Last Tuesday Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the Albanese government’s plans to overhaul the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) ageing surface fleet. The new ‘enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet’ will more than double the amount of main surface vessels the RAN will operate, but their usefulness in ensuring Australian security is dubious.
This plan will fulfill its promises of ‘enhanced lethality’ by further adapting the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for future offensive operations alongside the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. This commitment to the expansion of the size and capability of the RAN follow’s the 2023 Defence Strategic Review’s claim that Australia must prepare for “potential threats arising from major power competition”. In effect, the Albanese government have masked Australia’s deepening commitment to the United States’ policy of Chinese containment behind a veneer of nationalism centred on the reinvigoration of the domestic shipbuilding industry.
The RAN’s current surface fleet is the oldest it has ever operated and it is undoubtedly necessary. The proposed acquisitions will vastly improve the RAN’s antisubmarine and long-range strike capabilities. Responding to an independent analysis of the navy’s surface fleet, the Department of Defence has approved plans to acquire six new Hunter class frigates, upgrade three existing Hobart class destroyers, acquire six yet to be designed large optionally crewed surface vessels (LOSV) which can be operated remotely from a distance, and locate a designer and producer for 11 new general purpose frigates. Complementing the future acquisition of nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarines as part of the AUKUS partnership, this surface combatant fleet will allow the RAN to complete a variety of offensive and defensive operations alone and alongside alliance partners. Crucially, the long-range strike capabilities of the LOSVs and the maritime and land strike capabilities of the general purpose frigates will enable Australia to project power far from its shores and engage targets in foreign territories.
While the details of acquisition and production were clear in Department of Defence media releases, the reasons for pursuing these capabilities have not been well articulated. Mr Marles has identified protection of Australia’s ‘sea lines of communication and trade routes’ as the primary areas of maritime defence that the new plan addresses. This fleet would provide greatly improved long-range strike and anti-submarine warfare capabilities, which could be useful in protecting Australia from a direct attack but would undoubtedly be crucial to neutralising Chinese naval and land assets in a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
The question over where these ships are planned to operate and for what purpose has been overshadowed by the government through a focus on their benefit to the local shipbuilding industry. The Hunter class frigates and LOSVs will be built between South Australia’s Osborne shipyards and Western Australia’s Henderson shipbuilding complex. 2000 jobs will be sustained and 1700 created between these two projects. Despite this neither the designs for the LOSVs or general purpose frigates exist, with the latter to be built overseas once a design and producer has been found. With 17 of the future 26 vessel strong fleet yet to be designed and the first Hunter class frigate not expected to be finished until 2034 this boon to industry lies in the distant future.
This delay, and acquisition of remotely operated vessels, may allow the RAN time to solve its recruitment issues. Despite this planned expansion of the size of the fleet the RAN were unable to provide even one ship to aid the US in policing the Red Sea against Houthi military action last December due to a lack of adequate crew or vessel. The 2022-23 Defence Annual Report showed that the RAN had 14958 permanent personnel, with their stated goal since 2022 being to reach 21000 by the late 2030s.
Former Department of Defence analyst Hugh White and the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen provide two useful insights into heterodox views on the future of Australia defence strategy. Both advocate for a reformation of the ADF that would prepare the nation to defend itself in the coming decades as the strategic context of the Indo-Pacific region rapidly changes. Australia’s remote geography paired with China and other Indo-Pacific state’s reluctance to increasingly project military power far from their borders gives Australia little reason to prepare for a conflict in the short to medium term far beyond its immediate region. White identifies ‘sea denial’, the prevention of enemy military activity in an identified maritime area, primarily through land and maritime antiship and antiair capabilities, as the primary strategy the ADF should pursue.
With many questions left unanswered and a sense of Australian nationalism exerted primarily through support for domestic production, the ‘enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet’ commits Australia to an enduring future of subordinate operation within US-led military campaigns. Rather than advocating for Australia’s defence interests the government has instead committed to reforming the ADF to better equip it for offensive military activity beyond Australia’s borders across the Indo-Pacific. Australian interests are instead implicitly tied to those of the US, with a simplistic appeal to desires for the development of domestic manufacturing acting as a substitute for substantive government policy that acts in the interests of the Australian people.
William Gregory
William Gregory holds a Bachelor Degree with First Class Honours in Politics and International Relations. His interests are in Australian foreign policy and history, international political economy, and US-China relations.