Australia is the world’s largest island—some three million square miles—with a 12,200-mile coastline. It is immensely rich in natural resources, especially minerals, and in its capacity to grow food and fibers. Because Australia is an island, and heavily dependent on foreign trade for its well-being, all but a tiny fraction of that trade is by sea. And because Australia is remote from the nearest major friendly power, successive governments since the colonial period have been sensitive to the strategic situation around them, and have been prepared to provide naval forces, first for local defense, and later to support the naval strategy of the British Empire and Commonwealth and, in World War II, of the Allies. Since that war, Australian naval units have been engaged operationally off Korea as part of the U.N. forces, off Malaysia during the Indonesian “confrontation,” and off Vietnam with the U. S. Seventh Fleet.
The People and their Resources. Most—83%—of Australia’s nearly 13 million people live in cities and major towns, and largely in the southeastern corner of the continent. This is partly owing to the accidents of discovery and early settlement, but due equally to the availability of harbors, and to land-use possibilities, which depend on rainfall and the fertility of the soil. Nearly 70% of the land is either desert or at best of only marginal value for pastoral activities. In only half of the remainder are soil and rainfall adequate to support intensive cultivation, dairying, beef cattle, or fat lamb production. The population is overwhelmingly concentrated in this 15%, which includes a fertile belt along the Queensland coast climatically suitable for raising sugar. Two thirds of all Australians live within the southeastern states of Victoria and New South Wales, and largely in the urban complexes of Sydney and Melbourne. Towns and cities developed where the temperatures and rainfall were moderate and served farming communities dependent on exports. Thus, the railway systems have spread out from the ports to agricultural, pastoral, and mining areas, and manufacturing developed largely around the focal port-city areas, where labor and capital or equipment were most readily available. Population density by state or territory ranges from 140 to the square mile in the small Australian Capital Territory (Canberra), to one per square mile in Western Australia (nearly a million square miles) and one per seven square miles in the Northern Territory.
In June 1968, populations of the major cities were:[1]
Brisbane | 833,400 | Melbourne | 2,372,700 |
Newcastle | 342,950 | Geelong | 117,310 |
Sydney | 2,712,600 | Hobart | 147,800 |
Wollongong | 196,330 | Adelaide | 808,600 |
Canberra | 119,200 | Perth | 63 5,500 |
Australia is predominantly self-sufficient in food; it is also one of the world’s leading exporters of grains, meats, and fruits. The only important food imports are some species of fish not found on a commercial basis in Australian waters (notably pink salmon), and some tropical products such as tea, coffee, cocoa, spices, and certain nuts. Most of the latter group are being developed in Papua and New Guinea. Food production, including processing, storage, distribution, and trade, accounts for 20% of the total employment. Exports of raw and processed foodstuffs in bulk, valued annually at over $1,000 million,[2] account for a third of Australia’s export income.
The country is self-sufficient in most minerals of economic importance, and much more than self-sufficient in some. Substantial quantities of iron ore, bauxite, and coal are exported as well as copper, gold, lead, manganese, nickel, silver, tin, tungsten, zinc, and mineral sands. Recent discoveries have shown Australia to be one of the world’s major sources of iron ore—total reserves with an iron content greater than 50% are estimated to be more than 20,000 million tons. Formerly the country was thought to be deficient in oil, but between 1963 and 1968 Australian annual production rose from almost nothing to 14 million barrels. In June 1970, recoverable reserves of crude oil were estimated at 1,793 million barrels, and recoverable reserves of natural gas liquids at 275 million barrels. Most of the known reserves are off the south coast of Victoria, but there have been major discoveries elsewhere and new discoveries are reported from time to time. It is still necessary, however, and much cheaper, to import oil, and about three quarters of all petroleum used in 1969/70[3] was imported. Of all the petroleum imported, in its various forms, 17% came from Brunei and Singapore, 21% from Indonesia, and almost all the rest from the Middle East. Recent substantial discoveries of uranium raise the possibility of exporting that material again, this having been forbidden for some years when proven reserves were modest.
