Adolescent Country:Adolescent Country: Why Australia is Not a Maritime Why Australia is Not a Maritime

NationNation

Professor Michael EvansProfessor Michael Evans HassettHassett Chair of Military StudiesChair of Military Studies

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Paradox and Australia’s Strategic Dilemma

‘To see that Australia is a set of paradoxes is, perhaps, the beginning of an ability to understand it’ – Jeanne Jeanne MacKenzieMacKenzie, , The The Australian ParadoxAustralian Paradox (1962) (1962)

Abundance of physical space but psychology of coastal confinement

Idealisation of bush but reality of suburbanism

Materialism (standard of living) before metaphysics (the art of living)

United by ANZAC mythology but divided over national defence

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Greatest Paradox: Lack of Maritime Identity

Australia is a classic trade dependent maritime state whose interests are tied to a larger offshore Asian and Oceanic geo- strategic region - Saul B. Cohen, Saul B. Cohen, Geography Geography and Politics in a Divided Worldand Politics in a Divided World (1964)(1964)

Australia is an island-continent without a maritime identity

Australia does not belong to the great Anglo-American tradition of maritime history but to ideology of ‘the fatal shore’

Attempts at Dominion navalism replaced by ANZAC after World War 1

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The Price of Paradox: A State of Strategic Adolescence

Paradoxes of Australia’s national culture impede maritime consciousness

Coastal lifestyle not synonymous with oceanic-consciousness

Australian culture upholds a strong continental ethos

Encourages strategic thinking inimical to emergence of a mature appreciation of value of the sea

This will not be overcome quickly or easily in 21st century

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Why Maritime Strategy Matters

A national maritime strategy [is systemic and] defines fundamentally a state’s long- term future relationship with the sea and involves the comprehensive integration of all elements and partnerships – military, commercial and institutional – Chris Parry, Chris Parry, Super Highway: Sea Power in the 21Super Highway: Sea Power in the 21stst

CenturyCentury (2014)(2014)

‘Rid yourselves of the old notion – held by so many for so long – that maritime strategy exists solely to fight and win wars at sea, and the rest will take care of itself’ – Admiral Admiral Michael Mullen, CNO, USN, June 2006Michael Mullen, CNO, USN, June 2006

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Australia’s Challenge: A Nation without Oceanic-

Consciousness

America has a great maritime tradition, which Australia really has not – H. C. H. C. Allen, Allen, Bush and Backwoods: A Bush and Backwoods: A Comparison of the Frontier in Australia Comparison of the Frontier in Australia and the United Statesand the United States (1959) (1959)

‘Australia is a maritime nation and scarcely knows it – James Bird,James Bird, Seaport Seaport Gateways of Australia Gateways of Australia (1968)(1968)

Australia is not a maritime nation and its people do not sustain much of an interest in Australian maritime strategy – Kim Kim Beazley, Minister for Defence, Beazley, Minister for Defence, November 1987November 1987

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Three Snapshots

Maritime dependence and its adverse impact on evolution of Australian strategy

Influence of national culture in impeding a modern maritime ethos

Prospects for a national maritime renaissance in the challenging global circumstances of the 21st

century

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1. Maritime Dependence and Australia’s Defence

1788-1901: Australia protected by world’s greatest seaborne empire

Need for a maritime identity unnecessary given British imperial defence

Australia’s colonists able to settle an island- continent as a New Britannia – but cultivated a paradoxical sense of non-Britannic mare incognitum

History of maritime thought in Australia ‘is like the study of snakes in Ireland: There are no snakes in Ireland’

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Federation Era Defence

Federation made defence a national political consideration

Geographical size and small population meant defence in, and of, empire

‘[Let Australasia] frame its [defence] schemes and base its estimates on sound lines, both naval and imperial; naval by allowing due weight to battle force; imperial, by contemplating the whole . . . local safety is not always best found in local precaution. There is a military sense, in which he who loses his life shall save it’ – Alfred Thayer Mahan, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Retrospect and Retrospect and ProspectProspect (1902) (1902)

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The Meta-Narrative: The Deakenite ‘Australian Settlement’, 1901-85

