Tag Archive for: maritime capability

For a faster solution to nearby maritime threats, look to the Australian Army

China’s not-so-subtle attempt at gunboat diplomacy over the past two weeks has encountered various levels of indignation in Australia and throughout the region. Many have pointed out that the passage of a three-ship naval task group about 500 kilometres off Australia’s east coast took place in international waters, a comment echoed in China, where officials have accused Australian politicians of ‘deliberately hyping’ the issue.

Many commentators have seized this opportunity to highlight the failure of Australia’s naval shipbuilding program over generations to meet the necessary ship production numbers for national security. They also point out that the current surface-ship building program will not take effect until the 2030s.

This misses a deeper point, however: what if the Chinese navy did sortie into our waters, or worse still, decided to interfere with our air and maritime movements by declaring, for instance, an air defence identification zone, similar to what occurs in the waters off Taiwan every time the Taiwanese disturb the Chinese Communist Party? Could we take any action?

The answer to this question goes to the core of Australian defence policy in 2025.

Military strategy is often described as ‘ends, ways, and means’, which serves as a useful model for understanding the application of strategy. In this context, the ends represent the ambitions of the 2024 National Defence Strategy, which aims to deter any hostile acts against Australian territory, its people and international interests. Deterrence is achieved through effective diplomacy, a strong economy and, in this case, military hard power.

With deterrence established in policy as an end, the ways logically follow. Referring to our observations from the past two weeks, ways would manifest as an operational concept or plan to deny the Chinese open access to our home waters. This might involve an Australian-flagged maritime task group that could be rapidly deployed and capable of shadowing and deterring the Chinese. Typically, this task group would consist of frigates, submarines and supply ships. Other methods would include air power, such as maritime surveillance and strike aircraft from the Royal Australian Air Force.

With ends and ways established, the final element of applying military strategy is the means, which essentially represent the forces and platforms necessary to carry out military operations. Here, the Australian Defence Force may face some challenges in the period leading up to 2030, as much of the capability being acquired by the government through its National Defence Strategy is not scheduled to become operational before the end of the decade. While the National Defence Strategy outlines ends, ways and means for the early 2030s, there is some risk in generating the tools for military strategy in the interim.

This brings us back to the dilemma posed by the Chinese naval group off Australia over the past two weeks. Despite the fleet of ships remaining in international waters and the comments from many that this activity raises no concerns for our future defence capability plans, it nonetheless does reflect on our current military capacity and highlights the urgent need for ongoing improvements in force projection, sea control and, where necessary, maritime strike.

More ships, submarines and long-range missiles will be essential for future solutions beyond 2030. But what about the present? One potential solution is to use the Australian Army, whose advancements in developing a future force focused on Australia’s maritime and littoral approaches are often overlooked in political discussions regarding the nation’s defence forces.

In the realm of land-based maritime strike, the government could accept some capability risk to expedite the acquisition of land-based anti-ship missiles. These systems can deter any foreign navy or future hostile power from entering home waters. The army could deter a blue-water navy in local waters, much as the Ukrainian Army has driven off the Russian Black Sea Fleet. While the Pacific Ocean is vast and land-based strike has its limitations, this strategy offers an immediate capability for defending home waters and addressing recent events, in contrast to ships and missiles not scheduled to arrive until 2030.

With the rapid acquisition of an army system to complement developments in the navy and the air force, Australia could calibrate its ends, ways and means both now and beyond 2030 as major projects are delivered.

The presence last week of a Chinese naval task group off our east coast in international waters demonstrates the sudden and dramatic pressure the Chinese navy can exert on our neighbourhood. Australia must implement an effective military strategy now; it cannot wait until 2030.

Air and maritime defence, not ground combat, should be Indonesia’s priorities

Indonesia isn’t doing enough in acquiring advanced naval and air systems. Too much money and focus are still being spent on the army, the traditionally dominant service—yet the country hardly faces a risk of a ground war.

The greater concern would be a threat from China, which can only come by sea and air. This is seen in Beijing’s increasing provocations against its neighbours, particularly Taiwan and the Philippines.

Indonesia’s main military shortcomings are its lack of airborne-early-warning, land-based anti-ship and surface-to-air capabilities. Establishing or strengthening them would mean reallocating funds from the army.

The risk of military escalation between Indonesia and China cannot be taken lightly despite their close diplomatic and economic relations. One of the main reasons for taking it seriously is that China already has ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea with some other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, particularly Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

While Jakarta is not a claimant in the territorial disputes, Chinese incursions into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone have become increasingly frequent. In October and November 2024 alone, the China Coast Guard made multiple infringements in the North Natuna Sea, off Borneo, prompting Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency to dispatch vessels in response.

Yet, the head of the agency, Vice Admiral Irvansyah, has highlighted the stark inadequacy of Indonesia’s maritime patrol capabilities. With only 10 ships distributed across three operational areas, the agency falls far short of its ideal fleet of 90 ships needed to patrol Indonesian waters effectively. This inadequacy reflects the broader imbalance in Indonesia’s defence priorities.

Jakarta continues to favour the modernisation of the army, while the navy and air force fall behind.

Of the approved 155 trillion rupiah ($15.1 billion) for the 2025 defence budget, 54 trillion rupiah ($5.3 billion) is allocated to the army, while the navy and air force receive just 20 trillion ($1.9 billion) rupiah and 18 trillion rupiah ($1.8 billion), respectively.

As an archipelagic nation, Indonesia’s security depends on a strong navy to protect its vast waters and a capable air force to secure its skies.

History has shown the importance of maritime power, as demonstrated by the might of the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires, which both originated from Indonesia. Today, Indonesia must adopt a similarly maritime-focused strategy, supported by modern technology.

Airborne early warning aircraft, coastal-defence batteries and air-defence missile systems are particularly needed for monitoring and deterring potential threats.

Indonesia has only a weak ability to see what is going on in its own airspace. Foreign aircraft or even cruise missiles may fly into that airspace without the armed forces knowing, or if they are discovered the Indonesian response could be far too late. A group of airborne early warning aircraft would go a long way towards remedying the problem. Options are the SAAB GlobalEye and Boeing E-7.

