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298 australian maritime issues 2009: spc-a annual
The upsurge of piracy in the [Asia-Pacific] region is driving regional
countries to cooperate. The anti-piracy mission has started to climb
up the list of priorities for the region’s armed forces. Several states
have entered into bilateral and multilateral agreements to exchange
intelligence information, and allow joint anti-piracy patrols along with
(though not within) their common maritime frontiers. 3
Bilateral or multilateral naval exercises
Bilateral or multilateral maritime exercises provide naval forces the opportunity to
cooperate, work together and train across a different range of naval disciplines. These
exercises promote: a sharing of strategy and information; opportunities to learn from
other navies; discussion between navies; learning another’s point of view, culture and
ideas; and allows us to extract experience that would otherwise not be available to us
in a unilateral environment.
Ways that Naval Cooperation can lessen International
Tensions
Bilateral maritime agreements are beneficial between countries that have a large
amount of interaction with each other or close operations. These countries normally
seek negotiation of additional bilateral agreements. These build upon already established
multilateral agreements and will generally be in place between navies that have a large
amount of interaction. For example a Sino-Soviet bilateral agreement might be beneficial
given that Soviet and Chinese vessels have been involved in several near-collisions and
have exchanged warning shots. An example of a bilateral agreement is the relationship
between Australia and Singapore. This bilateral relationship has developed into a stronger
and deeper (informal) strategic partnership, one that is strengthened through bilateral
naval exercises such as Exercise SINGAROO. In August 2008 Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong met to sign a memorandum
of understanding to strengthen bilateral defence ties. A joint statement by the Prime
Ministers stated that the pact aims to enhance the defence relationship between the two
countries through ‘expanding cooperation and sharing resources to develop military
expertise’. 4 The Singapore Defence Ministry specified that ‘both countries will cooperate
through exercises and operations, in areas such as humanitarian and disaster relief,
search and rescue and peace support’. 5 This bilateral pact promotes cooperation in defence
technology research and calls for annual meetings between the two Defence ministries.
In order to develop a common doctrine and operational procedures in the maritime
environment we require greater cooperation on the water, as well as improvement of
communications interoperability. Operational cooperation requires navies to share
significant levels of equipment standardisation and common standard operating procedures: