Among the Canberra national security commentariat, it has been hard to have a conversation in the past couple of years without someone mentioning “the archipelago”. This is the space in which the Australian Army is supposed to littorally manoeuvre, and through which the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will project impactfully. But where is “the archipelago”?
If you look at recent Australian strategic documents, or statements by politicians or senior officers, “the archipelago” is notable for its absence. In its place are a series of other general descriptions.
The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) and National Defence Strategy (NDS) speak of Australia’s primary area of military interest being “the immediate region encompassing the Northeast Indian Ocean through maritime Southeast Asia into the Pacific”.
At the same time, the Australian Army is to be optimised to operate in “our northern land and maritime spaces”, including the ability to “secure and control strategic land positions”. But unsurprisingly, there is little clarity over exactly where such operations would take place.
Another common refrain among both policymakers and commentators has been to draw parallels between the current situation and the Second World War.
There is some more specificity in statements from key figures in the design and implementation of the new approach. Professor Peter Dean, one of the lead authors of the DSR, has highlighted the existence of a land-sea-air gap to Australia’s north, effectively expanding the 1980s concept of the air-sea gap.
Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, Chief of Army, has been even more precise, stating that “Australia’s primary area of military interest is a region of islands and archipelagos that form a ‘land bridge’: one that connects Australia to the Pacific and South East Asia.” This idea of the “land bridge” is also evident in the (in)famous tilted map in the DSR.
Another common refrain among both policymakers and commentators has been to draw parallels between the current situation and the Second World War. Stuart again has been relatively clear, noting that “(n)ot since the Pacific Campaigns of the early 1940s has our Army had to seriously consider fighting conventional adversaries in the littoral geography of our region”.
The campaigns in the Second World War were a series of amphibious and littoral operations through which Australian and American forces drove the Japanese back through the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the Dutch East Indies eventually reaching the Philippines and Borneo.
Thus, it does not seem too much of a stretch to conclude that “the archipelago” in which the ADF, including the Australian Army, is being reshaped to operate, and Australia’s area of military interest as set out in the DSR and NDS are one and the same.
There is, however, a problem. “The archipelago” is no longer the blank strategic canvas that it may have been in the 1940s. Instead, the region being discussed contains over 400 million people across at least six different sovereign countries, many of whom look at the world very differently to Australia.
Indonesia, for example, has made it very clear that it will do all it can to avoid becoming the front line in a conflict between China on one side and Australia and the United States on the other. This is not a sudden development, but part of a non-aligned approach that has been at the heart of Indonesian policy since independence, and appears unlikely to change.
At present, it is difficult to imagine the majority of the sovereign nations that form “the archipelago” being willing to allow their territory to be used by Australian or US forces in time of war.
The focus of Australian strategy on maritime southeast Asia should not come as a surprise.
This is not a problem unique to Australia. Analysts looking at the US Marines Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept, which is very similar to the Australian Army’s focus on littoral manoeuvre, have long posed questions about whether regional politics will prevent the execution of the strategy.
The focus of Australian strategy on maritime southeast Asia should not come as a surprise. For well over a century, Australian policymakers have known that threats to the country will most likely come from or through this region. The island chains also provide a barrier, channelling any threat through a limited number of narrow choke points. The purpose of littoral manoeuvre or EABO is to exploit that geography as an asymmetric advantage.
Strategically this makes sense, but strategy will always end up being subordinate to policy and politics. Regional or Australian politics may change to help facilitate such operations, but this seems a dangerous assumption to rely upon.
This also focuses attention on the question of what Australia is doing to shape the political environment to facilitate its chosen strategic approach. The DSR places a high priority on the need for statecraft to help shape the environment, but the responses to this appear to have been mixed.
More broadly, the risks of playing out operational concepts on a map devoid of politics seem apparent. Whilst euphemistic language like “the archipelago” has value in certain circumstances, there is a risk that it papers over the very real geopolitical challenges to the current strategic approach.