Lack of a coastal-defence missile batteries leaves Indonesia vulnerable to maritime incursions. The government has made progress in modernising the navy through the procurement of Scorpene submarines, FREMM frigates and indigenous patrol vessels. But these efforts must be complemented by anti-ship missile systems on shore, which would be easy to hide and hard for an enemy to deal with.

Options include the BrahMos missile developed and manufactured by Russia and India, the US Harpoon, the French Exocet, the Turkish Atmaca and even the Chinese YJ-12E. Media last year reported plans to buy YJ-12Es, but Jakarta should carefully consider geopolitical implications of such a deal and whether weapons that China offers for export would be as effective as competitors’.

Indonesia has also shown interest in acquire the BrahMos missiles. This would make Indonesia the second ASEAN country to acquire such technology after the Philippines. The deal would include versions for launch from ships and the shore.

Buying BrahMos missiles would help diversify Indonesia’s sources of weapons and make it less vulnerable to arms embargoes or other interruptions of supply. The French and Turkish missiles would still be good alternatives, however.

Such weapons might be operated by the army, but the navy is the service that has expressed interest in acquiring them.

Finally, Indonesia’s spending on modern air-defence systems must also be expanded. While the acquisition of Turkish Hisar batteries, firing anti-aircraft missiles of short to medium range, is a step in the right direction, more systems are needed to cover key strategic areas. Only with a robust air-defence network can Jakarta counter potential sorties and incursions by adversaries.

Since the Ministry of Defence allocated the NASAMs surface-to-air batteries to the air force, that service would be the likely operator of any air-defence systems of medium or long range from future acquisitions.

Indonesia’s defence strategy must evolve to reflect changing geopolitical circumstances. As a maritime nation, its security depends on a strong navy and air force equipped with modern technology. It needs to reallocate defence spending before it is too late.

Indonesia needs to improve its seabed warfare capability

Despite being the largest archipelagic nation in the world, Indonesia has weak seabed warfare capability. Improving it should be a priority for Jakarta.

As an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, the country is uniquely reliant on seabed infrastructure and is therefore unusually vulnerable to disruption of its pipelines or cables. It has little ability to prevent or recover from damage to its seabed assets and lacks the hardware, skills and planning needed to cope with threats.

Moreover, many international undersea cables, some connecting continents, also pass through Indonesia’s waters, so the country’s capacity in seabed warfare has regional and global importance.

No disruptions to underwater infrastructure in and around Indonesia attributed to foul play have been reported so far. However, it is clear that risks are rising with the escalation of maritime disputes in the South China Sea and the rivalry between the United States and China. To imagine the risks, we need only consider the recent cutting of the Nord Stream pipelines and telecommunications cables under the Baltic Sea, evidently by Russia and perhaps with help from China.

In Indonesia, an underwater pipeline carries natural gas from Java to Singapore, while all of the populated islands rely on communications cables to connect them with each other and the world. Moreover, Indonesia operates an underwater power transmission line between Sumatera and the Bangka islands and plans to build an electricity grid that would connect all of the major islands.

The first  and most urgent step for Indonesia in improving its seabed assets and preparing for any potential attacks is to acquire or upgrade vessels with more advanced underwater capabilities. Currently, Indonesia’s hardware supply is limited, comprising three submarines, whose sonars might be helpful, two mine countermeasures vessels acquired in the 1990s and a few oceanographic research vessels with such equipment as precision sonar array for seabed mapping and submarine drones.

Jakarta has put some priority in enhancing its subsurface capabilities in recent years. It has signed a contract to buy two Improved Scorpene-class submarines from France; is building two hydrographic survey vessels with advanced subsurface capabilities in collaboration with Germany; acquired a submarine rescue ship designed for deep-sea diving and salvage operations; and taken delivery of two patrol vessels of the Paolo Thaon Di Revel class, designed to be equipped with underwater capabilities, such as sonar. Additionally, it has recently commissioned two newly-built mine countermeasures vessels from Germany.

This collection of ships is still small compared with scale of underwater infrastructure for such a country. The needs of an archipelago justify spending more, especially when potential losses from disruption are considered.

Indonesia must also develop skills in protecting and repairing seabed infrastructure. Its sailors do train in hunting and destroying sea mines, including capabilities that have some value in relation to underwater civilian assets. But there is no record of Indonesia’s navy or any Indonesian maritime security agency conducting specific exercises in, for example, finding and fixing broken seabed cables.

The government should start specific training and expand the scope mine-countermeasures training accordingly. It could, for example, enlarge the regular Indonesia–Singapore bilateral mine-countermeasure (MCM) and clearance diving exercises. It should also take advantage of defence cooperation with countries such as Australia, Japan, France and the US to hold joint exercises on seabed warfare.

Lastly, Indonesia should create a seabed security strategy that will guide long-term improvements to its seabed warfare capabilities. For this, the government will need to perceive the importance of seabed infrastructure and identify the threats to it. It must also assess current capabilities so it can determine what kind of hardware, training and operational procedures are necessary to safeguard the seabed assets. Finally, the strategy should outline the measures needed to achieve these goals.

In developing such a strategy, Indonesia would need to learn from other countries. This can be done through personnel exchanges, visits and other forms of defence cooperation. Exercises can help in this regard, too.

Ultimately, it is essential for Indonesia to develop a comprehensive seabed security strategy that focuses on threat assessment, capability enhancement and operational procedures. By learning global best practices and fostering defence partnerships, Indonesia can better protect its vital seabed assets and contribute to both regional and international security.

The Quad should help Indonesia achieve underwater domain awareness

Indonesia’s underwater domain awareness (UDA) is a critical gap that the Quad security partners—Australia, India, Japan and the United States—can and should fill. UDA includes detecting and monitoring underwater activities, including tracking submarines and protecting underwater resources against espionage.

It’s also a means for researching marine environments, which is vital for economic and environmental advances. Collective support from the Quad nations can be instrumental in bridging Indonesian technological and operational gaps to secure its underwater domain.

The underwater realm has become a contested area in the Indo-Pacific, placing significant pressure on the Indonesian military and law enforcement to build the country’s UDA.

First, the South China Sea dispute and the rivalry between the US and China raise concerns for regional littorals. In 2020, Indonesian fishermen discovered a Chinese uncrewed submarine near South Sulawesi. Indonesian authorities also suspect that Chinese oceanographic vessels using the Sunda and Lombok straits are gathering data that could aid China’s submarine operations.

