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Australia’s own Indo-Pacific fortress – The case for redeveloping Cocos Islands

Australia’s own Indo-Pacific fortress – The case for redeveloping Cocos Islands

Set amid an idyllic island paradise, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands have long played a role in Australia’s defence policy and military history – now, with the shift in regional power dynamics, the strategically located islands are poised to play an increasingly important role in Australia’s future defence doctrine.

Set amid an idyllic island paradise, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands have long played a role in Australia’s defence policy and military history – now, with the shift in regional power dynamics, the strategically located islands are poised to play an increasingly important role in Australia’s future defence doctrine.

Today, strategic sea-lines-of-communication (SLOC) support over 90 per cent of global trade, a result of the cost effective and reliable nature of sea transport. Indo-Pacific Asia is at the epicentre of the global maritime trade, with about US$5 trillion worth of trade flowing through the South China Sea (SCS) and the strategic waterways and choke points of south-east Asia annually.

Meanwhile, the Indian Ocean and its critical global SLOC are responsible for more than 80 per cent of the world's seaborne trade in critical energy supplies, namely oil and natural gas, which serve as the lifeblood of any advanced economy. 

Australia is not immune to these geo-political and strategic factors and, as an island nation heavily dependent on sea transport – with 99 per cent of the nation's exports, a substantial amount of its strategic imports, namely liquid fuel, and a substantial proportion of the nation's domestic freight depending on the ocean – it is a necessity to understand and adapt and introduce a focus on maritime power projection and sea control.

The unique geographic realities in Indo-Pacific Asia range from vast swathes of deep, open ocean to Australia's west, to relatively shallow, congested and narrow archipelagic bound choke points, including the Straits of Malacca, Lombok Strait and into the South China Sea. 

Australia's key advantage in the region is a far-flung coral atoll archipelago straddling the strategic waterways of the Indo-Pacific namely key SLOC in the Straits of Malacca, Lombok and Sunda: the Cocos Islands, located 3,694 kilometres from both Perth and Darwin are the nation's fortress in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia's own Guam, Pearl Harbour or Diego Garcia 

Combining a range of 'joint force' facilities, such as naval and air force facilities including Naval Base Guam, Anderson Air Force Base and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham, and key ISR facilities including the Air Force Satellite Control Network as part of US Air Force Space Command, Guam, Pearl Harbour and Diego Garcia, all serve as unique force multiplying forward-deployed basing, logistics and and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance hubs for the US Armed Forces and the broader US intelligence community.

Australia's own Cocos (Keeling) Islands have long been identified as a key strategic force multiplier for both Australian and allied-use. As recently as 2017, the joint standing committee on the national capital and external territories sought to identify the strategic opportunities for developing and enhancing the strategic importance and capabilities of the islands to support increased Australian engagement in the Indo-Pacific. 

The islands have also become increasingly important to Australia's allies, mainly the US as it has sought to 'pivot' towards Asia in response to increasing Chinese assertiveness.

The Obama administration's 'Asia Pivot' outlined in 2012 kicked off growing speculation about the future of the islands, with The Washington Post identifying the strategic importance of the islands to the US and Australia, which ABC journalist Samantha Hawley explained during an interview with then defence minister Stephen Smith: "It might be down the track, but it's undeniable that the US is eyeing off the Cocos Islands as a base to launch drones and manned US surveillance aircraft.

"The Washington Post newspaper has catapulted the prospect back into the headlines. The report states aircraft based in the Cocos Islands would be well positioned to launch spy flights over the South China Sea and would be considered as a replacement for the American Diego Garcia air base."  

The existing facilities on the island, including the single, 2,441-metre paved runway, combined with limited lagoon anchorages present a virtual blank canvas for interested parties to redevelop and expand the tactical and strategic opportunities of the location. Nevertheless, such redevelopment would require extensive investment in deep water berths, liquid fuel-storage to support forward deployed naval and air assets, accommodation and communications facilities.   

Located 1,703 kilometres from Singapore and 1,296 kilometres from Jakarta and the adjacent SLOCs, the Cocos Islands are not without their challenges to military redevelopment  namely the small land area of approximately 14 square kilometres, combined with low elevation, and the relative isolation of the facilities making resupply difficult, particularly in the event of attack. 

