In a reproach to all reason the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland famously demanded verdict first, evidence later. In an evolutionary turn, the decision to acquire the Shortfin Barracuda for the Royal Australian Navy has taken the Carrollian principle one step further: evidence of a strategic-operational nature which had a direct bearing on the final decision was dispensed with.
There is a common habit of mind on display in both the official pronouncements attempting to justify the selection of the Shortfin Barracuda and, surprisingly, the reports produced by Insight Economics courtesy of Gary Johnson’s commendable patronage of Submarines for Australia (which advocates different variants of submarines entirely).
Specifically, that habit is for the desired outcome – the continuation into mid-century and beyond of the RAN’s submarine operations which the Collins Class boats have undertaken – to be elevated to the status of necessity despite the preponderance of evidence indicating that such a conclusion is unwarranted.
Indeed, the prospect is that the boat already chosen, and, it should be emphasised, those which feature in the Insight Economics reports will be not only expensive but also lacking in credibility and prone to obsolescence.
Carroll would’ve undoubtedly approved: he was concerned with acts of the imagination, partially deaf, and was primarily interested in producing works of fiction – all of which, especially in combination – are corrosive of logic systems.
This is not to deny the need for a type of submarine to be a main instrument of national defence. As J.O. Langtry and Des Ball reminded those interested in this question over thirty years ago, there is an element of geographical determinism about it: Australia – the largest island continent in the world, with no contiguous border states, a land mass greater than the continental United States hosting a population of 26 million and a coastline of nearly 30,000 kilometres, is also the most isolated continent.
Geographically Australia is part of Asia: Broome, in Western Australia, is approximately equidistant from the national capital, Canberra and Bangkok and Manila; it is actually closer to three ASEAN capital (Jakarta, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur) than it is to Canberra.
In sum, Australia’s geographic location alone presents national security planning challenges which are unique and make imperative the need for appropriate naval forces which will perforce include a submarine service which prioritises a vast region which does not have to include the furthermost areas contemplated by SEA 1000. And, if the recent Insight Economics report is accurate, just one boat on station – and it will take half of its deployment time to get there.
In which case, two questions: given Australia’s proximity to the already vast geographical sweep of Southeast Asia noted above, the need to have a presence in parts of the Eastern Indian Ocean, and something approaching the inverse square law of on-station deployment beyond (say) the southern boundary of the South China Sea, surely the outer reaches of the Australian approaches are not the Taiwan Straits?
To emphasise, the waters west of Australia must be a priority. The Indian Navy, in time, will require watching in the light of its proprietorial claims over them. Not surprisingly, it seems to have a symbiotic relationship with the extreme nationalist character of the BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In early April this year, for example, the Chief of the Indian Navy asserted his service’s war preparedness because elements of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy had transited to and from the Indian Ocean: according to Admiral Karambir Singh, the entire Indian Ocean is “our [India’s] region” and operating their requires prior notification to the Indian authorities.
Indeed, why flout the wisdom and sense of perspective of the 19th Century American President, statesman, diplomat, and lawyer, John Quincy Adams, who was adamant that the United States would serve its security interests best by not going abroad “in search of monsters to destroy”?
Accordingly, a sense of perspective would have demanded a question which could be phrased thus: within a regime of national sovereignty requiring maximum command and control, what submarine, and what tasks will best serve the national defence in a strategic, political, and technological environment which is bringing changes which make acutely vulnerable the diesel-electric variant of submarines in particular, but all submarines in general?
But perspective has been discarded and, along with it, a becoming strategic modesty as regards the public record of the contribution that Australian submarines make. Given that the number of boats on station at any one time is no more than 2, and given also that the US has its own assets – and almost certainly far more of them – undertaking similar tasks, over longer periods of deployment, the inference is that, at best, the RAN provides at best a valuable but nevertheless niche service?
Essentially, the question which dominated the choice of the future submarine approximates to this: what does the RAN need by way of a replacement to continue, and even expand upon, the tasks currently allocated to the current Collins Class submarines – several of them undertaken by way of an obligation to serve primarily US interests – when they are no longer fit for purpose?
Reflecting on these facts, might Australian decision-makers, for just this once, consider that there are limits to even an unbridled strategic imagination fuelled by the ridiculous pugilistic dream in the offices on Russell Hill of Australia “punching above its weight.”
To do so would require reacquainting themselves with a reality that is hostile to both the government’s choice of conventionally powered Shortfin Barracudas and, just as significantly, the nuclear propelled versions favoured by Submarines for Australia – an argument that will follow in Part 3.