Second, the geopolitical rivalry is also leading to the proliferation of submarines in the region. All Southeast Asian nations, except landlocked Laos, have acquired submarine fleets or intend to do so. The AUKUS trilateral partnership of Australia, the UK and the US seeks to strengthen Australia’s submarine capabilities by developing nuclear submarines to be operated by Australia. The submarines could be positioned near Indonesian waters, raising safety concerns, as Indonesia also operates submarines. The sinking of the Indonesian submarines KRI Nanggala during a torpedo drill in April 2021 was a reminder of the danger of underwater operations.

Third, Indonesian waters are vast, and monitoring the seabed is vital, including to protect subsea pipelines and cables.

These issues have prompted Indonesia to prioritise the development of UDA.

However, the ambition is inconsistent with Indonesia’s limited capacity in undersea warfare. The Indonesian navy currently operates four diesel-electric attack submarines of the Cakra and Nagapasa classes. Additionally, it has bought 11 Airbus AS 565MBe Panther helicopters for antisubmarine warfare. These have short range and endurance compared with maritime-patrol aeroplanes.

In March 2024, Indonesia finalised an agreement with the French company Naval Group and Indonesia’s own PT PAL to build two Scorpene class submarines with lithium-ion batteries at PT PAL’s shipyard. Indonesian defence experts note that the Scorpenes will be able to deploy uncrewed submarines.

According to Indonesia’s navy chief, Admiral Muhammad Ali, the country needs at least 12 full-size submarines to monitor its maritime territory adequately. Additionally, some Indonesian scholars note that the navy has proposed establishing underwater detection networks similar to the US Sound Surveillance System, better known as SOSUS, at the nation’s strategic chokepoints. This would be a major step forward for UDA, but details of are murky.

Indonesia’s UDA capabilities will not only serve a military purpose; they will support the country’s economic and environmental security. They can provide Indonesia with a significant advantage in exploring seabed resources, enabling Jakarta to uncover and use valuable marine resources effectively. UDA can also improve tsunami early warning systems through deep-water acoustic sensors, similar to systems used in India.

However, Indonesia is encountering constraints in developing UDA. They include inadequate infrastructure, shortage of money, limited personnel training and insufficient access to advanced sonar systems, underwater drones and satellite surveillance. Integrating data from multiple sources for real-time analysis remains a major hurdle. Addressing those gaps requires international collaboration, particularly with technologically advanced and strategically aligned partners such as the Quad nations.

They can support Indonesia in developing UDA by providing technological and operational assistance.

The Quad has the capacity to provide Indonesia with advanced surveillance technology, which includes underwater drones, sonar systems and satellite imaging tools. The Quad’s Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific can equip Indonesian personnel with the essential skills to operate and maintain those technologies. Joint maritime exercises would enhance Indonesia’s tactical and operational strengths. Moreover, the Quad can help Indonesia establish infrastructure for efficient data integration and real-time analysis, leveraging India’s expertise from its Information Fusion Centre for regional maritime security.

Second, the Quad can help to secure Indonesia’s maritime infrastructure. Japan has decades of experience in operating underwater sensor systems for monitoring waters around its islands and especially ports. It could help upgrade Indonesia’s port security and improve its monitoring of underwater traffic and infrastructure. The Quad’s Australia-based Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre can build Indonesia’s capacity in that area.

Indonesia’s quest for enhanced UDA is both a national priority and a regional necessity. In 2023, Indonesia’s then-president Joko Widodo wished to view the Quad and AUKUS as ‘partners, not competitors’. According to a survey conducted by Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency in December 2023, 51 percent of Indonesian government officials agreed that the Quad ‘strengthens regional security and stability’. Among academics, more than 60 percent agreed. The Quad’s concrete security assistance to Indonesia, such as in UDA capabilities, might increase this proportion further.

Great progress and greater potential: Australia needs to accelerate programs for uncrewed naval vessels

Australia is doing well in developing uncrewed naval vessels. Now it needs to redouble efforts to get them into service faster. Application of asymmetric technology is a declared outcome of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) to generate deterrence by denial, so these systems should be moved to the front of the queue.

The Australian Defence Force has designs for three uncrewed vessels in development: the extra large uncrewed submarine Ghost Shark by Anduril Australia in Sydney, the smaller Speartooth submarine by Melbourne’s C2 Robotics, and the Bluebottle boat by Sydney’s Ocius Technology. Each craft is the result of navy-industry collaboration. When the three are operated together as a maritime system, they offer excellent combinations of capabilities and force multiplication, achieving outcomes that no single type could achieve alone.

The selection of the designs appears to be intended to provide effects over an expected future maritime battle space involving the extremely large distances and wide areas of the Indo-Pacific. Australia doesn’t have the workforce, the funding or the time to do that with only crewed platforms. Uncrewed craft are necessary to provide numbers and breadth of coverage in such a large area of operations, and they come with the triple bonus of being highly affordable, imposing low demands on the navy’s workforce, and prompt availability. Working together, the three systems are significantly greater than the sum of each individually.

The Bluebottle’s key advantages are low-cost persistence by use of environmental energy—wind, waves and sunlight for propulsion and electricity—its need for only a small support crew, little equipment and few spare parts ashore.

The Speartooth has long range, is inexpensive and can therefore be made in high volumes. Also, it has very low logistics footprint for storage, launching, recovering and operation.

The Ghost Shark’s key advantages are a large payload volume and very long range and endurance.

While details have not been released, the Speartooth and Ghost Shark presumably use battery-electric propulsion.

Importantly, these vessels are not for next decade in the DSR’s third epoch. The Bluebottle is mature and mission ready. Long-range maritime operations are standard everyday activities for Bluebottles that have already been delivered to the navy. The Speartooth is continuing intensive testing and trials, with more than two years in the water so far and a number of units operating frequently in a test environment. The Ghost Shark is also progressing rapidly, ahead of schedule, with in-water testing well underway.

For all three, testing is showing low workforce demands. Allocated personnel are operating many of these uncrewed systems concurrently. Humans assist and direct them but do not continuously control them.

