Australia's Maritime Imagination

On Tuesday night, Australian time, Dr Michael Wesley, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, gave the annual Vernon Parker Oration to the Australian Naval Institute (ANI) in Canberra. There are some remarkable aspects to this year’s oration.

Firstly, these speeches typically are given by people with firm connections to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and/or the ANI. Dr Wesley has neither and, as a Councilor of the ANI myself, this was part of the attraction in inviting him to provide this year’s oration, which was titled ‘Pacific Visions: America, China and the Contest for the Pacific.’ It is obviously a very topical issue for Indo-Pacific Asia, Australia included.

The central theme of the speech is that power rivalry between the two major Pacific powers is rooted in history, culture and values. It contains some sobering analysis:

Unlike during the Cold War, when the aims of the United States and Soviet Union were largely a mirror image, the contest for the Pacific has Washington and Beijing playing different games, with different objectives and different rules, on the same playing field.

The speech has attracted a little media interest, focused solely on the Pacific contest which is prominent in Australian defence media reporting. While you can read the speech for yourself here, I’d like to highlight the other remarkable aspects that have not been picked up by the local media so far.
Dr Wesley’s opening thoughts contained some unexpected observations:

Despite the fact that modern Australia was founded as an act of maritime strategy, and so much of our history has been shaped by sudden shifts in maritime power, Australia has not crafted a strong maritime culture at the core of its sense of self.

And I worry that without a well developed maritime imagination, Australia will struggle to comprehend the challenges it will face in the coming decades.

These views from a prominent foreign policy specialist were music to the ears of the predominantly Navy-associated audience. Yet, it should not be assumed that ‘maritime’ means ‘naval’ or ‘navy.’ In my mind, the notion of maritime imagination is a grand strategic issue. I believe that this is what Dr Wesley is hinting at and his views come at a timely cross road in Australian strategic thinking.

The US has initiated its rebalance towards the Asia Pacific region, the US Secretary of State observing that the maritime nature of the region suggest that maritime forces will play a central role. The Australian government has announced the results of its own force posture review and committed to bring forward its next Defence White Paper by one year, to mid 2013.  The government is also about to accept a White Paper examining ‘Australia in the Asia Century.’ Meanwhile, the defence budget has been cut by $5.4 billion over the forward estimates, amounting to some $25 billion since the 2009 Defence White Paper’s ambitious force structure plans.

With this as background and current regional tensions in mind, hark back to January when the three service chiefs spoke at the Sea Power Conference in Sydney. Their speeches reflected a reasonable degree of convergence in thinking on the importance of maritime strategy in Australian defence policy, and of their services’ roles in that strategy.

Time will tell whether the importance of maritime strategy in defence policy, acknowledged in Defence White Paper 2009, will survive the recent defence cuts and be given some deep analysis in the forthcoming Defence White Paper. Dr Wesley’s remarks are a clear call to revisit Australia’s maritime imagination.

This blog post represents Justin's own views, not official policy or the position of the Australian Government, Department of Defence, the Australian Defence Force or Royal Australian Navy.