Competitive Advantage

The Royal Australian Navy RAN sees people as central to winning the next fight.

- Dr Lee Willett

Over the last decade, several factors have converged to shape the future strategic purpose, direction, and output of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

The RAN has always possessed capacity to project power at distance across both the Pacific and Indian oceans. In the South Pacific region, Australia is the major military power. According to Professor Eric Grove, the RAN has a longestablished position as a medium regional force projection navy across the entire Pacific region, “with a capacity to deploy usable and useful maritime power far into the Pacific”. As regards Indian Ocean presence, the RAN’s maritime footprint extends from Western Australia to the Northern Indian Ocean and Gulf regions, where RAN ships support several maritime security campaigns including Australia’s national Operation ‘Manitou’ tasking and the US Navy (USN)-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) naval partnership.

The last decade, however, saw the Indo-Pacific region perhaps become the first theatre within which the stirrings of superpower competition at sea became evident. This resurgence of maritime competition occurred parallel to a major capability re-capitalisation programme within the RAN. Today, the RAN arguably is renewing its position as a regional naval power, with its presence underpinned by new, state-of-the-art platforms and capabilities such as two landing helicopter dock amphibious ships, three air warfare-capable guided-missile destroyers, nine anti-submarine warfare frigates, 12 diesel-electric submarines, and other core maritime capabilities such as maritime patrol aircraft and offshore patrol vessels.