The Naval Contribution to National Security and Prosperity Proceedings of the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Conference 2012 © Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2013 This work is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, and with the standard source credit included, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Inquiries should be address to the Director, Sea Power Centre - Australia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The view expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Australian Government, the Department of Defence and the Royal Australian Navy. The Commonwealth of Australia will not be legally responsible in contract, tort or otherwise for any statement made in this publication. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Library of Australia - Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Author: Forbes, Andrew, 1962 - Title: The Naval Contribution to National Security and Prosperity: Proceedings of the Royal Australian Navy Conference 2012 ISBN: 978 0 642 29769 3 Subjects: Australia, Royal Australian Navy The Naval Contribution to National Security and Prosperity Proceedings of the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Conference 2012 Edited by Andrew Forbes Sea Power Centre – Australia ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sea Power Centre - Australia was established to undertake activities to promote the study, discussion and awareness of maritime issues and strategy within the Royal Australian Navy, the Department of Defence and civil communities at large. Its mission is: • to promote understanding of sea power and its application to the security of Australia’s national interests • to manage the development of RAN doctrine and facilitate its incorporation into ADF joint doctrine • to contribute to regional engagement • contribute to the development of maritime strategic concepts and strategic and operational level doctrine, and facilitate informed forces structure decisions • to preserve, develop, and promote Australian naval history. Comments on this volume or any enquiry related to the activities of the Centre should be directed to: Director Sea Power Centre - Australia Department of Defence PO Box 7942 Canberra BC ACT 2610 AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected] Website: www.navy.gov.au/spc Contents Contents v Foreword ix Notes on Contributors xiii Abbreviations xv Part 1 Keynote Addresses Congress Opening 3 Stephen Smith Chief of Navy 17 Ray Griggs Chief of Army 23 David Morrison Chief of Air Force 29 Geoff Brown Part 2 Economics of Sea Power The Economics of Sea Power: Testing Maritime Narrative for the 21st Century 39 Geoffrey Till Is There a Threat to Australia’s Seaborne Trade? 55 Andrew Forbes and David Neumann The Importance of the Australian Hydrographic Service to Seaborne Trade 75 Jenny Daetz Australian Shipping 89 Noel Hart Part 3 Naval and Interagency Cooperation Promoting Australia as a Maritime Power: The Significance of the Law of the Sea 97 Sam Bateman and George Galdorisi Interagency Arrangements in New Zealand 115 Martyn Dunne vi | The Naval Contribution to National Security and Prosperity Maritime Cooperation in the Malacca Strait 125 Datuk Mohd Amdan Enhancing Maritime Security Cooperation 135 Ng Chee Peng Part 4 Sea Power The Marine Nationale in the Southwest and Southern Indian Ocean 141 Christian Bouchard A South African Perspective on the Indian Ocean 161 Frank van Rooyen Enhancing Mutual Trust and Cooperation to Jointly Build a Harmonious Ocean: PLAN Escort Missions in the Gulf of Aden 177 Liao Shining An Australian Perspective on International Naval Cooperation 183 Greg Sammut Maritime Operations in the Asia-Pacific Region 193 Scott Swift The Role of Sea Power in the 21st Century 199 Andrew Davies Sea Power and Security in the East and South China Seas 209 Alession Patalano Maintaining Good Order at Sea 225 Norman Friedman Part 5 Royal Australian Navy The Naval Reserve: Helping Navy Reach Further into the Community 237 Richard Phillips Maritime Medical Diplomacy as an Instrument of Soft Power 243 Rob Curtis Naval Engineering: A Lead Indicator of National Security and Prosperity 259 Mark Purcell Australia’s Future Submarine 267 Rowan Moffitt Table of Contents | vii Australian Navy Shipbuilding 275 Henry Ergas, Mark Thomson and Andrew Davies viii | Australia and its Maritime Interests: At Home and in the Region Foreword The 2012 Sea Power Conference was the seventh since the current format was conceived in 2000. Over the last 12 years this prestigious gathering, combined with the Pacific series of International Maritime Expositions and International Maritime Conferences, has explored many and varied themes, ranging from an examination of maritime war in the 21st century (2000) to old and new challenges (2004), and combined and joint operations from the sea (2010). The theme of the 2012 conference, held between 31 January and 2 February at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, was ‘The Naval Contribution to National Security and Prosperity.’ The premise was designed to focus on the wider utility of navies as part of a continuing effort to inform the public about the value of navies. While similar initiatives have been undertaken before, the issue of public (and wider Defence) education and awareness is perennial. This problem is faced by many navies, and is relevant to Australia where a continentalist mindset has typified public debate. The maritime domain remains vital to Australia’s national security and prosperity, a point made in the 2009 Defence White Paper, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030. The 26 papers presented are divided into five parts. As has become a regular feature of recent conferences, the opening sessions included a series of speeches delivered by the Australian Defence Force’s senior leadership: the Minister for Defence and the three Service chiefs. These comprise Part One of the conference proceedings. What is striking about the Service chiefs’ papers in particular is the degree of convergence in thinking regarding the future of the ADF, the importance of a maritime strategy for Australia and their Services’ role in that maritime strategy. This collaborative thinking has been a theme in many of their follow on speeches throughout 2012, indicating an evolution in appreciation for the centrality of maritime strategy in Australian Defence policy. Part Two, The Economics of Seapower, underpins the notion of navies as key stakeholders in national prosperity. Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Till, one of the world’s foremost maritime strategists, begins by testing the maritime narrative for this century. Following an historical analysis, he settles on two essential pieces of advice for those powers that seek to defend their capacity to profit from the maritime approach’s cost-effectiveness: defend the system against whatever may threaten it, and moderate objectives in order to keep costs manageable. As Professor Till acknowledges, there is little new in that suggestion. The maritime approach of direct and indirect defence of trade, maintenance of maritime security, capacity building, offshore balancing and limited engagement for maximum effect, is a strategy that x | Australia and its Maritime Interests: At Home and in the Region has served maritime powers well for several hundred years. With this in mind, Dr Sam Tangredi; Mr Andrew Forbes and Commander David Neumann, RANR; Captain Jenny Daetz, RAN; and Mr Noel Hart provide various perspectives of Australian shipping and seaborne trade. Having laid the foundation for navies as guarantors of prosperity, Part Three, Naval and Interagency Cooperation, examines the role of maritime cooperation. Doctor Sam Bateman and Captain George Galdorisi, USN (Rtd), lead by postulating how Australia might use the law of the sea as a tool to promote Australia as a maritime power. His Excellency Major General Martyn Dunne, CNZM (Rtd), details the interagency cooperative approach used by New Zealand, while Admiral Datuk Mohd Amdan bin Kurish of the Malaysian Navy and Rear Admiral Ng Chee Peng, RSN, outline aspects of maritime security cooperation from Malaysian and Singaporean perspectives respectively. Part Four examines the fundamentals of seapower through a range of lenses. Doctors Christian Bouchard and William Crumplin provide a French view of the Indian Ocean, and Captain Frank van Rooyen, SA Navy (Rtd), a South African one. Commodore Greg Sammut, RAN, provides an Australian perspective of international naval cooperation, framed by his experiences in command of Combined Task Force 150 and overseeing the provision of maritime security covering the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman. Vice Admiral Scott Swift, USN, complements this paper with his own thoughts on maritime partnerships, seen from his vantage on the opposite side of the Indo-Pacific, in command of the Japan-based US 7th Fleet. Doctor Andrew Davies’s paper is a worthy contribution to the discussion. Although he takes a dissenting view on some aspects of current maritime strategic thought, it is an important reminder to naval professionals to consider carefully the use of history in the critical analysis of contemporary circumstances. Still, Mark Twain observed that ‘while history