Manufacturing contributes nearly 30% of the Gross National Product. Much of this is in steel and associated industries. Australia produces over six million tons of steel annually. Iron and steel exports in 1969/70 were valued at $135 million. Some specialized steels are imported. About 400,000, or more than two-thirds of all motor vehicles sold in Australia, are produced locally; so, too, are about three-quarters of the railway rolling stock. Marine diesel engines of up to 10,000 h.p.; and ships of up to 80,000 tons can be built. Australia relies heavily on the United States and Britain (and secondarily on Germany and Japan) for its technology, for research and development, and for industrial machine tools. The major industrial complexes are in the Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong area, and in Melbourne and Geelong, with smaller ones grouped around Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.
Overseas Trade. In recent years there has been a steady diversification of trade outlets, combined with a shift away from Britain to Japan and the United States. In 1969, the percentage of Australia’s total exports and imports, in money values, were as follows:
| Exports to | Imports from |
Canada | 2.7 | 3.9 |
China (mainland) | 3.0 | 0.8 |
France | 2.8 | 1.8 |
Germany (Federal Rep.) | 2.8 | 6.6 |
Hong Kong | 2.1 | 1.4 |
India | 1.0 | 0.8 |
Indonesia | 0.9 | 1.3 |
Italy | 2.6 | 2.0 |
Japan | 24.7 | 12.4 |
Malaysia | 1.7 | 0.9 |
Netherlands | 1.7 | 1.5 |
New Zealand | 4.8 | 2.2 |
Papua and New Guinea | 3.6 | 0.6 |
Philippines | 1.4 | 0.1 |
Singapore | 2.4 | 0.4 |
South Africa | 1.6 | 0.6 |
United Kingdom | 11.8 | 21.8 |
United States | 13.5 | 24.9 |
U.S.S.R. | 1.2 | 0.1 |
Trade with regions expressed in millions of Australian dollars in 1969/70 was:
| EXPORTS | IMPORTS | ||
| Value | Percentage | Value | Percentage |
United Kingdom & | 1,008.4 | 24.41 | 1,537.4 | 39.61 |
Soviet Union & | 97.4 | 2.36 | 14.9 | 0.39 |
Middle East, | 67.2 | 1.63 | 163.4 | 4.21 |
Sub-Saharan Africa | 91.1 | 2.20 | 41.3 | 1.06 |
South, East & | 1,657.9 | 40.13 | 775.8 | 19.99 |
United States, | 682.2 | 16.50 | 1,122.2 | 28.91 |
Latin America & the Caribbean | 6.6 | 0.16 | 7.5 | 0.19 |
Oceania, | 399.9 | 9.68 | 133.5 | 3.44 |
Otherwise specified | 120.9 | 2.93 | 85.3 | 2.20 |
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Total | 4,131.5 | 100.00 | 3,881.2 | 100.00 |
By principal commodity classification, during the same period, imports and exports were valued as follows:
| Imports | Exports |
Food and live animals | 139.8 | 1,239.9 |
Beverages and tobacco | 48.4 | 10.7 |
Crude materials, inedible, | 247.0 | 1,394.8 |
Mineral fuels, lubricants and | 254.8 | 201.7 |
Animal and vegetable oils | 15.6 | 25.9 |
Chemicals | 365.6 | 160.9 |
Manufactured goods classified | 752.9 | 541.1 |
Machinery and transport | 1,528.5 | 279.9 |
Miscellaneous manufactured | 350.3 | 57.1 |
Commodities and transactions | 123.9 | 88.9 |
Non-merchandise (gold bullion | 58.6 | 137.7 |
Japan, Australia’s principal market and second largest trading partner,[4] took (in 1969/70) 80% of all exports of coal and coke, 64% of metalliferous ores, 35% of wool, and 30% of sugar. Grains (15%), meats (7%), and non-ferrous metals (7%) were also important exports to Japan in absolute terms.