Australia was founded on faith in government authority; belief in egalitarianism . . . protection of its industry and its jobs; dependence on a great power (first Britain, then America), for its security and finance; and above all hostility to its [Asian] geographical location . . . Its bedrock ideology was protection; its solution a Fortress Australia, guaranteed as part of an impregnable Empire spanning the globePaul Kelly, Paul Kelly, The End of CertaintyThe End of Certainty (1992)(1992)

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From Sharks to Dingoes: Strategic Identity since 1915

Paradox: Dominion navalism was Federation’s original strategic creed not ANZAC warfare

Paradox: until 1915, Charles Bean, architect of ANZAC, was naval advocate proclaiming Australians as ‘blood of sea peoples’

Post-1918, Diggers came to define Australia’s martial ethos

RAN capability fell drastically in 1920s – by 1940s maritime dependence transferred from Britain to America

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Shattering Defence: Conscription

Australian maritime outlook further distorted by division on defence

Conscription disputes (1916-17 and 1942) shattered consensus on defence

Severed political bond between duty of bearing arms and rights of citizenship

Paradox: Australia developed a martial history without experience of self-defence

Legacy: a volunteer military tradition associated mainly with soldiers

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Australian Strategic Culture in 21st Century

Australia’s strategic culture lacks both oceanic consciousness and consensus on defence

Paradox and discord mark two fundamentals of defence: who should serve and where?

‘Australia [has] been a pro-war and anti conscription country – a unique mixture’ – Paul Paul Kelly, Kelly, 100 Years: The Australian Story100 Years: The Australian Story (2001) (2001)

‘That defence of the nation is a single project, and that the State should have the power to command – [has] not been accepted in Australia . Defence has been the empty core of Australian nationhood’ – John Hirst, John Hirst, AustraliaAustralia’’s Democracy: a Short Historys Democracy: a Short History (2002) (2002)

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2. Visual Continentalism: A National Culture of Maritime Indifference

Great paradox of seaborne security fuelling an inward-looking literary and artistic culture of landscape

Explorers, artists, writers (Leichardt, Nolan, Lawson and Paterson) created a cult of landscape

‘Exalt the bush above the spurious and blue-moulded civilisation of the littoral’ – Joseph Furphy (Tom Collins), Joseph Furphy (Tom Collins), Such Such is Lifeis Life

Serle’s seminal study of Australian culture devoid of a single maritime reference

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A ‘Withheld Self’ and the Spirit of the Land

[The land] has not only been the background of the nation’s story, but also the home of its heroes, the maker of its ideals, and the breeding ground of its myths. - T. Inglis T. Inglis Moore, Moore, Social Patterns in Social Patterns in Australian LiteratureAustralian Literature (1971) (1971)

Inward Australian culture described by D. H. Lawrence as the spiritual condition of a ‘withheld self’

Paradox: world’s largest island possesses a deep inwardness drawn from landscape

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The Jindyworobaks: Rejecting the Sea

Jindyworobak literary movement (1930s-1950s) viewed ocean as alien to Australian identity

Sea dismissed as representative of ‘the blindness [of] ship-fed seas from colder waters’ – Ian Mudie, Ian Mudie, ‘‘UndergroundUnderground’’

Outback and continental landscape celebrated as true Australia way ‘like heart and blood, from heat to mist’

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3. Whither Australia? Prospects for a Maritime Ethos in 21st Century

Unknown if future generations will discover a maritime gene

But Australia of 2015 is different from Australia of 1915 and future will be different again

1985-2010: overthrow of Deakenite ‘Settlement Australia’ in favour of socio-economic reform involving embrace of globalisation and free markets

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1985-2010: Australia’s Economic Transformation

– 1985-2010: economy tripled in size; per capita GDP grew by 182%

– G20 member: twelfth largest economy and the seventh most developed in the world

– 2008: dollar became the sixth most traded currency

– 2010-12: changing demography – Chinese overtook British as main source of permanent residents

– Australia’s economic transformation underpinned by freedom of maritime commons

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Strategic Transformation: Implications of Rising Asia

