levels for loss by the community.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why Professor White\u2019s opinion is so surprising. As one of Australia\u2019s preeminent strategic thinkers and a respected former Defence Deputy Secretary, he should be better informed than the average lay person watching the big screen.<\/p>\n

No astute military force in the world promotes the types of amphibious assaults undertaken in World War II or the Korean War as a feasible tactic in contemporary conflict. Not even the US Navy and US Marine Corps\u2014undoubtedly the world\u2019s most powerful and capable amphibious force\u2014believe in the utility of directly opposed amphibious landings. Twenty-first century amphibious manoeuvre, underpinned by concepts like Ship-To-Objective Manoeuvre<\/a> and Sea Basing, are about avoiding direct engagement when lodging a force from the sea to the land objective.<\/p>\n

The ADF\u2019s developing amphibious operating concept<\/a>\u00a0(PDF)\u00a0doesn’t envisage high-intensity conflict or major war. Rather, within the framework of Australia\u2019s overarching maritime strategy, the concept is being developed for the likely future needs of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

Emphasis is being placed on military support to humanitarian assistance and disaster recovery, evacuation operations from unstable areas, peace-enforcement, peace-keeping, and, domestically, Defence Aid to the Civil Community (DACC). Within these mission sets, the ADF is focussed on being able to integrate and enable inter-agency, international organisation and NGO roles and needs within the amphibious capability.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Australia and the US rapidly provided extensive assistance to Indonesia and Thailand through amphibious forces. If scenarios similar to East Timor 1999 or 2006 arose again, the LHDs would allow the ADF to deploy larger forces more expeditiously into more areas simultaneously, thereby permitting restoration of security and peace more quickly.<\/p>\n

Traditional amphibious operations will still have a place for the ADF, but adapted to the contemporary world. A raid<\/i> from the sea could be undertaken by LHD-based special forces against a terrorist group to recover Australians hostage, or to seize materials related to weapons of mass destruction being proliferated illegally by hostile actors. A demonstration<\/i>, through presence activities or training exercises, could provide a cost-effective way to deter aggression or to shape and influence a precarious environment.<\/p>\n

The ships have been bought and are nearing completion. Army and Navy personnel are already training closely together. Thoughts about how and where the ADF\u2019s amphibious capability could be employed would be more useful to practitioners than inveterate opinions on decisions made many years ago.<\/p>\n

Possessing a flexible and capable amphibious capability with utility across a wide range of missions makes clear strategic sense. Australia\u2019s littoral strategic geography demands such a capability, as do the challenges the ADF and whole-of-government space are likely to face in coming decades. The investment in amphibious capability will undoubtedly provide our national decision-makers with great flexibility in years to come, and will prove to be a sage investment on behalf of the taxpayer. And believe it or not: it\u2019s not all about China!<\/p>\n

Thomas Lonergan is a current serving Australian Army officer with recent experience in the ADF\u2019s emerging amphibious capability. These are his personal views. Image courtesy of Department of Defence<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugh White got it wrong last week. He erroneously asserted that the two amphibious Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) and three Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) ships currently being built for the Navy are destined for a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":10575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[477],"tags":[259,33,63,422],"class_list":["post-10568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-amphibious-operations","tag-capability","tag-hadr","tag-maritime-strategy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAmphibious capability is exactly what Australia\u2019s maritime strategy needs | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/amphibious-capability-is-exactly-what-australias-maritime-strategy-needs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amphibious capability is exactly what Australia\u2019s maritime strategy needs | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hugh White got it wrong last week. 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