Communications. Australia is a country of great distances. The two state capitals nearest each other, Melbourne and Adelaide, are more than 400 miles apart by road. From Perth to Sydney is some 2,000 miles in a direct line. In the past, extensive agricultural and pastoral development of marginal rainfall areas meant that roads, though long, often were poor, and, to keep costs as low as possible, railways frequently were built to a narrow-gauge. The country was developed from six separate colonies, whose links with London usually were better than with each other. Colonial rivalries, different economic resources, and plain political stupidity resulted in three different gauges—from 3’6” to 5’3”—in the railway system. It was not until 1962 that Sydney was linked to Melbourne by a single, standard-gauge track; and only in 1970 were the Indian and Pacific coasts linked with such a track, 2,461 miles long. The Federal Government is considering proposals for other standard-gauge construction. Probably the principal weakness is the lack of a rail link between Darwin and the south, but this would be an immensely costly track to build, and could be justified only on strategic and not on commercial grounds.
There is a road from Darwin, south to the railhead at Alice Springs, and a branch runs to the southeast to link with the Queensland network. Throughout the continent there are 112,000 miles of sealed road, 141,000 of gravel or other improved surface, and a further 306,000 of third-class roads. In strategic terms, the main defects are the poor state of much of the heavily-used Sydney-Melbourne highway; some 300 miles of poor, unsealed road on the east-west route along the south coast; and many more hundreds of similar roads south from Alice Springs and in the strategically-vulnerable north and northwest.
Because of the great distances and the favorable climate, air travel developed early in Australia. There are nearly 4,000 registered civil aircraft, using about 600 airfields. Airline network routes cover 100,000 miles. There are nearly three billion passenger-miles flown and some 50 million ton-miles of freight carried annually.
At first, ships and boats were the only way of communicating or trading between the various Australian settlements. They still are important for high-bulk, low-value goods, such as coal, petroleum, iron ore, steel products, limestone, bauxite, gypsum, mineral sands, newsprint, and sugar. Ships are essential for the movement of iron ore from the fields in the northwest to smelting works in Western Australia and the southeastern industrial belt. For general cargo, there are a few container ships and roll-on/roll-off ships. Completed in 1964, the 6,700-ton Kooringa was the first container ship in the world built as such from the keel up, and the “Seatainer” service between Melbourne and Fremantle was the first long-distance door-to-door regular service of its kind.
The Australian mercantile fleet is small by international standards, and is overwhelmingly engaged in coastal trade important for industrial production. This means there are very few ships that in time of war could be converted into naval auxiliaries, and Australian overseas trade would be vulnerable to foreign pressure from countries of fleet ownership. This is beginning to change, and a few Australian ships are engaged in runs to Europe, Japan, and the east and west coast of America.
Trade from any other place in Australia to Darwin, Australia’s northernmost port and airbase, is by sea, by rail and road through Alice Springs, or by road through western Queensland. Four general cargo ships and three passenger-cargo ships serve Darwin out of Fremantle on the southwest coast, and those ships plus a bulk container carrier from the eastern states take a majority of all Darwin’s trade.
The official records of interstate trade are inadequate for any proper assessment of either their quantity or their profitability.
Ships flying the Australian flag are mostly manned by Australians, and there is a waiting list for entry into the merchant service.
Naval Capacity and Functions. The Royal Australian Navy developed integrally with, and as an offshoot of the Royal Navy, and contacts are still much strong0' between those two services than between the other Australian services and their British counterparts. It is, however, an independent navy, independently controlled.
The Navy makes no major pronouncements on its own functioning or capacity—these are the prerogatives of the government (i.e., the cabinet and non-cabinet ministers), which is not always very informative, especially where to do so might invite criticism. The observer can thus be left to make his own deductions.