Economic power shift from West to East will make Australia a strategic anchor adjacent to the Indo-Pacific arc

Eight of world’s 10 busiest container ports in Asia-Pacific;

30% of world trade transits South China Sea; 66% of oil through Indo-Pacific

Global seaborne trade will double by 2035; energy increase by over 50 per cent

We must be alliance-focused, globally- sensitive and regionally-oriented and craft a maritime strategy that meets an Asian economic future

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Boom or Bust? Australia’s Asian Challenge

Australian prosperity fuelled by Asian economies but 2012 Asia White Paper has little maritime focus

But contains a striking phrase

‘As the global centre of gravity shifts to our region, the tyranny of distance is being replaced by the prospects of proximity’ – Australia in the Asian Australia in the Asian Century White Paper Century White Paper (Oct 2012) (Oct 2012)

Historically, ‘prospects of proximity’ with Asia have always outweighed by ‘perils of proximity’ (most notably in defence policy)

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Australia in 2015: Poised Between Past and Future

Unclear if ‘prospects of proximity’ will be seized

2010-15: crisis of political leadership and faltering economic competitiveness

Country must overcome debt; decline of responsive government and trivial public policy

Choice of futures: a forward, maritime- focused ‘greater Australia’, or a repackaged ‘Australian Settlement’ seeking past comforts

Challenge is to re-imagine the country for the new century

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Re-imagining Australia in the 21st

Century

Australia must be re-conceptualised as an ‘archipelago of population islands’

‘While Australia does a great impression of being a continental nation, it is in fact an efficiently organised and arable archipelago’ – Asher Judah, Asher Judah, The The Australian CenturyAustralian Century (2014)(2014)

Five primary population islands (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide)

Represent an archipelagic ‘urban aorta’ generating 65 per cent of economic activity

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‘Looking Outward’: Future Engines of Prosperity require Vision

Australia must exploit economic rise of cosmopolitan global middle class (especially in Asia)

By 2030 global middle class will number 4.9b (tripling from 1.8b in 2015)

Demand will be fuelled by Asian urbanisation, energy and education

Must invest in political vision: expert educational sector; larger skilled immigration; tax reform and competitive labour market attuned to exports to global middle class

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Looking Outward: Developing a Supporting Maritime Narrative

Narrative must explain surrounding seas as highways to prosperous future not as moat defences of vanished ages

The most important outstanding task is for a narrative to be developed that explains the importance to the safety and security of Australia’s maritime domains to the nation’s broader national security and economic well- being. These matters have not been well- articulated to the broader public’ – Brett Brett Biddington, Understanding AustraliaBiddington, Understanding Australia’’s Maritime Domain s Maritime Domain in a Networked World (Kokoda, November 2014) in a Networked World (Kokoda, November 2014)

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New Generation Components of a Maritime Narrative

‘Conversation with the Country’: on how future is outward and maritime (strategic communications and educational strategy)

A well-funded National Institute for Maritime Affairs: to focus on geopolitical nexus between economic power, national security and maritime awareness

ADF Doctrine, Concepts and Development Centre: for strategic appreciation of sea power (beyond single service issues)

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The Logic of Maritime Consciousness

The Willie Sutton logic : why do you rob banks? – because that’s where the money is

Why does Australia need a national maritime consciousness? – because that’s where the prosperity is

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Conclusion

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Conceptual Recap

Lack of a maritime consciousness has been most striking paradox of Australian history

Refocusing Australia’s national culture to enhance oceanic-awareness is a key to future maturity

Will not be easy; it is a generational task requiring leadership and vision

But to ensure future prosperity and security, a 21st century Australian maritime narrative must be developed

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Sea-Seekers: Overcoming the Legacy of the Fatal Shore

Australia is at the dawn, not the noon, of its destiny

The future awaits but it is a rendezvous that must be seized

We must overcome A. D. Hope’s image of Australians as ‘second hand Europeans [who] pullulate timidly on the edge of alien shores’

We must become the bold visionaries of Roderic Quinn’s maritime poem , ‘The Sea- Seekers’ – who on encountering the ocean – rejoiced and ‘shouted to the Morning Seas’

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Questions