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Regional Alliances in the Context of a Maritime Strategy
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would be better to live to fight another day. This unfortunately is not the true spirit of
the ‘new threat’ who is absolved by his or her righteousness. In an earlier period this
‘threat’, like Gandhi, might have turned to preaching. Today, his chosen path is that
of the terrorist. Since 11 September 2001, Australians have been witness to a series of
terrorist attacks. The Bali nightclub bombing on 12 October 2002 and the Australian
Embassy bombing in Jakarta on 9 September 2004, signified a tectonic shift in the
regional security construct. Immediately after WWII, Dean Acheson noted that we ‘are
present at the creation’. While he was referring to the Cold War and the subsequent
shift to bipolarity, his expression is useful to highlight the uncertainty that this ‘new
threat’ brings to Australian national interests.
From this discussion a number of themes emerge. First, that ANZUS as an ideological
alliance has been fundamental to Australia’s security thinking. Second, the new
millennium has been witness to a new threat to Australian security — a threat that is
shapeless, amorphous, undefined, stateless and mobile — a threat that the government
noted was ‘a critical strategic and security dimension for Australia’ 23 — underscoring
the complexity of this threat is the adage that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s
freedom fighter’. Third, regional alliances such as ASEAN and ARF have demonstrated
a limited capacity for dealing with this ‘new threat’. Despite the presence of a number
of Jemaah Islamiah (JI) nodes within the region, there has yet been no concerted move
to form an alliance framework or mature security community to combat such threats.
From this preliminary analysis, one can conclude that Australia’s best security option
is to preserve the ANZUS alliance and the FPDA. As the government stated in 2003,
‘the problem cannot be managed by one country alone; a targeted, regional and global
approach is needed’. 24
Maritime Strategy
From a naval perspective it is timely to reassess the role that the RAN might play
in combating regional terrorism. Traditional maritime strategy is defined as ‘the
comprehensive direction of all aspects of national power to achieve national strategic
goals by exercising some degree of control at sea’. 25 Theorists such as the Colomb
brothers, Captain Alfred Mahan, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov and Professor Geoffrey
Till have put forward such concepts as sea command, sea control, sea denial and a
balanced fleet. 26 These concepts are premised on the notion that both navies (friend and
foe) have a similar modus operandi: that is, navy against navy. Accordingly, maritime
concepts, such as decisive battle and blockade, could be said to be inappropriate for
dealing with such a newfound shapeless threat. 27 It would be presumptuous to conclude,
however, that a maritime strategy would be ineffective against terrorism. The sources
of sea power that Till referred to (a maritime community, resources, government and
geography) remain as pertinent in dealing with this ‘new threat’ as they were in dealing
with Soviet irredentism during the Cold War. 28