Uses for the three designs range widely from augmenting contemporary maritime operations to extreme asymmetry—technological outmatching of the opponent. First, uncrewed submarines will probably be the most forward-deployed maritime units. The key advantage of any underwater system is in stealth, and uncrewed subs will use it to penetrate adversary defences and sea lines of communications, projecting capabilities at maximum ranges.

In a conventional operation, the Speartooth subs are likely to be the first line of engagement. Since they are inexpensive, they can be numerous, and losses could be easily afforded. Indeed, large numbers can be sent forward with the expectation that many (or most) won’t come back.

Their deployment in large numbers would raise the enemy’s challenge in looking for and eliminating them, tying up precious antisubmarine warfare resources on these relatively low-value targets. Being small, they can get to places that would be hard for crewed submarines to navigate, such as shallows or constricted waters where turns must be tight.

Speartooths’ payloads would probably also be made cheaply and in large volumes. We may imagine this as a whole host of tricks that could include a wide range of sensors (such as sonars and radio receivers for surveillance) and effectors (such as mines or small torpedoes, or the uncrewed submarine itself acting as a torpedo). A Speartooth could even be noisily present simply to confuse and disrupt an adversary network by acting as decoy by mimicking the sound, magnetic signature or even volume of another underwater object. With a simple mission update, a Speartooth could be tasked to a location to look like an AUKUS or Quad nation submarine, or to generate even greater confusion as a Chinese, Russian or North Korean submarine. The imagination goes wild with the possibilities.

During a period of competition short of war, Ghost Sharks will be forward, maintaining continuous and close surveillance. In war they would probably sit back somewhat, carrying higher-value payloads, but move forward to help outweigh an enemy’s strength in a particular area for a while. Speartooths can be a shield behind which the more-sophisticated Ghost Sharks could operate more effectively to activate or deploy larger and more elaborate payloads.

Ghost Sharks will have more payload space and much greater power reserves than Speartooths, for large, energy-intensive payloads and higher deployment speeds. Their price will put them above the range of expendable equipment, so we will want Ghost Sharks to come back most of the time. They may need protection and usually won’t be exposed to high risk of detection and destruction.

So the Speartooth and Ghost Shark designs appear to very neatly complement one another.

They will also be produced at scale here in Australia. These are two cards that the ADF can play when required to mobilise large numbers of craft. We can export them to allies and friends, too.

Bluebottles will probably sit further back, providing many support functions to forward deployed uncrewed submarines. As surface vessels, they can be detected and targeted much more readily than subsurface systems; However, they provide persistent presence in ways that can’t be provided from below the surface, thanks to their use of the wind and sun to keep them going. Plausible functions include surface surveillance, acting as a persistent communication relay, and potentially even recharging of uncrewed subs, using batteries or generators aboard the Bluebottles. They can also contribute to combat operations with radar, cameras and electronic warfare systems above the water and sonars below it, listening for and attempting to detect and track adversary submarines.

Supported by uncrewed boats and submarines, crewed ships and subs have more options in achieving operational tasks. Maritime autonomous systems are likely to be a critical element in the survival and employment of the small numbers of crewed vessels that the ADF has. The ADF really needs to protect crewed ships and submarines: the loss of any would be a national tragedy, taking lives and depriving the ADF of an extremely rare resource that would take years to replace. Risk reduction for crewed ships and subs is alone a reason for seeing accelerated investment in autonomous vessels providing extraordinarily high value-for-money.

The ADF looks in very good shape to bring serious maritime autonomous systems to fruition in the near term. The navy has chosen its designs carefully, so the three platforms working together will be far more effective than any platform on its own. Development of these world-leading systems in Australia, supported by our own industrial base, promises the great benefits of easy supportability and capability expansion.

The National Defence Strategy should accelerate these developments in any way possible. The ADF could and should be producing significant numbers of these uncrewed systems to contribute to the DSR’s demand to generate asymmetric effects from a focused force that deters by denial.

Houthis’ lesson for the US Army: how a land force can fight a maritime war

The US Army should consider borrowing a page from the playbook of Yemen’s Houthi militants.

The character of war is always changing, and the Houthis’ ongoing attacks against shipping in the Red Sea may prove to be one of the more significant inflection points in military history.

The change involves sea control and sea denial through the application of long-range precision missile fire and autonomous drone employment from the shore. The Houthis effectively blend a mix of anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and one-way attack drones to contest control over maritime lines of communication in the Red Sea littoral. They have so far damaged at least 30 merchant ships, sunk two and killed or detained several merchant sailors.

The US Army should aim for much the same capability in a contested littoral environment against an adversary such as China. Technically and tactically, the service is moving in this direction, but it needs to fully embrace the strategy to avoid becoming largely irrelevant in the major war in which the US is most likely to become involved. Army heavy formations almost certainly won’t be available in the initial fighting in a Western Pacific war.

The army can draw on efforts that are already underway in the US military. It can, for example, take inspiration from the US Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept, in which ships are widely separated but act in unison. Army units might operate similarly in the Western Pacific.

The navy is developing DMO for forces that find themselves in combat against an adversary, such as China, that can detect, track and attack US and allied assets at great distances with a variety of different weapon systems.

The army’s own Typhon or Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) program, in which it is fielding its Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) and navy SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles for strike missions, should contribute, as should research into drone technology by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In a maritime war in the Western Pacific, the army would likely have to operate on distant island bases and attack shipping in much the same way the Houthis are doing from the interior of Yemen. Geographic dispersal will be a vital aspect of survivability in the next war.

The SMRF program is already well adapted for shore-based sea control operations. So is the army’s new Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), in which units are tailored to specific theatres for long-range precision effects, including cyber, electromagnetic warfare and precision strike using weapons systems like PrSM and SM-6.

The army should apply the DMO concept to SMRF-equipped MDTFs and deploy them on bases outside the First Island Chain, the string of islands from Japan to Indonesia that hems in China.

This forward presence would contribute to integrated deterrence by forcing the Chinese military to cope with multiple operational dilemmas. It would, for example, have to track multiple distant targets simultaneously and defend against firing batteries distributed across the Western Pacific. Those batteries would demand attention because they’d have the range and lethality to strike and destroy high-value targets throughout the region.

