![]() The choice of which strategy to pursue on which front is likely to be based on a mixture of interest alignment and capacity, both national capacity and relative capacity. Within this spectrum of operations, Australia may act unilaterally or as part of a larger coalition or alliance, and may do both simultaneously on a range of different fronts. The model is in no way new, but its use is important because it recognises that the scale is not necessarily linear or of singular dimension we may well be in conflict in one domain while co-operating in another, and also that military capability can be employed in a variety of ways simultaneously. As Henry Kissinger once observed: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”, or phrased another way “there are no permanent friends in politics, only mutual self-interest”. While it remains useful to consider the peace-war spectrum, especially in relation to resource apportionment (resources applied to the military are typically less during peace), the cooperation-competition-conflict model recognises the enduring competition between states, particularly economic and diplomatic, inter-mixed with temporal variations of co-operation or conflict. Recent security and military literature considering the spectrum of operations has focused on a model of cooperation-competition-conflict in preference to the peace-war spectrum. The nature of inter-state relationships and the spectrum of conditions (humanitarian assistance to high-end warfighting) within which we conduct operations the geography of our near region and the Indo-Pacific and Australia’s choice of role are important context within which to consider the development of the Australian amphibious capability. Strategic ContextĪustralia’s 2016 Defence White Paper identified three key strategic defence interests: first, a secure, resilient Australia second, a secure nearer region, encompassing maritime South East Asia and the South Pacific and third, a stable Indo-Pacific region and a rules-based global order which supports our interests. It briefly examines our strategic context, reviews our contemporary amphibious operational concepts, and describes the current state of the Australian Amphibious Force. This paper describes the recent evolution of the Australian Amphibious Force as a key part of Australia’s overall force projection capacity. In addition, a third amphibious platform, HMAS Choules (a Landing Ship Dock) was acquired in 2011 the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was designated as an amphibious trials battalion to lead Army’s preparations and the ADF commenced development of joint command arrangements for amphibious operations. This led, through a number of force structure reviews and Defence white papers from 2000 onwards, to the decision to acquire two Canberra Class amphibious assault ships (Landing Helicopter Docks), to replace HMAS Tobruk and the Kanimbla Class amphibious ships, and their commissioning in 20. The East Timor crisis in 1999 further exposed the ADF’s ill-preparedness to deploy and sustain an expeditionary force amphibiously in our near region. It led to the acquisition of two Kanimbla Class amphibious transport ships (Landing Platforms Amphibious) in 1994. The operation, code named Operation MORRIS DANCE, exposed serious deficiencies in the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) capacity to project force and undertake amphibious operations. The Australian Amphibious Force is able to employ a landing force of up to battalion-group strength over the spectrum of operations from the provision of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to high-end warfighting, the latter capability having been tested, in conjunction with allies, during Exercise TALISMAN SABRE 2019.Īustralia responded to a military coup d’état in Fiji in 1987 by deploying a five-ship amphibious task group to Fiji in case Australian civilians needed evacuation. This paper describes Australia’s current amphibious capability. A paper based on a presentation to the Royal United Service Institute of NSW on 27 August 2019
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