The Australian Trading Fleet as of June 1970* (Trading vessels of 200 tons gross and over)
| No. | Deadweight Tons | Gross Tons | Average |
I Interstate Vessels (a) Australian owned, | 85 | 908,967 | 673,225 | 10,700 |
(b) Overseas owned, (i) New Zealand owned | 6 | 17,247 | 15,410 | 2,900 |
(ii) Others | 9 | 264,987 | 167,593 | 29,400 |
(c) Overseas owned, overseas | 6 | 163,166 | 100,584 | 27,200 |
Total Interstate Fleet | 106 | 1,354,367 | 956,812 | 12,800 |
II Intrastate Vessels | 23 | 126,042 | 84,474 | 3,700 |
Total Coastal Trading Vessels | 129 | 1,480,409 | 1,041,286 | 11,500 |
III Overseas Trading Vessels (a) Australian owned, | 8 | 66,370 | 67,244 | 8,300 |
(b) Australian owned, | 6 | 55,063 | 40,907 | 9,200 |
Total Overseas Trading Vessels | 14 | 121,433 | 108,151 | 7,700 |
Total Australian Trading Vessels | 143 | 1,601,842 | 1,149,437 | 11,200 |
* Commonwealth Department of Shipping and Transport, Australian Shipping and Shipbuilding. |
The main operational functions of the Navy must be:
► the defense of continental Australia, and especially those parts of primary strategic significance (that is. centers of population, industry, and government);
► the defense of communication with other countries, so far as this is possible, because Australia depends on its exports to pay for essential imports of capital equipment and on some key raw materials, notably oil;
► the security of coastal shipping and trade, especially coal (used in electric power stations and smelting works) and iron ore (the basis of secondary industry).
► the security of offshore rights to fishing, pearling, and underseas mineral deposits.
Of these, since Korea, the first and third have been the subject only of exercises, the second has required specific attention during the Indonesian “confrontation” with Malaysia in the mid-1960s, and has been relevant to the transport and supply of Australian forces involved in Vietnam. The fourth has been a more constant preoccupation, and ships of Japan, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Soviet Union, and Indonesia have been intercepted infringing (knowingly or unknowingly) upon Australian maritime rights.
For these broad purposes, the R.A.N. currently has the major combatant ships shown in the table on the following page. Other ships include two coastal minesweepers, two minehunters, 20 patrol boats, two training ships, one destroyer tender, one oiler, four oceanographic and surveying ships, and six reserve training ships.
Major Combatant Ships of the Royal Australian Navy
Number | Class | Type | Name | Full-load Displacement | Commissioned |
1 | Majestic class | Aircraft | Melbourne | 20,000 | 1955 |
3 | Charles F. Adams | Guided | Perth | 4,500 | 1965-68 |
3 | Daring class | Destroyers | Duchess* | 3,600 | 1952-59 |
6 | River class | Destroyer | Yarra | 2,800 | 1961-70 |
4 | Oberon class | Submarines | Oxley | 2,400 | 1967-70 |
1 | Ex-Majestic | Troop and | Sydney | 17,200 | 1949,1963 |
* On loan from the Royal Navy.
On order are two more Oberon-class submarines, a combat support ship, an oceanographic ship, and a hydrographic ship. In 1969, a preliminary design study was commissioned for a new light destroyer powered by gas turbine engines. In the FY 1971-72 budget, the Australian government allocated $A 283 million to the Navy, as compared with $477 million to the Army and $316 million to the Air Force. Defence expenditure comprised 14% of the national budget.
The strength of the Navy at 30 June 1971 was 16,525 officers and men, plus a reserve of 5,983. All are volunteers.
The main fleet base is at Sydney, with its refitting yard, associated facilities, and appropriate accommodation and schools of instruction. There is a sea training base at Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, from which ships work up. The main officer training establishment is also here, and a naval air station is nearby at Nowra. In Victoria, there is a basic training depot at Flinders, on the Mornington peninsula, and a building and refitting yard at Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne, at the mouth of the River Yarra. There are no naval establishments in South Australia.
At Fremantle on the west coast, the port 12 miles from the state capital of Perth, there is a junior recruit training depot. A few miles to the south, in Cockburn Sound, between Garden Island and the mainland, a naval support facility is under construction, designed to accommodate four escort vessels and three submarines.[5] There is no dock planned or foreshadowed, but it seems almost inevitable that eventually one will be constructed. In the northern half of Australia, there is an operating and maintenance base for patrol boats at Darwin, and another at Cairns.
A third patrol depot is located at Manus, in the Admiralty Islands, which form part of the United Nations Trust Territory of New Guinea, administered by Australia. There are refuelling but no maintenance facilities at Manus, and these patrol boats must go to Madang, on New Guinea’s northern coast, or Port Moresby on the southern coast, for slipping. The Manus naval establishment comprises what is presently termed the Papua and New Guinea division of the R.A.N. prior to the Territory’s obtaining its independence as it is expected to do within the next several years.
