Australian Maritime Issues 2005 - Royal Australian Navy

FUTURE SEA POWER
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little or no immediate value may be left in an uncontrolled state. Permanent sea control is
the sum of these actions. The permanency of the objects of the control (marine resources,
etc.) further distinguishes it from temporary sea control.
The surveillance task is the most significant issue which nations will face as they attempt
to exert permanent sea control. Indeed, this is another aspect where developments within
the last 100 years have changed the environment, in this case facilitating the change of
attitude that nations have to their ‘offshore estate’. 14 It is only with the advent of aircraft,
reconnaissance satellites, advanced radars, computers and modern communications that
a nation could contemplate surveying its maritime jurisdiction sufficiently to enable
the kind of regulation and control that may be desired (surveillance which, even if only
focused on the most valuable areas, will require it to cover large ocean areas, including
the air, surface and submarine environments). It will be the success, or otherwise, of this
effort which will underpin a nation’s ability to exercise permanent sea control.
Nations
Halford Mackinder argued that after the industrial revolution, the wellsprings of national
power lay in factors which were to be found on land: industrial centres, large populations,
markets, resources and railways to connect them. 15 These represented national ‘heartland’
(centres of gravity), exemplified in the 20th century by the USSR. This thinking was
reflected by Corbett, who wrote that:
Since men live upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues between nations
have always been decided - except in the rarest cases - either by what your army
can do against your enemy’s territory and national life, or else by fear of what the
fleet makes it possible for your army to do. 16
Given pervasive and permanent habitation of the maritime environment, a nation’s
heartland must, to some extent, be considered to lie in that environment. Oil and gas
platforms, communications infrastructure such as undersea cables, fish farms and wild
fish stocks, and the marine features which support tourism, are current examples of
national heartland.
The corollary is that ‘great issues between nations’ may be decided by what maritime
forces may do, or threaten to do, against marine assets. Unlike shipping these assets are
permanent, usually in well-known locations, often but not always close to a coastline or
near centres of population. They are a point against which pressure may be brought to
bear. Control of the sea (or at least denial to an enemy) in which these marine assets exist
and from which an attack against them may be launched, must therefore be permanent.
If it is possible to exercise direct and effective pressure on a nation’s maritime heartland,
this will have consequences for the ways in which conflicts are conducted. This will be
particularly so for media saturated nations. For, while human presence may be pervasive
and permanent, it will not be as widespread as it is on land. The assets in the marine
environment will usually be more discrete (wild fish stocks are one exception), allowing
for simpler targeting with much less chance of immediate collateral damage, especially
civilian casualties (assuming the use of conventional explosives and not chemical,