{"id":84359,"date":"2023-12-22T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=84359"},"modified":"2023-12-21T18:29:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T07:29:50","slug":"contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Houthi forces based in Yemen are engaged in what resembles an unhinged, turbocharged form of piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where disruption and destruction have supplanted the traditional motivation of material gain. With an Iranian helping hand, the Houthis have deployed an armoury of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to attack international merchant shipping and US naval vessels across a wide area, on one occasion hijacking a vehicle carrier<\/a> (impervious to normal boarding attempts because of their high freeboard) by pirates landed by helicopter.<\/p>\n

While the Houthis\u2019 capabilities and tactics are shocking in their sophistication and audacity, the dire implications for the prevailing security order of such rampant predations against merchant shipping would be recognisable even to the Romans.<\/p>\n

The Houthi phenomenon presents a different sort of threat than previous land-based conflicts in Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, or piracy off the coast of Somalia. Shutting down a major waterway like the Red Sea to inter-regional maritime trade carries bigger potential knock-on effects. It not only threatens prosperity (whence \u2018Operation Prosperity Guardian<\/a>\u2019) but also indicates a fractured global order on the slide towards something more anarchic and dangerous than first impressions suggest.<\/p>\n

As my colleague Malcolm Davis has highlighted<\/a>, maritime security is global in nature. It is therefore appropriate for the response to be multinational in scope and trading nations to shoulder the burden of contributing assets to the maritime coalition currently being assembled under US leadership.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s decision not to commit a warship in support of Prosperity Guardian is disappointing, notwithstanding counterarguments<\/a> that it is justified by the tighter geographical focus on Australia\u2019s immediate region stipulated in the 2023 defence strategic review. The request<\/a> to do so from the US, through the alliance, was reasonable and limited. Unlike some previous US military interventions in the Middle East, Prosperity Guardian is clearly defensive and directly relevant to the interests of trading nations like Australia that depend on the health of a global trading system, not only for prosperity but also for seaborne supply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an AUKUS context, Canberra needs to be careful about denying a request to send a ship to help out an overstretched US Navy at the same time as Australia is asking the US Navy to transfer submarines out of its order of battle as soon as possible. That\u2019s not an equitable look, from an alliance viewpoint, even when Canberra\u2019s intention is to focus the Australian Defence Force\u2019s limited resources on regional commitments.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the US, Australia\u2019s reluctance to commit a significant asset to Prosperity Guardian mirrors ambivalence elsewhere in the region, including the two US Asian allies with the biggest navies and vested interests in maritime trade, Japan and South Korea. India\u2019s absence from the US-led coalition, while less surprising, is also a disappointment considering India\u2019s relative proximity and naval heft.<\/p>\n

From a more operational and instrumental point of view, participating in Prosperity Guardian presents a significant opportunity for the Royal Australian Navy to hone its skills in air warfare, missile defence, escort and multinational coalition operations\u2014all key areas in which Australia\u2019s naval personnel stand to benefit from rare operational experience\u00a0in a real-world contingency. That outweighs the opportunity cost of taking a warship out of its training and exercise cycle.<\/p>\n

Only the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers possess the appropriate mix of capabilities to meet the multidimensional Houthi challenge in the Red Sea. The experience that the crew would bring back would be relevant to future contingencies in the Indo-Pacific strategic environment and stress-test the ship\u2019s performance across the board in ways that scripted exercises simply cannot.<\/p>\n

While the case for discipline under the DSR is a strong one and its focus on the Indo-Pacific is strategically correct, there\u2019s an element of strategic parochialism creeping back into Australia\u2019s defence debate, under the guise of the DSR\u2019s foreshortened, regional horizons.<\/p>\n

