Australia, Maritime Strategy and Regional Military Diplomacy

This paper will address the issues of an Australian maritime strategy and, in particular, focus on the new Australian Defence Force (ADF) amphibious capability and its role in both this strategy and regional military diplomacy.1 These issues will be covered within the boundaries of Vice Admiral Ray Grigg’s, Chief of Navy (CN), call for a ‘maritime school of strategic thought’. Such a school needs to start with a broad understanding of its core element to the ADF: what a maritime strategy is and how it is applicable to Australia. In conceptualising such an approach both the nation and specifically the political, defence and policy communities, need to move from a ‘girt by beach’ to a ‘girt by sea’ conceptual understanding of Australian society. We need an embedded public view of our maritime interests that extends beyond boat people arriving on our shores.