A key aspect of Houthi operations has been the use of one-way attack drones—in effect propellor-driven cruise missiles that are extremely cheap and numerous, presenting unsustainable economic challenge, given the cost of defensive interceptors like SM-2s and SM-6s. Here too, the US Army can learn from the Houthis and adapt to use similar tactics. DARPA’s work, for instance, on offensive swarming drones will be a vital advance in how US thinks about and executes offensive maritime operations and sea control or denial.

To Houthi tactics, add strategic mobility. Here, the utility of the US Air Force’s heavy airlifters comes into play. They can deploy ground units almost anywhere that has even a rough airfield, greatly reinforcing the army’s ability to participate in an island-based maritime war. US and allied exercises should routinely practice rapid loading and unloading of systems such as HIMARS missile launchers on and off C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft.

A valuable effect of such exercises would be honing interoperability between US services and between them and allied militaries. Indeed, highly capable US allies, such as Australia, should play a major role in how the US Army and broader joint forces think about fighting in the Western Pacific.

The US Army and allied forces can achieve a war-altering advantage if they learn from and apply the Houthi tactic of controlling the sea from the shore with inexpensive drones and long-range precision strike weapons and if they blend this technique with air mobility.

The Houthis are unlikely teachers but teachers nonetheless. Houthi operations have demonstrated that shore-based sea control and sea denial can be highly effective. They have shown how the US Army and US partners and allies should incorporate new tactics and weapons systems into their forces before the next war comes.

Australian navy, army, air force … what’s missing? A strong merchant navy

Queensland’s Kenilworth war memorial seems unremarkable to the average passerby. If you blink, you’ll miss it, and even if you don’t blink, you might still miss it.

But a keener observer would notice that there are four services represented. Along with the navy, army and air force, the memorial honours the merchant navy, acknowledging the role commercial sailors have played in Australia’s national defence.

It isn’t a military service, but in times of crisis—natural disasters, regional unrest and wars—the merchant navy has delivered food, fuel, medical equipment and arms to military efforts and kept the economy going at home. Merchant vessels have run raw materials to steel mills, fuel to distribution points, and other cargo around the country, often as defenceless targets.

Referring to the Second World War, Winston Churchill said of those wearing a merchant navy lapel badge: ‘If you ever meet one of those men, take your hat off to him because we would have lost the war if it was not for them.’

It’s no surprise, then, that the UK has made a largely bipartisan commitment since to maintain a strong merchant navy. It proved invaluable in the Falklands War, which couldn’t have been prosecuted without a requisitioned fleet of more than 40 merchant ships. One of them, the Atlantic Conveyor, was sunk by an Argentine missile, killing 12 personnel.

Rather than list the OECD countries that have maintained a merchant navy capacity, it’s simpler to name the countries that haven’t: Australia and New Zealand.

So, where does Australia rank as a shipping nation? We barely earn a mention in world shipping rankings. Even landlocked Switzerland outranks us, and the largest shipping country by tonnage globally is China.

This leaves Australia too dependent on foreign interests to move our international, and even domestic, cargo over sea.

Unsurprisingly, China performs the largest component of our sea trade, despite being unquestionably our biggest potential adversary. What would Australians think if, when they wished to fly from Sydney to Melbourne, their choices were overwhelmingly flights with China Airlines, alongside a smattering of Air India, Indonesia’s Garuda or Russia’s Aeroflot?

During the Mallacoota bushfires in January 2020, geographical luck meant that one of the few remaining Australian-crewed merchant vessels was in the area supporting the Bass Strait oil fields. It made it to Mallacoota 24 hours before the navy and provided fuel, water, supplies and, critically, a last-resort method for evacuation if needed.

During World War II, 30 Australian merchant vessels were sunk running supplies around our coast. We had the capacity to endure that then. During the 1999–2000 Australia-led operations in East Timor, two Australian-crewed merchant vessels were chartered to run supplies to Dili for some months. But that local supplier no longer exists.

A merchant fleet also provided a maritime training ground that Australia still badly needs. As an island nation dependent on sea trade, Australia needs skilled sailors, harbour masters, marine pilots, tug masters and engineers, safety regulators, port operations managers, and technical managers and marine managers for exports.

Without a strong merchant navy, we put ourselves on the path to importing these skills. It’s unacceptable that those who manage our ports, who pilot ships into and out of port, and who manage our maritime safety could be non-Australians.

Costs and industrial relations issues are cited as the reason for the hollowing out of the Australian merchant navy, but that doesn’t stop the French and other countries with frequently contested industrial frameworks from achieving ample commercial maritime resilience. The truth is we haven’t bothered, because we’ve been busy enjoying the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth the world has ever recorded. In pursuit of this growth, we accepted offers from the lowest bidder and decimated the fourth emblem on the memorial wall at Kenilworth.

If the federal government is truly seeking to build national resilience, it needs to overcome the barriers to rebuilding a merchant navy.

It can start with the seafarer tax and maritime corporate taxes, which should be aligned with those of comparable countries in the OECD.

Also, ships registered on the Australian international shipping register should be allowed trade on the Australian coast 12 months a year, and all government contracts for commercial shipping should be reviewed to ensure that they include provisions for Australian content and the training of Australian deck and engineering officers.

Finally, it’s time the government made good on its election promise of delivering a strategic fleet of 12 vessels with commercial partners for this exact purpose.

These measures taken together may not fix the problem alone, but they will breathe life into an Australian merchant navy that will be strategically critical for decades to come.

That sinking feeling: the future of surface combatants

At an ASPI conference a few years ago, I remarked that I thought that major surface combatants had been obsolete for many decades, and that the only reason we hadn’t noticed was that there hadn’t been a major naval conflict since World War II. Needless to say, that view wasn’t unanimously subscribed to by an audience that included many senior naval officers.

There was a bit of theatre in the way I chose to phrase the proposition. As I wrote a while back, all capabilities and platforms have military utility in some circumstances, and the argument should really be about whether the cost of acquiring and sustaining a capability is commensurate with the benefits that accrue from having it. Of course, the persistence, reach and firepower of surface combatants have utility and, at the very least, an adversary will be required to make a considerable effort—and may incur significant losses—to neutralise them.

But my instinct remains that surface fleets would face mortal peril in peer-on-peer conflict, especially when within range of enemy sensors, missile systems or aircraft. The disadvantages of surface vessels are easy to list: they are large and slow, their major defensive systems can’t be reloaded at sea, and they are confined to manoeuvring in two dimensions. Conversely, the threats they face are small, fast, numerous and able to manoeuvre in three dimensions.

Of course, it isn’t a one-way fight, and surface combatants can defend themselves with varying degrees of effectiveness against the various threats likely to come their way. But if there are enough incoming threats, even highly reliable defensive systems will eventually let one through, or run out of ammunition. Sam Goldsmith’s recent Strategist post on the undersized magazines being built into Australia’s future frigates is right in its basic idea that more is better where defensive shots are concerned.

There are other possible approaches to survivability in the face of a competent adversary with enough weaponry to sustain an attack. One might try to interdict the ‘kill chain’ further upstream, perhaps by disrupting the adversary’s C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems enough to prevent vessels from being targeted in the first place. Or ships could stand off beyond the offensive systems’ reach and try to deliver effects from a safe distance.

But sometimes you’ll want to control the sea to use it for your own purposes, and it won’t generally be possible to do that from afar. Many of Australia’s military strategies involve sea control, and national capability shortfalls such as a lack of a strategic fuel reserve render us vulnerable to maritime interdiction. We need to be able to use the sea, and our current approach seems to be based on an assumption that a dozen or so frigates will enable that. Two books I read recently have helped clarify my thinking about the future of surface combatants. Each of them illustrates the unique advantages that use of the sea can provide, and they both illustrate the costs that can accrue.

In Operation Pedestal, historian Max Hastings tells the harrowing story of a powerful Royal Navy taskforce, including fast merchant ships, assembled to resupply the beleaguered island of Malta in August 1942. The fleet had to run the gauntlet of Axis aircraft and submarines half the length of the Mediterranean. The sinking by the Japanese of two of the Royal Navy’s major surface combatants in the South China Sea in December the previous year was a rude awakening that demonstrated the necessity for organic air defence for maritime operations within range of enemy land-based aircraft. The Pedestal convoy was therefore provided with substantial defensive resources, including three aircraft carriers (with a fourth attached to a support force). Even so, heavy losses were expected.

The Pedestal fleet’s carrier aircraft and anti-aircraft batteries managed to beat off many air attacks, but enough got through to wreak havoc on the convoy. The damage was exacerbated by torpedo attacks from submarines and fast small boats. In all, the attackers managed to sink an aircraft carrier and ‘mission kill’ another. They also sank two light cruisers, a destroyer and nine of the 14 merchant vessels. Five other vessels were damaged, some beyond repair. That was all achieved for the loss of around 50 aircraft and two submarines.

Importantly, one of the five merchant vessels to arrive in Malta was a tanker, which provided enough fuel to continue air and sea operations for several months. (The story of the survival of the tanker, SS Ohio, is an extraordinary tale of luck, bravery and seamanship, well told by Hastings.) Strategically, the mission might be counted a success, since it kept Malta in the war, allowing aircraft based there to be a continuing menace to the resupply of German forces in North Africa. And only ships could have delivered the quantity of supplies required, which continues to be the case today. But the cost was high, and a repeat, should it have been required, would have been practically impossible.

Similarly, convoys sailed from the UK, US and Iceland to deliver materiel to the Soviets from 1941 to 1945. Losses were sometimes very high—convoy PQ17, for example, lost 24 of 35 merchant vessels a month before Pedestal. Overall, 16 warships and 85 merchant vessels were sunk, but the alliance-management and military benefits of the vehicles, ordnance and aircraft delivered by sea offset those substantial losses.

Sealift was also required to move the men and materiel needed for the American ‘island hopping’ campaign in the Pacific War, as detailed by Ian Toll in the final book of his Pacific War trilogy, Twilight of the gods. By 1945 the US had an overwhelming superiority in numbers of ships and aircraft, and Japan was by then a non-peer competitor against vast American resources. But Japanese forces still managed to inflict serious losses on the American fleet during the invasion of Okinawa through kamikaze attacks, in which pilots deliberately flew their aircraft into ships. In that first concerted use of (man) guided weapons, more than 400 vessels were struck. Some were sunk and many others were forced out of the fight by the damage inflicted. But the sheer size of the American fleet allowed it to absorb the losses and prevail—the US Navy had well over 100 fleet and escort aircraft carriers alone in 1945, and around 1,000 combatant vessels in total.

The most significant maritime conflict since World War II is probably the Falklands War of 1982, in which Argentina came close to defeating a Royal Navy taskforce, sinking four surface combatants and several other vessels. When I’ve discussed that conflict with supporters of surface combatants, they sometimes argue that it wasn’t a true test of sea power because the British defences had been allowed to fall well behind the state of the art—to which I point out that at least some of the British systems were recent and highly capable, and the fleet had its own fighter defence in the form of Sea Harriers. And it’s not like the attackers were top shelf—the Argentine forces had a single-digit number of Exocet guided weapons available, but then managed multiple hits on vessels with ‘dumb’ gravity bombs after the Exocets ran out.

Obviously, we don’t have contemporary data. But the historical data bears out the perils of ships in the face of concerted attacks. And I think the trends since then have all gone the wrong way for surface vessels. The ships of the 1940s had defensive capabilities with much deeper magazines than today’s vessels (such as our future Hunter-class frigates with just 32 missile cells), allowing them to defend themselves in contested waters for longer.

Military fleets today are much smaller than their predecessors, so losing even a handful of major units could be a crippling blow. And the decline of national shipping fleets in Australia and allied countries means that we can’t press civilian merchant vessels into service as was done in World War II, though the federal opposition recently announced a policy to stand up a small Australian-flagged fleet. Finally—and possibly most importantly—the calculus of relative size, speed and manoeuvrability remains highly unfavourable.

The rational—and historically observed—response to increased lethality on the battlefield is an increased dispersion of forces. Instead, we’re responding to a more lethal maritime environment by building smaller numbers of increasingly expensive and irreplaceable (at least on the likely timescale of conflict) vessels, with a greater proportion of their payload devoted to self-defence.

As the historical examples show, it’s sometimes vital to be able to use the sea, at least for limited times at critical junctures. As an island continent, our military options will be limited if we can’t do that, and we also could face critical supply problems. We should be thinking about how to manage those issues in a future in which our prize assets could struggle badly. I’m pretty sure that putting our increasingly vulnerable eggs into fewer baskets isn’t the right approach.