Despite these challenges, the strategic significance of the Cocos Islands, particularly when combined with next-generation Australian naval and air assets like the Attack Class submarines, Arafura Class offshore patrol vessels, and key power projection platforms like the Canberra Class amphibious warfare ships and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, MQ-4C Triton, E-7A Wedgetail and KC-30A Multirole Tanker Transport (MRTT), highlights the importance of developing a 'joint force' facility.

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands will become increasingly important as part of Australia's strategic calculations, particularly as the balance of power between the US and China continues to narrow and the rising Asian power seeks to increase its influence and coercion beyond the reclamation of islands and development of an anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) system in the South China Sea.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below, or get in touch with Stephen.Kuper@momentummedia.com.au or editor@defenceconnect.com.au.   

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Comments (12)

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  • Anonymous wrote:
    Really wouldn’t Manus be a more feasible position than The Cocoses. It’s going to be suped up anyway , supply and defence really is a far greater option.

    Use both, plus Butterworth, Penang, and Port Klang
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  • Really wouldn’t Manus be a more feasible position than The Cocoses. It’s going to be suped up anyway , supply and defence really is a far greater option.
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  • MILITARISING AUSTRALIA’S COCOS ISLANDS
    There is no option but to militarise our Cocos Islands. The CCP has so altered the geo-political-military balance of power in the Indian Ocean with its duplicitous OBOR, string of pearls strategy; that the PLA-N now surrounds India with naval ports and supporting vassal states and navies round the entire Indian Ocean rim. The PLA-N can now choke India’s SLOCs. India is not really keeping pace with China’s rapid militarisation of the region. India has arranged to use French naval bases in the Indian Ocean. The US and Britain are also stepping up in the Indian Ocean. Militarizing our Cocos Islands will be Australia’s equitable contribution to that power re-balancing. We will have our own Indian Ocean “string of pearls” (CCP double speak for deterrent). Australia has the added responsibility of ensuring Christmas Island is not the weak pearl in our string by it not also being militarised. If conflict comes; an unfortified Christmas Island will be there for the taking. It will take diplomacy and tact and the inclusion of Indonesia in joint naval exercises around Christmas Island with Australia and our usual, mutual, exercise partners; to demonstrate a militarized Christmas Island offers no threat to Indonesian sovereignty. India should prove a suitable security partner for Australia given its historically, benign, regional influence over the region. Over centuries of peaceful trading with the region; India was so disinterested in regional domination that it did not name the Indian Ocean as such. It was the influence of the powerful British navy and the London registered trading companies that named it the Indian Ocean. So, barring the usual GREENs objections; our Pearl Harbour and Guam equivalents are good to go. Double the Defence Budget to 4% to equal the USA Defence Budget proportional to population sizes. We are in good company in the Indian Ocean. I suspect making Christmas Island a Marine National Park recognised by China as we did with the islands of the Coral Sea won't really act as a deterrent. These are issues we will have to solve. Regards Doug A.
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  • Whatever can be done to counter China’s aggressive and expansive moves to control the sea lanes should be done. It Is a threat to the Indo Pacific and will probably start a regional war
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  • You do not mention the PEOPLE who live there - those whose homeland it is.
    Islands are far more than strategic dots on a map, or a "blank canvas", as you put it.
    Cocos has a limited water supply and limited space for 'development'. The islands are rather low-lying.
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  • Having visited there a couple of times on a RNZAF P-3 I understand its great location, I would just hate to see it ruined by the scale of development needed. To build it up would destroy the local the ecosystem just as the Chinese have done to the SCS reefs.
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  • Why remote, unsupportable Cocos? Why not closer, better developed Christmas Island?
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    • Christmas Island has a large bird population which would cause greater risk of bird strikes by aircraft. Also Cocos distance from other land makes it harder for land based aircraft or missiles to reach.
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      • Also many birds on Cocos - I have been there many times. Quite a spurious argument really.
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      • Capitano Hot Lead Wednesday, 29 May 2019
        Why would an SSN base and hypersonic nuke silos upset our feathered friends?
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        • The further a nuclear target is from OZ the better.We can call it Christmas Bikini.
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