There will be occasions when Canberra will need to decline out-of-area requests from Washington. Yet it\u2019s worth noting that Australia currently has an E-7A Wedgetail deployed to Germany<\/a> to support supply efforts into Ukraine. Last year, an Australian P-8A Poseidon aircraft was deployed<\/a> in conjunction with NATO operations in the Mediterranean. These deployments didn\u2019t generate controversy. Nor were they seen as a distraction from the ADF\u2019s transition towards a focused force.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Red Sea isn\u2019t appreciably more distant from Australia than Northeast Asia, which although classified by Canberra as part of the Indo-Pacific isn\u2019t identified in the DSR as part of Australia\u2019s immediate region. The argument that Australia needs to husband its finite military resources to focus exclusively on the immediate region is a false one.<\/p>\n

As an island nation reliant on seaborne supply, Australia needs to prioritise its surface fleet, not only its submarine arm. Both aspects of naval capability are essential and interdependent. Nor are their respective operational ambits limited only to Australia\u2019s immediate region. From this perspective, participating in the Red Sea coalition operation is in Australia\u2019s direct strategic interests<\/a>. Alliance politics\u00a0and the opportunity to gain operational experience are important but secondary considerations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houthi forces based in Yemen are engaged in what resembles an unhinged, turbocharged form of piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where disruption and destruction have supplanted the traditional motivation of material …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":84361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,2047,1211,218,2397],"class_list":["post-84359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-defence-force","tag-australia-us-relations","tag-houthis","tag-middle-east","tag-us-alliances"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nContributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | 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\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Houthi forces based in Yemen are engaged in what resembles an unhinged, turbocharged form of piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where disruption and destruction have supplanted the traditional motivation of material ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-12-21T19:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-12-21T07:29:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"985\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Euan Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Euan Graham\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg\",\"width\":985,\"height\":682,\"caption\":\"RED SEA - NOVEMBER 20: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - 'HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER \/ HANDOUT' - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) A screen grab captured from a video shows that cargo ship 'Galaxy Leader', co-owned by an Israeli company, being hijacked by Iran-backed Houthis from Yemen in the Red Sea on November 20, 2023. (Photo by Houthis Media Center \/ Handout \/Anadolu via Getty Images)\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/\",\"name\":\"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-12-21T19:00:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-12-21T07:29:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/e1c229fa205f80c0c9955d0ba3ff0b6a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/e1c229fa205f80c0c9955d0ba3ff0b6a\",\"name\":\"Euan Graham\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfac2cf2ea2dcb9ffc1bf83be95cba9b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfac2cf2ea2dcb9ffc1bf83be95cba9b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Euan Graham\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/euan-graham\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | The Strategist","og_description":"Houthi forces based in Yemen are engaged in what resembles an unhinged, turbocharged form of piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where disruption and destruction have supplanted the traditional motivation of material ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/","og_site_name":"The Strategist","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org","article_published_time":"2023-12-21T19:00:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-12-21T07:29:50+00:00","og_image":[{"width":985,"height":682,"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Euan Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ASPI_org","twitter_site":"@ASPI_org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Euan Graham","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/","name":"The Strategist","description":"ASPI's analysis and commentary site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-1793800720.jpg","width":985,"height":682,"caption":"RED SEA - NOVEMBER 20: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - 'HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER \/ HANDOUT' - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) A screen grab captured from a video shows that cargo ship 'Galaxy Leader', co-owned by an Israeli company, being hijacked by Iran-backed Houthis from Yemen in the Red Sea on November 20, 2023. (Photo by Houthis Media Center \/ Handout \/Anadolu via Getty Images)"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/","name":"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests | The Strategist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2023-12-21T19:00:31+00:00","dateModified":"2023-12-21T07:29:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/e1c229fa205f80c0c9955d0ba3ff0b6a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/contributing-to-us-led-red-sea-coalition-is-clearly-in-australias-interests\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Contributing to US-led Red Sea coalition is clearly in Australia\u2019s interests"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/e1c229fa205f80c0c9955d0ba3ff0b6a","name":"Euan Graham","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfac2cf2ea2dcb9ffc1bf83be95cba9b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfac2cf2ea2dcb9ffc1bf83be95cba9b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Euan Graham"},"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/euan-graham\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84359"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84426,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84359\/revisions\/84426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}