Page 90 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019

PACIFIC
SUBMARINES
The Importance of Submarines
to Australia’s National Security
SUBMARINE INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA | CANBERRA
As Australia progresses its plan to double the size of its submarine force, it’s easy for commentators to make solemn pronouncements about what sort of submarine Australia should have, often basing their arguments on half-truths that seem to pass the ‘pub test’.
DEFENCE (and the submariners within it) are generally reluctant to challenge these half-truths because of the fear that some of the actual truths – the ones that hold risks for operational submariners should they become public – would be discussed too openly.
It’s timely, therefore, to explain why submarines hold a particular relevance for Australia’s strategic environment and what technologies should and shouldn’t be considered for the 12 new Attack class submarines. This is a function the Subma- rine Institute of Australia (SIA) is uniquely equipped to deliver.
Australia is blessed with an abundance of natural resources and presents a low-risk profile for the customers of those resources. Being geographically remote and occupy-
ing its own continent, Australia also enjoys enviable political stability. Its high living standard is the result of its attraction as a re- liable and stable supplier and the resources from which that income is derived are car- ried almost exclusively in ships.
To Australia’s north lies the South China Sea, part of the relatively newly-termed Indo- Pacific, a region through which around 65 per cent of Australia’s exports and imports are carried. It’s also an area where multiple nations are jockeying for position in the struggle to exploit the resources that lay be- neath it. It is not a coincidence that those na- tions who hold claims to those areas are also the ones who are contributing to the emer- gence of the Indo-Pacific as ‘home’ to more than 50 per cent of the world’s submarines.
It is possession of a submarine capability (better still, a credible one) that grants a na- tion a ‘place at the table’. A frigate or fighter jet capability has its merits but, when push comes to shove, the only platform capable of independent operation in an area where its own nation does not control the sea or air is a submarine. It is that capability which provides a Government options for response and it is a capability generally rec- ognised first by politicians and later, once the tribalism of platforms is worn away, by the Navy itself.
It doesn’t mean that any submarine oper- ating in such an area is going to be hell-bent on throwing the first punch or even taking on the entire might of a nation that does control the sea and air, but the presence of a submarine in the area gives the Government some choices in how it can influence activi- ties in the area and, in so doing, contribute to an environment through which Austra- lia’s trade can freely pass. This particularly relevant given the recent deterioration of the strategic environment in the region.
Strategic priorities
In 2008, the SIA made a submission to what became the 2009 Defence White Pa- per arguing that, in an environment beset
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