What’s up with the Royal Australian Navy’s weapons program?

Last month, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds put out a media release announcing a boost to Australia’s maritime security. Its focus was the navy’s weapons program. The announcement had a medley of numbers—a $1 billion investment in weapons, a $24 billion investment in weapons, a $75 billion investment in maritime capability and a $183 billion naval shipbuilding plan. It also referred to a broad range of weapons: long-range anti-ship and extended range surface-to-air missiles; advanced lightweight torpedos; and maritime land strike missiles with a 1,500-kilometre range. There were also mentions of the ‘early development of advanced guided weapons’ and ‘opportunities to broaden Australia’s weapons manufacturing base’.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the government had agreed to design and manufacture a range of highly capable maritime weapons here in Australia. So, what’s really going on?

Let’s start with the numbers. A couple of figures in the announcement are straightforward. The $75 billion is the 2020 force structure plan’s figure (page 35) for acquisition and sustainment spending on new maritime capability over the next decade. The $183 billion is the number that the government and the Defence Department are now using for the cost of the naval shipbuilding program. That’s swelled from the original $89 billion due to the addition of new projects as well as substantial adjustments to the costs attributed publicly to the future submarine and future frigate programs.

According to Tony Dalton, Defence’s deputy secretary for naval shipbuilding, speaking at the Australian Defence Magazine’s recent annual congress, an updated naval shipbuilding and sustainment plan will soon be released with more detail on what makes up that $183 billion. As a side note, Dalton recently stated that even very large ships such as the future logistics and replenishment ships will be built in Australia at the Henderson shipyard.

The $24 billion covers the navy’s maritime weapons program. The integrated investment program that accompanied the 2016 defence white paper had a number of funding lines for maritime guided weapons, including:

  • Future Submarine Program—Weapons and systems: $5–6 billion
  • Maritime anti-ship missiles and deployable land-based capability: $4–5 billion
  • Maritime area air defence weapons: $3–4 billion
  • Future Frigate Program—Weapons: $3–4 billion
  • Destroyer Program—Area air defence weapons: $2–3 billion
  • Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) Program: $1–2 billion

Those totalled $18–24 billion. They were replaced in the 2020 force structure plan by a single line called ‘maritime guided weapons’ listed at $16.1–24.2 billion of planned expenditure over the next two decades (page 45)—that is, roughly about the same as what was there before. Nevertheless, it’s still a big number.

Those individual projects have now been rolled into one overarching program called SEA 1300. In a world where guided weapons are fundamental to warfighting, the cost of getting the selection, integration, delivery and sustainment of weapons wrong could be catastrophic, so that kind of coordinated approach to weapons is exactly what is needed.

But the media release didn’t have much detail on how the acquisition of individual weapons in the SEA 1300 program is progressing. Defence provided us with clarifications, stating that the government has recently provided:

– Interim Pass approval for Defence’s continued contribution to the Evolved SEASPARROW (ESSM) Block 2 missile program through the NATO SEASPARROW Consortium;

– First Pass approval to invest in developing the Standard Missile 2 Block IIIC and Standard Missile 6 Block 1 weapons;

– First Pass approval to participate in an armaments cooperative program with the USN to develop the Mk 54 Mod 2 advanced lightweight torpedo; and

– First Pass approval to evaluate Maritime and Land Strike capability options.

In lay terms, ‘first pass’ means approval to fund development work, including the all-important work needed to integrate the weapons into our ships and their combat systems. Second pass is normally approval to acquire warstocks of the weapons themselves. The $1 billion in the announcement covers the next stage of project development work for those weapons; it doesn’t acquire any actual weapons.

Let’s look at those individual activities. Australia has already contributed hundreds of millions to the US-led international consortium developing the ESSM Block II, a very capable short-range air-defence missile that will replace the older version of the ESSM on the Anzac-class frigates and Hobart-class destroyers and also be employed on the Hunter-class frigates. ‘Interim pass’ keeps that participation going along with integration work. According to Defence, it will seek approval to acquire missiles once the weapon achieves final certification. Since the Anzac frigates can’t employ the longer-range SM-2 or SM-6 missiles, giving them the most capable version of the ESSM is vital to ensuring their relevance, considering the last ships in the class are likely to be in service into the 2040s.

Participation in the SM-6 Block I and SM-2 Block IIIC programs is also a good thing, particularly since the SM-6 provides protection against anti-ship ballistic missiles. But an in-service capability is some way off: the Hobert-class air warfare destroyers require a planned substantial upgrade to their radars and combat system to be completed (probably in the second half of the decade) before they can employ the SM-6. The navy’s stocks of SM-2 missiles have already been upgraded for use on the air warfare destroyers, but many more missiles will be needed for the future frigate fleet, plus capability upgrades will be necessary to meet evolving threats.

Approval to participate in a cooperative program to develop the Mark 54 lightweight anti-submarine torpedo is also a good thing. The navy and air force already use the Mk 54 on the Seahawk Romeo helicopter and P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, respectively, so the program will ensure ongoing upgrades to the weapon, just as the navy’s long-standing participation in a cooperative program with the US for the Mk 48 heavyweight torpedo has provided access to a steadily evolving capability for our submarines. The decision likely sounds the eventual death knell for the MU90 lightweight torpedo currently used by the navy’s surface vessels. It makes little sense for ships to continue to carry two different kinds of torpedos: the MU90 launched by the ship itself and the Mk 54 by its helicopter.

The force structure plan contains a roughly $1 billion line to develop domestic guided weapons production—but that’s not the same $1 billion as the one referred to in the minister’s announcement. While the media release’s reference to ‘opportunities to broaden Australia’s weapons manufacturing base, reinforcing this Government’s long-term commitment to Australian industry and delivering sovereign industrial capabilities’ might suggest some progress towards domestic manufacture, the government doesn’t appear to have made any decisions yet about which weapons or how they would be produced.

Overall, the individual approvals make sense. As anti-ship threats proliferate, protecting ships is becoming increasingly challenging. The combination of the ESSM, SM-2 and SM-6 will give our fleet some chance of defeating the combination of supersonic cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles being deployed in our region. Whether they can defeat the emerging threat posed by hypersonic weapons is another question. However, defending ships is an extremely expensive task; if we assume the figures in the 2016 investment plan are still broadly correct, then we’re moving further down a path towards acquisition of around $10 billion in air-defence missiles.

