Australian Maritime Issues 2007 - Royal Australian Navy

How Might the World’s Navies Contribute to and Benefit from the ‘1000-Ship Navy’ Proposal?
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chose to merge the two and so a dependence on ever shifting coalitions and partnerships
has developed as a result.
Walking the Talk
However, that PSI has had such a degree of success that the US President can claim a
global partnership of more than 70 countries is highly questionable. If repeated often
enough people will start to believe it, but China and India remain notably absent and, as
the Congressional Research Service has consistently noted, it is unclear what ‘support’
means. According to information released by the State Department, requirements for
support appear to be fairly weak. 5 Nevertheless, it can be argued that the PSI’s initial
vim from its 11 original members provided much of the impetus to support the United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. This was the first ever Security Council
resolution on non-proliferation issues, adopted in April 2004. The resolution:
calls upon all States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and
legislation and consistent with international law, to take cooperative action to
prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, their means
of delivery, and related materials. 6
However, two years later a further resolution was necessary to encourage the
international community to meet the requirements of the first.
Much less successful, although less global in its approach than the PSI, was the
Commander in Chief, United States PACOM’s (Pacific Command) RMSI. 7 Just three
months after Admiral Fargo’s suggestion that the PACOM-led initiative could include
the US Navy conducting deterrent patrols in the Malacca Strait, the US Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld himself had become ‘very cautious in suggesting the
involvement of US troops in securing the straits, while nevertheless making it very
clear that the country has strategic interest in the channel’. 8 There is no doubt that
the RMSI initiative, particularly with regard to what the world is encouraged to see
as a pirate-infested channel, set off alarm bells in the littoral states of Malaysia and
Indonesia. With both nations alert to the threat to their sovereignty and well versed
in international maritime law, the RMSI became effectively and embarrassingly
dead in the water. However, US military relations with both countries continue to
improve, and Malaysia recently extended its bilateral military agreement with the
US for a further 10 years.
The CNO’s ‘1000-Ship Navy’ concept is a natural progression from the geographically
and politically hamstrung RMSI and the limited, in terms of proliferation, PSI. Each of
the five US Combatant Commanders, whose areas of interest cover the globe, supports
his government’s foreign policy through a separate Theatre Engagement Plan, now
known as a Theatre Security Cooperation Plan (TSCP). The TSCPs are fully coordinated
with the military staffs in US embassies. They aim to integrate available resources – for
example, security assistance, military-to-military exchanges, exercises, cooperative