Looking closer to home for the implications of Beijing’s Mediterranean deployment

Separate to the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, there is another, arguably, higher stakes showdown looming in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean.

In one corner, the incumbent heavyweight champion, deploying two carrier strike groups at the pinnacle of their power.

On the other side is the upstart rival, boasting the world’s “largest navy” by hull numbers and a rapidly closing technological gap eager to flex its muscles on the high seas and assert its position as the world’s rising power.

While the two naval forces are disproportionally mismatched with the US Navy far exceeding its potential adversary’s firepower in this instance, the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) isn’t focused on patrolling and securing the global maritime commons.

Rather, the PLA-N is focused on controlling the critical sea lines of communication which flow from the Middle East, east coast of Africa, and through Southeast Asia that are essential conduits for the Chinese economy, populace, and strategic security.

Against this backdrop, it is easy to overlook or forget the implications closer to home, particularly in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean and Australia’s areas of interest through maritime Southeast Asia and the south Pacific.

While for the time being, the US Navy remains the world’s premier naval power, the reality is that the global responsibilities placed upon it by various US Administrations arguably since the late 19th century, coupled with mounting economic pressures, mean that the world’s rising powers are rapidly closing the gap.

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For Australia, these maritime commons are essential not just for our economic stability and prosperity, but also our national security, in many ways, echoing the sentiments described by American strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who said, “The profound influence of sea commerce upon the wealth and strength of countries was clearly seen long before the true principles which governed its growth and prosperity were detected.

“To secure to one’s own people a disproportionate share of such benefits, every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by direct violence,” Mahan further explains.

But what does all of this have to do with the Middle East?

Well, at first glance, we would be forgiven for thinking not a lot to do with Australia. However, in this era of great power competition and multipolarity, we can’t afford to take things at face value.

Rising power on the march

Where the US Navy was once the undisputed master of the global maritime commons, no matter where it wished to enforce its will, the global balance is shifting and nowhere is this more clearly occurring than in Indo-Pacific.

For much of the region, Beijing’s mounting naval modernisation and increasing hostility, particularly in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, all serve to highlight the increasing willingness of the world’s rising superpower to use force to get its way.

In response, the region has responded with a mix of their own military modernisations and expansion, with India, Japan, and South Korea, by far the most significant powers in this regard.

Each of these nations is actively reshaping, rebuilding, and in some cases, establishing a range of tactical and strategic capabilities designed to counter Beijing’s own expanding capabilities, with naval platforms front and centre of this competition.

This has resulted in the acquisition of new capabilities ranging from aircraft carriers to fifth-generation fighter fleets, expanded armoured vehicle fleets, and hypersonic missiles to advanced submarines both nuclear and conventionally powered, but all heavily armed.

Australia, meanwhile, continues to lag behind, mired in bureaucratic and political delays driving various reviews which ultimately place the nation’s defence in an even more precarious position.

While we eagerly await the findings of the Albanese government’s independent review into the future of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface combatant fleet, the region continues to devolve into armed camps, all while the US Navy continues to be pulled in multiple, high-stakes directions.

This is best explained by US strategic analyst and author Peter Zeihan, who explains, “The key thing to note here is that the US never did this for themselves (sure, it came with some perks, but there was a greater purpose). At the end of World War II, the US knew something had to be done to stop the Soviets. So, the US created a global trade network to incentivise enough countries to ‘stand up’ against them ...The US Navy still has a global presence, but it is nowhere near the scale it once was. As this presence continues to taper off, what will the repercussions be? The ultimate result will be the collapse of globalisation, but the path there is undecided.”

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Persian Gulf which has seen a continued decline of continued US Navy presence over the past decade, with fewer and fewer significant US naval deployments to the region to secure the outflow of critical oil supplies, which flowed largely to allies of the US, not the US itself.

Filling this gap and building on the expansion of parallel multilateral organisations like the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have prompted expanded Chinese interest in the Indian Ocean in particular.

The changing dynamics and a ‘Two-Ocean Navy’

This rapidly devolving threat environment presents significant challenges across the region, and critically, our sea lines of communication.

In response, Australia’s pursuit of nuclear-powered submarines under the tripartite AUKUS agreement is part of the answer, but again, we come back to the recognition that the Navy’s broader force structure is lacking and further delays in the government’s response to the findings of the independent review only serve to leave us further unprepared.

Equally, the unique geographic predicament the nation faces in developing the necessary naval capability to protect and further its interests in two of the world’s major oceans, by virtue, necessitates significant expansion of the Navy’s capability.

Each of these factors are only further compounded by a declining US Navy presence in the Indian Ocean and the rising competition and capability of rising superpowers and other emerging powers, all of which have their own ambitions and designs for this new world.

For Australia, this all combines to create a dangerous powder keg that requires a considered, yet significantly different approach to the decade-long status quo of Australian defence planning.

Front and centre of this is ensuring that both our Indian and Pacific fleets are adequately funded, developed, and supported to ensure their success across a range of combat scenarios that they may face.

Ultimately, that is going to require more spending, better spending, and more emphasis on the strategic and less on the tactical.

Final thoughts

We have to accept that while the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar”, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world.

Underpinned by the emerging economic, political, and strategic might of powers like China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the established and re-emerging capability of both South Korea and Japan, in particular, are serving to create a hotbed of competition on our doorstep.

Recognising this array of challenges and opportunities, both the Australian public and its policymakers need to look beyond the myopic lens that has traditionally dominated our diplomatic, strategic, and economic policy making since Federation.

Ultimately, we need to see Australia begin to play the long game to fully capitalise on the opportunities transforming the Indo-Pacific.

The most important question now becomes, when will we see a more detailed analysis and response to the challenges and opportunities facing Australia and when will we see both a narrative and strategy that better helps industry and the Australian public understand the challenges faced and opportunities we have presented before us?

As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political, and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?