The location of the various bases and depots has been logical. Except in a directed economy, or perhaps in time of heavy unemployment, any naval base with a dockyard needs to be near workshops and other industrial backup, manpower supply, electricity, and water. Planners have to try to reconcile the irreconcilable—locating a base far enough away from areas of potential combat to enable repairs and refitting to go on undisturbed, but not so far away that ships spend precious days getting there. There is considerable congestion in Sydney, as there is in industrial Port Kembla south of Sydney. On these grounds, a case could be made for location of a second east coast base at Port Stephens, about 100 miles north of Sydney. There are good, but small, repair facilities and docks at Brisbane, which was a submarine base and important naval facility during World War II. The major northern city of Townsville does not have a port easily developed into a naval base, but it could be done if necessary. In the northwest, a series of ad hoc ore-export ports have been built, and, in due course, one of these could be developed for civilian and naval repairs. There is already some talk of a local steel industry—at present all the ores are shipped a thousand or more miles to Kwinana on Cockburn Sound, or several thousand miles to the eastern states or to Japan. And until Cockburn Sound has a dockyard, there are more than 10,000 miles of the Australian coastline, from Melbourne west, north, east, and south again, all the way to Brisbane, without major naval or civil ship repair facilities.
[Map of Australia, showing the various gauges of railroads]
Climatically, only Darwin and Manus are difficult, and tend to reduce efficiency of manpower and equipment because of heat and humidity.
The Australian Navy has always preferred to have a few large ships rather than many small ones. This is partly because of the long distances involved, the open ocean trade routes, and the fact that the Navy has worked as an integrated force with the British and American navies, and often a long way from Australia. This has meant also that British and American base facilities have been available, and Australia has not felt very much need of support ships or “fleet train” capacity.
This has begun to change. The R.A.N. is getting a wider range of vessels. British naval strength (six escorts) and base facilities east of Suez are only a fraction of what they were at the end of World War II, and British commitments to the defense of the region have been reduced accordingly. The United States, while retaining formidable naval forces in the Pacific, has, under the Nixon doctrine, reduced its general sense of commitment to the security of Southeast Asia, and the U. S. Navy has grave weaknesses because of its proportion of obsolete ships. These developments have occurred at a time when the Soviet Navy is extending its operations in the waters adjacent to Australia. That extension, more than anything else, has prompted the Australian government to begin construction of facilities at Cockburn Sound, and to deploy ships frequently than before in the Indian Ocean. An escort maintenance vessel has been built, and the keel of a combined fuel, ammunition, and stores ship will be laid this year. Fleet support is gaining a high priority in government thinking as increasingly the Navy has to operate in areas where access to industrial repair facilities is becoming less certain.
The Australian Navy is largely an antisubmarine convoy escort force. The four Oberon-class submarines bought from Britain have been primarily for antisubmarine training, but two more such submarines are on order, and they will increase Australia’s offensive and scouting capacity. Apart from the carrier Melbourne, flying a few A4G Skyhawks, there is no naval capacity against aircraft with stand-off missiles, such as Bears and badgers. The Melbourne also flies some S2E Tracker antisubmarine aircraft and British-built Wessex antisubmarine helicopters. Following a recent refit she has an expected life to the end of this decade. In her attack role, there is no replacement in sight for the carrier.
As indicated, the Australian Navy has been designed to work primarily in conjunction with other, larger navies, although for several years the government has imposed on it a requirement to be able to act for a period on its own. The size and composition of the Navy has not meant that this was a very credible requirement against a hostile navy of any size or sophistication.
