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What are the Weaknesses of
Expeditionary Operations when
Compared with Continental Defence?
Squadron Leader Lewis Frederickson
As an island nation geographically isolated, most military operations that Australia
has mounted since Federation have invariably been expeditionary in nature, resulting
in the projection of force off shore. Australia’s geo-political and military ties during
the last century have ensured that this has been perpetually so. Indeed, for nearly
sixty years now the ANZUS alliance has been the mainstay of Australia’s military
foreign policy. This driving force stems back to the fall of Singapore, when it became
unequivocally clear that Britain was no longer capable of underwriting Australia’s
security. At the time, Prime Minister John Curtin was succinct in his appraisal of
Australia’s circumstances in saying:
Australia regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the
United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction
of the democracies’ fighting plan. Without any inhibitions of any kind,
I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs
as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom. 1
Notwithstanding, such concepts were not new to Australia. Nearly four decades
earlier, when the Japanese defeated a Russian fleet in the Straits of Tsushima in
1905, it signified the arrival of a new Asian oceanic power. In many ways this earlier
development was just as significant for Australia. At the time, the Battle of Tsushima
and the emergence of a powerful Asian nation was a perceived threat to Australian
security, and Australia’s projection of power into the region has become an enduring
theme in the nation’s history ever since. It is, in fact, impossible to view Australian
defence policy since Federation as distinct from our regional interests, for although
‘Australia’s ‘declared’ defence policy has oscillated between continental and various
forms of regional defence, [it] has consistently focused on the defence of Australia’s
northern approaches’. 2
The corollary of this focus leads to a question of distinguishing between regional, or
expeditionary, and continental forms of defence; and further, an understanding of why
expeditionary operations have largely predominated in the Australian experience.
Indeed, the distinction between Australian expeditionary operations and continental
defence can only be understood in the context of Australia’s continued reliance on
bigger powers in the region. Further, projecting power in an expeditionary sense has
always presented its own set of unique challenges, even weaknesses, to the Australian