But remember that the 2020 defence strategic update assessed that ‘maintaining what is a capable, but largely defensive, force in the medium to long term will not best equip the ADF to deter attacks against Australia or its interests’. The government said that the ADF needed to grow ‘its self-reliant ability to deliver deterrent effects … including capabilities to hold adversary forces and infrastructure at risk further from Australia, such as longer-range strike weapons, cyber capabilities and area denial systems’.

So far, it appears the government hasn’t yet made any firm decisions on longer-range strike or area-denial weapons for the fleet. The media release does say that SEA 1300 will acquire anti-ship missiles with a range ‘in excess of 370 kilometres’ and maritime land-strike missiles with a range of 1,500 kilometres. The former sounds something like LRASM (long range, precision-guided anti-ship missile), which is already being acquired for the air force’s Super Hornets and will be integrated onto the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft. Replacement of the ageing Harpoon missiles used on the navy’s ships is sorely needed to reclaim some of the capability advantages ceded to Chinese anti-ship weapons, but again we don’t appear to have reached a second-pass decision.

Acquisition of LRASM for the fleet would be a good thing, but an anti-ship missile is hardly a new kind of capability for our defence force. What would be new is a maritime land-strike missile. One with a range of 1,500 kilometres sounds suspiciously like the Tomahawk land-attack missile, perhaps the best-known weapon of the age of precision strike, with an operational pedigree stretching back to Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

It may seem like the Tomahawk—or something like it—launched from ships would meet the intent of the 2020 strategic update to develop more offensive capability. But there are some key reasons that suggest that a ship-launched land-attack missile may not be an adequate solution to Australia’s strike needs. I’ll look at them in my next post.

Reader response: Australia’s future submarines

I welcomed Andrew Davies’s critique of the Insight Economics report on the future submarine (PDF), of which I was the principal author.

Davies substantially agrees with our findings about the major risks associated with the FSM project, in particular the risk of a major capability gap in the 2030s. Even if all goes well with the FSM and it’s delivered on schedule, the first new submarine will join the fleet when all six Collins-class submarines have reached the nominal end of their 30-year lives. And of course, there’s a very high probability that all will not go well with the FSM. The technical risks are extremely high and the industrial risks, if anything, are higher.

For example, Australian industry has only ever built six submarines, the last one 15 years ago. By contrast, the Barrow shipyard in the UK has built more than 180 submarines since 1902, yet when there was a much shorter gap in building submarines after the Cold War the skills fell away at an alarming rate. The result was that even with very substantial assistance from Electric Boat, the Astute was delivered six years late and more than 50% over budget.

In 2035, when the waters of the Asia–Pacific region will be teeming with half the world’s submarines—most of them either nuclear-powered or modern, advanced SSKs generally with air-independent propulsion—there’s a material probability that Australia won’t have even one submarine that could be sent into a high threat operational environment.

Our proposed solutions are based on the need to provide some insurance—first against the probability of a capability gap, and second against the possibility that the design of the FSM is unsatisfactory or fails to provide value for money in terms of the capability it offers.

In our view, and given that the attractive prospect of a ‘son of Collins’ design was abandoned four years ago, there are now only two possible options to avoid the capability gap.

The first is a Collins-class life extension (LOTE), which is favoured by Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne. We’re advised that it would cost around $15 billion, a figure that may cause ministers some discomfort when added to the already eye-watering budget for the FSM. Beyond the cost, however, it must be considered a highly risky option. If the LOTE for Collins, whose design is of a similar vintage to the FFG’s, produced the same outcome as that upgrade project, only four boats would be completed within the budget, they would be delivered seven years late, and they would be suitable for operations only in a low to medium threat environment. The RAN was the only navy, among many users, which attempted an FFG LOTE. No navy of the first rank would commit so much money to such a risky and second-rate option for a 30-year-old submarine.

Even if the Collins LOTE worked perfectly and came in on time and on budget, it wouldn’t provide a capability that would be regionally competitive in the 2030s. We’re advised that the boats wouldn’t incorporate air-independent propulsion or lithium-ion batteries. They may not even receive new generators. Who would want to see their children or grandchildren chugging around the South China Sea in 2040 in a submarine with diesels that belong in a museum and an indiscretion ratio that would be, at best, character-building?

The second option is to acquire six new submarines off the shelf but modified to provide a range of 10,000 nautical miles. They would have air-independent propulsion. They could also have a multi-purpose dock, with provision for unmanned underwater vehicles. They would all be delivered by 2033, would have a 30-year life and should cost well under $10 billion. And they would arguably have a greater capability than the Collins class.

We also suggest that the acquisition of a submarine tender could help address two problems. The first is the tyranny of distance: nearly half of a 10-week patrol by our submarines is taken up by very long transits. The second is the issue of crew fatigue on extended missions. If the tender were stationed at, say, Christmas Island, a four-week operation would provide the same time on station as a current 10-week mission. A tender would provide a significant force multiplier for our limited number of submarines. Of course, like all surface ships, a tender would be vulnerable in any conflict, but unlike other RAN warships could be pulled back to the mainland at very short notice.

The second advantage of the modified military-off-the-shelf solution is that it would provide cover in case the FSM program, which is highly risky, failed to provide a satisfactory solution. In that case, more of the new boats, evolved to higher standards in blocks of three, could be acquired while a longer-term solution was developed. Even after a LOTE, Collins couldn’t provide such insurance into the 2040s.

Of course, in proposing solutions at this stage of the process, we’re deep in the world of the second best. In a first best world, a proper, competitive acquisition process for the FSM would have begun 10 years ago. But we are where we are. It’s important to note that we’re not seeking any change to government decisions already taken. The FSM program would continue unchanged. The only real initiative is to invest less than $10 billion in six new, advanced submarines plus a tender, rather than $15 billion in a 10-year life extension for Collins. We consider that any evaluation of value for money and of the relative risk-adjusted return in terms of capability would show the first option to be far superior. It would also provide a valuable insurance policy against a capability gap and, down the track, the possible failure of the FSM design.