Areas of Operation. While the bulk of the Fleet operates out of Sydney and trains in the Tasman Sea and Southwest Pacific, for many years Australian ships have worked a great deal in waters to the north of Australia. Two destroyers or frigates, and occasional other ships (including the Melbourne with escorts and support ships) have operated with the Royal Navy out of Singapore, and one destroyer has normally been with in U. S. Seventh Fleet. The R.A.N. regularly takes part in naval exercises under SEATO or with the Royal Navy. During the Indonesian confrontation, Australian ships formed part of the “Commonwealth Strategic Reserve” and helped to protect Singapore and the Malay peninsula, using destroyers and minesweepers in a patrol function. Australia went to some lengths during this period not to appear hostile to Indonesia while yet helping to prevent it from destroying the new Malaysian federation, and Australian naval and merchant ships continued to exercise their international maritime rights by sailing through the major straits between the Indonesian islands. Despite these activities, Indonesia and Australia remained on speaking terms, and since the fall of President Sukarno, relations have again become close and cordial. For several years, Indonesian and Australian army officers have attended each other’s staff colleges.
The increased interest in the Indian Ocean, however, has not meant that the Navy yet feels it is as important as the northern waters or the Southwest Pacific. The political and industrial centers of gravity, hence the bases, remain in Southeastern Australia. Yet in some ways the Indian Ocean deserves more attention than the Pacific. The U. S. Seventh Fleet patrols the latter, whereas there are very few friendly naval forces in the Indian Ocean. Nearly half Australia’s overseas trade (including most oil imports) traverses this ocean. The immense mineral developments in Western Australia—especially, but by no means only, in the northwest, accompanied by a rapid industrialization of that state—have given the western seaboard a strategic importance it has never had before. Presumably, once Cockburn Sound is developed and the industrial facilities and population of Western Australia (not to mention its electoral power) increase, Australia will develop something more resembling a “two-ocean navy” than at present, even though—unless a specific threat develops—the Western portion is likely to be small for a long time.
One effect of having a small navy is that the charting of the continental shelf has been inadequate. The shallow, seldom-used seas north of Australia are particularly badly charted. The result has been that for a long time they were a graveyard for vessels. But the Torres Strait, between Cape York and Papua, is not in fact as shallow as it is often thought to be, and at high tide the channel has a maximum depth of 39 feet (enough to float a 50,000-ton vessel), with a tidal range of about 10 feet. Nonetheless, the eastern approaches to the strait, as all mariners know, are heavily reef-strewn and dangerous.
Around the south coast, the water is deep with few hazards, but climatic conditions can make Bass Strait, between Victoria and Tasmania, and the Great Australian Bight, extremely rough. Small ships or patrol craft need to choose their time of passage with some care. Larger vessels or submarines are not so affected.
During the past few years, Australia has built some twenty 150-ton, 21-knot patrol boats, to replace obsolescent small craft. They have something of the functions of the similar craft of the U. S. Coast Guard, and engage in regular patrolling in northern waters. Five are based on Manus, in the Trust Territory of New Guinea, four on Darwin, and three on Cairns. The others are at Fremantle, Melbourne, Westernport, Jervis Bay, Sydney, and Brisbane. They have been effective in apprehending or deterring foreign vessels engaged, or considered likely to be engaged, in poaching.
The five boats operating in New Guinea waters patrol the navigable rivers (the Sepik on the north coast and the Fly on the south) from time to time, as well as around the islands of the archipelago.
Maritime Air. HMAS Melbourne carries about 20 strike, reconnaissance, and antisubmarine aircraft, but because she is the only carrier in the fleet she can only be operational about half of the time in peacetime Unlike the situation in the U. S. Navy, the Royal Australian Air Force carries out all the long-range maritime reconnaissance, with a squadron of SP2H Neptunes based at Townsville in the northeast and one of P3B Orions based at Edinburgh, near Adelaide on the south coast. The Orions also carry out regular patrolling of the eastern Indian Ocean, flying out of Pearce air base near Perth.
In this role, the R.A.A.F. and the R.A.N. act within a joint operational arrangement. There is also a joint antisubmarine school in New South Wales, and combined exercises with bomber and other aircraft, especially along coastal and international sea routes. As with the Navy, most of the Air Force is based in the southeast. R.A.A.F. bases or stations are at Amberley, near Brisbane (F4E Phantoms); Williamtown, near Newcastle (Mirage III interceptors); Townsville; Richmond, near Sydney (transports); Edinburgh; Fairbairn, at Canberra (helicopters and special aircraft), Pearce, and Darwin, as well as at Butterworth in Malaysia and—light transports—Port Moresby in Papua. There are about 200 combat aircraft in the R.A.A.F.