For the present, a sense of place should be front and centre of the discussion on ambition. As the historian David McIntyre wrote of another foolish deployment decision some sixty years ago, even Disraeli, who said that the “key of India” was Constantinople, never claimed that the outer defences of the Straits of Dover stretched to the Gulf of Tonkin.
Michael McKinley is a member of the Emeritus Faculty, The Australian National University. Formerly he taught International Relations (Strategy, Diplomacy and International Conflict) at the University of Western Australia and the ANU.
Michael McKinley is a member of the Emeritus Faculty, the Australian National University; he taught Strategy, Diplomacy and International Conflict at the University of Western Australia and the ANU.
Comments
3 responses to “MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: The SEA 1000 Attack Class future submarine project and the emergence of the neo-Carrollian School of Maritime Strategy. Part 2 of 5.”
Jon, my many thanks for your response.
First, let me acknowledge and record my appreciation for your own many and important contributions to the debate on the future submarines. Second, I am grateful for your patience in the matter of my further arguments and analyses. Third, we agree that the current scope and direction of the project is a mess.
In the interim, I’m foreshadowing the need for Australia to become more strategically self-critical and self-reflecting – specifically, to re-think the automaticity of adopting the strategic mindsets of the US as its own.
All of this is to say that we might need to have a more substantial exchange when my position is more explicit. In the meantime, again, my thanks.
Dr McKinley’s contribution to the debate on Australia’s future submarine is most welcome. My response today will focus on the strategic issues that he raises. I will respond tomorrow to the operational issues I am expecting to see raised in the third piece around nuclear-powered submarines.
At the strategic level, Dr McKinley agrees that Australia needs submarines as significant assets in the ADF’s order of battle. He questions, however, whether their primary role should be to operate ‘up threat’ far from base in coalition with US forces. Instead he suggests RAN submarines should operate primarily in our home waters, presumably in a defensive role.
Contemporary naval doctrine identifies the submarine as an offensive weapon with a primary role of prosecuting anti-submarine warfare (ASW), with anti-surface ship warfare as a secondary priority. Where is the best place to detect and destroy an adversary’s submarines? Perhaps in home waters around our own bases? No, because the seas around the Australian continent are vast and submarines are fiendishly difficult to detect. In addition, particularly if the adversary operates nuclear submarines and has access to satellite intelligence on Australian ship and submarine movements, its submarines can loiter well offshore until the time comes to strike.
Another option is to search for submarines in the commons of the open ocean. This is even more of a needle in a haystack proposition and anyway, maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) and perhaps even surface ships with helicopters would be better bets.
The third option, and the one currently followed, is to seek to detect an adversary’s submarines around their own base. While a superior strategy, this requires a multi-layered and complex network of assets – satellites, MPA, surface ships (often with civilian crews) with towed array sonar, helicopters and, of course, submarines. All with a controller accessing a myriad of data in real time and ‘cueing’ assets to track an adversary’s submarines when detected.
There is no way that Australia could provide this vast infrastructure without access to the American network. Whether the value of this benefit to Australia is greater than the benefit that Australian submarines offer the Americans is up to others to judge, But we need to understand that the US Submarine Force is in a period of declining strength – in a couple of years time it will consist of only 42 submarines. Given that only around half of these will be available for operations, this is not enough for a navy with global responsibilities. The Australian contribution goes well beyond being a token commitment.
Jon
‘…to seek to detect an adversary’s submarines around their own base. While a superior strategy…’
My ongoing trouble is with the tunnel vision in much strategic thinking.
If ever a situation arose that an Australian submarine would strike at a Chinese submarine it would in the the context of a general war between the US and China. That is, where all of China’s national power would be engaged. What you are suggesting is that an Australian government, irrespective of the consequences for Australia and the well-being and security of its citizens, or agreement over the issues at stake in the conflict, would deprive itself of the option of staying out of the conflict by taking up an offensive position in the South China Sea off Chinese submarine bases.
My other problem with strategic thinking is the inability to see symmetry. While Australia’s limited number of submarines are lurking in the South China Seas, China, who would presumably have a strong intimation of impending conflict, would undoubtedly put its submarine fleet to sea in advance. A number of assets might even be deployed to Australian sea lanes and ports.
Tunnel vision and a lack of symmetry awareness distorts a lot of strategic analysis. The scale and dynamism of the event in which submarines would operate gets lost.