Adapting to a New Strategic Environment: The Royal Australian Navy and Australia’s 2023 Strategic Defense Review​

By Gonzalo Vázquez

In April 2023, the Australian Government released its “Defense Strategic Review 2023” (“DSR”) which will guide Australia’s defense reform in the coming years. Reflecting upon the numerous changes their strategic environment is experiencing – and will keep experiencing – the 116-page document has a clear focus on the growing Chinese military threat across the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, it acknowledges that Australia is no longer isolated from strategic competition in that same region. On the contrary, its role is more relevant than ever and requires action.

The document addresses a variety of topics related to its national security, such as “the current strategic circumstances,” “the defense strategic environment,” “deterrence and resilience,” “climate change and disaster relief,” “defense partnerships,” “defense strategy and force design,” “force structure,” and several others. In general terms, it is a comprehensive document, published at a crucial time for the Australian Defense Forces (“ADF”). It highlights the challenging nature of their strategic environment, as well as the imminent need to react against all growing threats and risks found within it.

In the maritime-naval section of the document, there are several important aspects which have either been left out of the discussion or lack the proper level of detail. Even though Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles defines the 2023 DSR as “the most ambitious review of Defense’s posture and structure since the Second World War,” some of its proposals for the future of the Royal Australian Navy (“RAN”) appear to have fallen short of what was expected from the review.

Strategy and Force Structure for the Navy

Although the maritime section is not as extensive as expected, the review does offer several key ideas for the future of Australian capabilities at sea. With China as the main concern for their national and regional security, the review recommends the adoption of a defense strategy based on denial: “For Australia, this strategy of denial must be focused on the primary area of military interest […] The development of a strategy of denial for the ADF is key in our ability to deny an adversary freedom of action to militarily coerce Australia and to operate against Australia without being held at risk.”

The region of main military interest, as defined in latter in the document, is based on a line of forward deployment that encompasses a network of bases and ports stretching “from Cocos Islands in the northwest, through RAAF bases Learmonth, Curtin, Darwin, Tindal, Scherger and Townsville.” Immediate upgrades and development of them are also recommended, so that they make it possible for this line encompassing half of the Australian coast (as seen in the image below), to provide with strategic depth for the ADF. Through the coordination of these bases, which extend across the northern half of their national coasts, Australia will enhance its ability to monitor the waters adjacent to it and strengthen their denial strategy against any unwanted presence.

Figure 1. Location of the main RAAF Bases across national territory (Source: Australian Department of Defense)

In another shift away from previous configurations, the DSR proposes a transition from a “Balanced Force” to a “Focus Force” structure, aspiring to “lead to a force designed to address the nation’s most significant military risks.” Such an approach can be understood as a means to maximize their deterrent posture against China, whose expanding presence throughout the region has grown increasingly disturbing. The security agreement reached between the Solomon Islands and Beijing in early 2022 has proved to be of utmost concern to the U.S. and its allies (including Australia). These islands offer China a strategic location from where to extend its control over the region and could provide an ideal location to establish a military base (although both sides keep denying their intention to do so). Also in 2022, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan triggered China’s response in the form of live-fire artillery drills, air sorties, and naval deployments around the island which lasted several days, as well as incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s air space.

Considering the destabilizing potential that Chinese presence in the Solomons would have for Australia and its partners, including the U.S.), the DSR lists a series of critical capabilities which the ADF aims to achieve while pursuing a sea denial strategy. These include “undersea warfare capabilities (crewed and uncrewed),” “enhanced, all-domain, maritime capabilities for sea denial operations and localized sea control,” and “a developed network of northern bases to provide a platform for logistics support, denial and deterrence.” Among the most significant capabilities to be acquired are the nuclear-powered AUKUS SSN submarines, with which the RAN will replace the Collin-class it currently operates. The specific number, however, is still not clear and will include the acquisition of several Los Angeles-class SSBNs.

Another important requirement includes adapting the fleet in size and shape to the current levels of risk. The DSR proposes a division of the fleet between “Tier 1 and Tier 2 surface combatants to provide increased strike, air defense, presence operations and anti-submarine warfare,” as well as a fleet design based on a higher number of smaller but lethal surface vessels capable of supporting all kinds of missions. The only inconvenience regarding this proposal is the lack of further details on which specific capabilities are required for the new fleet structure and its funding.

The Fleet Structure Design and Its Funding are Missing

Although the contribution of the DSR will be of great importance for the RAN and Australian national defense, both the ADF and the government have left out ] two aspects necessary to turn the strategy into reality. Without them, achieving the vision set in the review will be much harder.

The first missing aspect is funding for the new design. Obtaining the necessary funding to turn the new force structure design into reality, including the support that will be required to maintain that spending in the long-run, could have been detailed with more precision. The review indicates how all proposed changes and modifications will require an increase in defense spending,  but it fails to provide further details on how that increase will be carried out and over what period of time.

The second missing aspect is the new fleet structure design; a clear idea on what that new design will look like, together with the transformation of their industrial base to ensure the demands presented in the DSR can be met. Previous documents of similar nature, like the 2016 White Paper or the 2020 Force Structure Plan (“FSP”), provided a great level of detail on the acquisitions to be made, including what types of vessels, how many and for what specific role. Thus, it was certainly expected that the 2023 DSR would provide something similar given the urgency described in it.

As ascertained by Jennifer Parker, Deputy Director of Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Defense, Strategy and National Security program, “the structure of the surface fleet remains a quandary, and a surprising one for the DSR team to delay solving given the urgency of the strategic situation it describes […] The DSR team (at least in the unclassified version of its report) avoided recommending specific capabilities as it did for the land and air domains.”

The review does, however, indicate that an independent analysis of current surface combatants will be made to make sure that it is best fitted to complement the acquisition of the nuclear submarines. With such analysis, some guidelines for the Australian industrial base’s transformation will also be required to meet the demands of the new fleet structure design and the already-existing need for more combat power in the RAN.

The Way Forward

The publication of the Australian Defense Strategic Review is a step in the right direction, providing the ADF with a coherent approach to follow. It will allow for a more effective management of the different challenges to their national security in the view of optimizing the Navy to operate “in Australia’s immediate region and for the security of our sea lines of communication and maritime trade.”

The review’s approach is directly influenced by the expansion of China’s PLA forces across the region, and clearly reflects Australian awareness about the profound changes the region is experiencing – and will keep experiencing over the following decades. The security agreement between Beijing and the Solomon Islands is seen as a major threat to both Australian national security and overall allied presence in the Indo-Pacific. The acquisition of nuclear submarines will certainly provide the RAN with increased capabilities, while also making Australia the only nation with nuclear-powered submarines in spite of not being a nuclear power.

Yet, in spite of the ambitious proposal for a greatly-needed, new fleet structure design, the maritime section of the DSR is significantly shorter when compared to those of its predecessors. It leaves out any reference to important aspects such as the integration of sea-lift, uncrewed capabilities or undersea capabilities beyond submarines and frigates, which were present in the 2020 FSP. These delays in the new fleet structure design ha will need to be resolved as soon as possible.

 

Gonzalo Vázquez holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Navarre (Spain). He has contributed to the Australian Naval Review, the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Arctic Institute.

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The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.