{"id":3652,"date":"2013-01-29T11:20:29","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T01:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2013-01-30T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T21:48:00","slug":"submarines-and-maritime-strategy-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/submarines-and-maritime-strategy-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Submarines and maritime strategy \u2013 part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"HMAS<\/a><\/figure>\n

Nic Stuart\u2019s enquiry regarding the need for submarines<\/a>, asks the reader to think back to the very beginning, the 2009 Defence White Paper. Yet, 2009 is hardly an appropriate start point if we are to adequately grasp the need for submarines, or understand broader Australian maritime strategy.<\/p>\n

The real beginning was 1901. In the years following Federation, the fledgling Australian Government sought to understand its needs for the defence of the realm. On 7 April 1902 Major General Hutton, Commandant of the Military Forces of the Commonwealth, noted:<\/p>\n

The defence of Australia cannot\u2026 be considered apart from the defence of Australian interests. Australia depends for its commercial success and its future development firstly upon its seaborne trade and secondly upon the existence, maintenance, and extension of fixed and certain markets for its produce outside Australian waters. It therefore follows that Australian interests cannot be assured by the defence alone of Australian soil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Commonwealth first seriously considered acquiring submarines in 1907. Alongside the mix of destroyers and cruisers that made up the first fleet unit, Australia eventually elected to purchase three submarines, and in 1914 the first two, AE1 and AE2, arrived at Sydney. So began Australia\u2019s nearly 100-year association with submarines, running through the J, O and Oberon classes, until Collins in the 1990s and the current debate.<\/p>\n

Over this period some aspects of Australia\u2019s geo-strategic situation have sharpened significantly. Today China and India are rising, competitive multipolarity is the order of the day, and a new Indo-Pacific<\/a>\u00a0(PDF) maritime sphere has emerged in geo-strategic thought. As the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper<\/a> puts it:<\/p>\n

Driven by Asia’s economic rise, the Indian Ocean is surpassing the Atlantic and Pacific as the world’s busiest and most strategically significant trade corridor. One-third of the world’s bulk cargo and around two-thirds of world oil shipments now pass through the Indian Ocean. Regional cooperation to ensure the safety and security of these vital trade routes will become more important over coming decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But other strategic factors have barely changed, or have changed in ways that require us to adjust rather than reject them outright. A century ago Major General Hutton understood that decisive outcomes could be achieved by effects applied at sea, far from our shores. In the Asian century Australian prosperity has become more not less reliant on the proper functioning of the global maritime trading system.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we\u2019ve entered a maritime century as much as an Asian century. Moreover, as the Prime Minister made clear in launching the National Security Strategy on 23 January, we have entered a \u2018post 9\/11\u2019 era, \u2018in which the behaviour of states, not non-state actors, will be the most important driver and shaper of Australia\u2019s national security thinking.\u2019<\/p>\n

Australia needs a maritime school of thought to underpin intellectually a maritime strategy. The Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs, recently postulated<\/a> what this school of thought needs to consider:<\/p>\n