Australian Army soldiers from 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, conduct amphibious operations in Zodiac inflatable boats as a CH-47F Chinook helicopter takes-off from HMAS Canberra off the coast of Tonga in 2022. (Source: Defence)
More than at any point in history, contemporary navies provide nations with a strategic game-changing capability. In a post-crisis era, Australia’s naval capabilities will provide the nation with the strategic freedom to defend our interests in a competitive global environment.
While raw, overt naval combat power and presence is critical and will only become more important in a post-crisis world and Indo-Pacific, the strategic force multipliers and connective tissue capabilities are equally important, if not more so.
As we discussed in the first part of this post-crisis force conversation about the future of the Royal Australian Navy, focusing on the “central pillar” capabilities and the composition of the future surface combatant fleet with an emphasis on power projection, lethality, scalability and sustaining concurrent deployments across the region.
However, these capabilities are just part of the equation and while forming a critical component of Australia’s post-crisis naval force and while the emphasis on power projection is apparent, there are key enabling platforms that enhance the overall strategic capabilities to secure the nation’s maritime interests in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific.
At the forefront of this is Australia’s future conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet to be procured under the trilateral AUKUS relationship which will serve as the core of the nation’s strategic deterrent capability, elevating the nation to an elite group of nations that operate a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
No less important is the nation’s sealift capabilities that provide critical mobility and logistics support for the Australian Army, support humanitarian and disaster relief missions in the region, as well as critical “auxiliary” capabilities like the nation’s hydrographic, mine hunting and laying capacity that serve as integral components of the nation’s maritime security in a post-crisis world and region.
Let’s also not forget that we are emphasising a more efficient and effective use of personnel and the adoption of novel sensor and effector technologies to create a smarter and more lethal naval force capable of securing and promoting regional peace and stability and Australia’s place in the world.
Finally, we have the nation’s maritime border patrol and interdiction force which forms the outer layer of the nation’s security in scenarios below the threshold of open peer or near-peer conflict, so we have a lot to cover!
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Our strategic deterrence force – nuclear-powered submarines and autonomous underwater systems
Debate aside about the delays and setbacks for the Collins Class replacement program, the nation’s acquisition of a nuclear-powered submarine fleet fundamentally transforms the nation’s strategic capability and weight, unfortunately, Australia will never be capable of fielding a fleet large enough to offset the submarine capability of our main strategic rivals.
Don’t confuse my ambivalence, Australia’s fleet of eight proposed submarines is a good place to start! We just need to get that number up to nine, this would allow for three submarines to be at sea at any given time, with one providing escort duties attached to the larger fleet formation, either in support of our new carrier or sealift capability, with the other two conducting, as the United Kingdom terms it, “continuous-at-sea-deterrence” patrols.
Advocating for an expansion of Australia’s SSN-AUKUS fleet echoes similar sentiments identified by William Freer and Dr Emma Salisbury for the Council on Geostrategy, in a report, titled A more lethal Royal Navy: Sharpening Britain’s naval power, in which they advocate for the acquisition of 12 SSN-AUKUS (up from the planned like-for-like replacement of the seven Astute Class boats) and “ensure their design has significant land attack and anti-ship missile capability, including vertical launching systems (VLS)” along with expanding the capacity of automation to minimise the crew requirements in face of mounting workforce shortages.
The emphasis on offensive firepower is further enhanced by the confirmation of Australian Submarine Agency Director-General Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead that Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines will be equipped with hypersonic missiles, when he said, “It (SSN-AUKUS) will be able to fire more long-range missiles or hypersonic missiles … It’ll be able to fire more long-range torpedoes. It will be able to carry a larger reactor for more power. It will be able to carry uncrewed autonomous vehicles.”
Bringing us to a critical force multiplier – autonomous underwater vehicles – again referencing the Australian-developed Ghost Shark and platforms like Boeing’s Orca, extra-large uncrewed underwater vessels as “long wingman” style force multipliers attached to our submarine fleet, without the costs associated with radically expanding the submarine fleet.
Building on this, the advent of mass producible, cost-effective surface and underwater autonomous systems like the Ocius Bluebottle, Northrop Grumman’s Manta Ray, and Leidos’ Sea Hunter platforms add further scalability to enhance maritime security and deterrence capabilities by establishing a dispersed web of sensors, linked to a scaled set of effectors establishing an important set of “trip lines” through the maritime environment of the Indo-Pacific.
Maritime border control – Australia’s Coast Guard
Many long-time readers will no doubt be familiar with my advocacy for a militarised Coast Guard, reorganising the Australian Border Force and elements of the Royal Australian Navy into a single, coherent organisation focused on maritime border security and patrol, both our northern approaches and, as has often been overlooked by successive governments, Australia’s Antarctic interests.
With one of the largest maritime exclusion zones in the world, the fact that Australia doesn’t effectively have a single, coherent Coast Guard is quite frankly a bit of a joke, instead, deferring to the Navy a responsibility that takes away from the core mission of the force, which is to fight and win at sea and secure our national interests away from the continent.
In a post-crisis world, one is obligated to ask if this business-as-usual approach is viable, as is the platforms, namely the Cape and Evolved Cape Class, respectively, currently serving in the maritime border patrol and security force (I have not raised the question of the now scaled back Arafura Class offshore patrol vessels as that has been done to death).
The scaled back Arafura Class are scheduled to undergo investigations to determine future roles either in the maritime border patrol function or in support of autonomous counter-mine, hydrographic and a range of other roles.
So it becomes clear we need a more capable and “militarised” capability to form the core of a post-crisis Coast Guard, with the force to balance both traditionally crewed platforms while maximising the capability provided by a range of aerial, underwater and surface-based autonomous systems. While I don’t want to prescribe specific platforms as solutions, it is helpful to understand what is available to fill these mission sets, with Australian-shipbuilder Austal presenting a solution in their Offshore Patrol 83 design.