The Fleet Air Arm, with about 40 combat aircraft has been reprieved from destruction several times. If it survives as a strike weapon after the scrapping of the Melbourne some years hence, it will be because of developments overseas of small carriers at acceptable costs, possibly flying V/STOL aircraft. The R.A.N.’s own new light destroyer—which at a designed weight now approaching 4,000 tons is not very light—will carry one or two helicopters. Unfortunately, the likely rate of construction, as compared with the decommissioning of aging ships, is not expected to bring an increase in overall naval strength before the early 1980s.
The Future. Though the relations with four countries could give cause for Australian naval concern during the next ten to 20 years, there is no apparent prospect for many years to come of any country launching an invasion of Australia: none has an incentive to do so, and probably for many years only two—the United States and the Soviet Union—would have the capacity. Australia is a long way from potential centers of major power, and a good deal of water has to be crossed to get there.
The Soviet Union, with its rapidly growing political, economic, and military interest east of Suez, has changed Australia’s strategic situation, if as yet only slightly. It has obtained access to maritime facilities in various parts of the Indian Ocean, and has been reported to have sought to erect its own facilities in Singapore. Presumably it is concerned about any American missile-carrying submarines in that ocean, and related communications stations (as at North West Cape in Western Australia).
In situations of tension, the Soviet Union is unlikely to act overtly against Australian naval or merchant shipping, but by taking up positions of influence or strength and deploying part of its vast surface and submarine fleet in the region, it gives itself the capacity so to act, or to take advantage of fishing or other commercial maritime opportunities near the Australian coast.
By its size and the Soviet manning component, the Indonesian navy troubled Australia during the confrontation, but has ceased to do so as the Soviet aspect has largely evaporated, much of the navy has become unserviceable, and the Indonesian government has sought international respectability rather than adventure and influence. The border between Indonesia’s West Irian and Australia’s Papua and New Guinea has been defined, and agreement reached on the division of sea-bed resources in some areas between Indonesian Timor and Northwestern Australia. New Guinea will provide a potential source of tension for some years to come, as Indonesia locks West Irian more firmly into itself and Australia grants self-government and independence to the eastern half. Indonesia has a very small industrial capacity but could conceivably, under a different government, develop with outside help more assertive or chauvinistic foreign and defense policies which might affect Australia and its communications to the north.
Japan is once again becoming a naval power of some consequence, although as yet without capital ships. At present and for the foreseeable future, Japan and Australia are, or will be, far too interdependent economically to become military competitors. Some Australians are fearful of the growth of Japanese economic and military power—not that Japan is ever again likely to engage the United States or one of its allies in conflict, but that it may seek to exact from regional trading partners economic advantages, backed by the hint of force. On the other hand, Japan and Australia have reasons to consider at least joint protection of the shipping routes between them, or even some cooperation in defense production.
Until the People’s Republic of China has a larger navy than at present, it is unlikely to impinge upon Australian naval calculations. This situation could change during the next one or two decades.
As Australian forces are withdrawn from Vietnam, it is probable that the government will reduce the size of the army, presently about 45,000 men (about one-third of whom are doing two years of National Service) and may allocate proportionately more funds to the navy and air force. The need, in terms of continental defense, is for the maintenance of a deterrent, for increased maritime air reconnaissance, for naval escort and patrolling capacity, and for hydrographic and oceanographic research. The Navy would probably also like to see Australia have some form of stand-off guided missile for use against hostile shipping. It would like to see the Fleet Air Arm maintained for strike, reconnaissance, and antisubmarine work. In other words, it would like to see the Navy play a more balanced part in the defense of their island-continent home.
[signed] T. B. Millar
[1] All statistics from publications of the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics.
[2] All monetary figures are shown in Australian dollars. $ A 1.00 = $US1.12 approximately.
[3] 1969/70 means the year beginning 1 July 1969.
[4] Total trade (exports plus imports) with the United States is slightly larger than with Japan, owing to heavy Australian imports of capital equipment and consumer durables.
[5] See Lawrence Griswold, “Simonstown to Singapore,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1971, pp. 52-57.