Adding further range and endurance to the Coast Guard is of paramount importance. Again, this is where autonomous systems come into their own, with platforms like Bluebottle and, perhaps, most critically, the Leidos Sea Hunter come into their own, providing a rapidly scalable, commercially viable, off-the-shelf design that can be tailored to meet the unique operational requirements of Australia’s Coast Guard.
Finally, bringing us to Australia’s southern interests, in particular, Australia’s Antarctic interests that are increasingly being encroached upon and contested by near-peer and peer competitors with potentially nefarious intentions against the “soft underbelly” of the nation.
Protecting the nation’s southern interests requires both ambition and consistent, considered investment in our Australian Antarctic Division and it’s maritime capabilities. Importantly, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to securing our southern maritime border, with a range of shipbuilders around the world providing a fit-for-purpose multipurpose polar patrol vessels designed to deliver the desired capability for both the Coast Guard and to help Australia’s scientific endeavours in the region viable and competitive.
Again, we find that autonomous platforms provide an important force multiplier to enhance Australia’s situational awareness and persistent presence in a critical component of Australia’s area of primary interest. All of this necessitates a major logistical footprint to support, providing the perfect repurposing of the nation’s troubled Supply Class fleet replenishment vessels without detracting from capability.
Strategic sealift, Military Sealift Command and Counter Mine warfare
Sealift provides the nation with critical tactical and strategic flexibility, Army in particular, with a reimagined amphibious role and supporting follow on “mass” requires a flexible, credible tactical and strategic sealift capability in order to deliver Australian forces to the battlefield in a timely, survivable manner.
Following the cancellation of the $3-4 billion SEA 2200 program, Navy will defer heavily to the Littoral Manoeuvre Vessel Medium and Heavy to provide the bulk of the nation’s sealift capability and rightfully so, at least in the case of the medium-sized vessels in particular, however, getting the “Heavy” vessel right is critical, as is maximising the strategic sealift capability available to Australian decisionmakers.
Worth serious consideration in particular is the Littoral Strike Ship concept currently being developed for the United Kingdom, conveniently based upon the base design of the proposed hybrid fleet oiler and solid store replenishment vessels, providing Navy with a critical advantage in terms of economies of scale, ship interoperability and capability.
The British Littoral Strike Ship concept, similar in many ways to the US Navy’s Mobile Seabasing concept, delivers an incredible base package for both Navy and Army, providing the equivalent capacity of 90 C-17 Globemaster aircraft loads of stores, while maximising the use of personnel through the integration of commercial automation and maximises survivability through the inclusion of a host of self -defence measures, and perhaps most critically for amphibious forces, the integration of containerised strike capability.
Perhaps most enticingly, these vessels could also serve to provide the core of the Albanese government’s long promised “Strategic Fleet” or “Military Sealift Command” when not in service with the Australian Armed Forces, again leveraging the example and success of the model established by the UK’s Fleet Auxiliary or even be utilised by commercial operators to support maritime trade during peacetime (potentially turning a profit to be returned to the Defence budget).
Finally, the modular base of this ship design provides the basis for Australia’s own specialised humanitarian and disaster relief hospital ships to support the nation’s soft power strategy and Pacific Step Up while also providing the nation with ships capable of delivering a domestic response without having to detract from Navy’s core mission of fighting and winning at sea.
It is easy to see then how a fleet of six such dedicated sealift ships serving alongside our fleet of medium littoral manoeuvre vessels will prove invaluable, combined with two humanitarian support and disaster relief, hospital ships would provide immense value to Australia’s tactical and strategic objectives at a time of increasing instability and multipolarity.
Autonomous systems can play a role here to, with platforms like Leidos’ Ranger and Mariner autonomous surface vessels ideal candidates to provide follow on autonomous logistics sealift capabilities, removing the risks to crewed platforms, while also providing avenues for further local industry participation and expansion through shipbuilding partnerships with the likes of Austal for variants of the Expeditionary Fast Transport and partnering with Australian SME’s including Greenroom Robotics to enhance the autonomous logistics support capabilities.
The government’s decision to abandon SEA 1905 and the replacement of Australia’s ageing but venerable Huon Class mine hunters in favour of a purely autonomous focus leaves the nation exposed at a time when we can ill afford it. But this may very well be where the remaining Arafura Class vessels find their home as reconfigured, specialised Mine Countermeasures Motherships (MCM) and home to a host of autonomous systems to serve in this role.
Letting crewed countermine capabilities go would prove to be one of the greatest tactical and strategic disasters in military history and must be avoided at all costs, so let’s leverage the platforms we have and our partnerships, particularly with the United Kingdom and other European nations that are rapidly expanding their MCM fleets with adaptable, future-proofed and highly capable platforms to confront and solve these challenges.
Final thoughts
In the next part of this series I will move on to the Royal Australian Air Force, Special Operations Command, along with the national economy and industrial base and, finally, our diplomatic pathways for ways to “harden” ourselves and prepare for a challenge we all pray never comes.
Importantly, to do this and deliver such outcomes, Australia will need to have an honest conversation about how we view ourselves and what our own ambitions are. Is it reasonable for Australia to position itself as a “middle” or “regional” power in this rapidly evolving geopolitical environment?
Equally, if we are going to brand ourselves as such, shouldn’t we aim for the top tier to ensure we get the best deal for ourselves and our future generations?
If we are going to emerge as a prosperous, secure, and free nation in the new era of great power competition, it is clear we will need break the shackles of short-termism and begin to think far more long term, to the benefit of current and future generations of Australians.
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at [email protected] or at [email protected].