Maritime strategy.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: Paul Monk's critique (September 2007) of Hugh White's appeal to the ancient memory of Themistocles is devastating in itself. In a longer piece, however, he might have turned from a critique of White's ignorance of classical history to the more fundamental point he mentions at the outset: White's ignorance as regards strategy and his obtuseness regarding Australian military capabilities and strategic policy.

White "simply does not understand weapons, warfare or strategy", Monk cited critics of White as stating. This is underscored by a fact that Monk does not mention and which plainly eluded White: that, in the ancient world, naval warfare was simply land warfare on floating platforms, since the same armed men were used and had to close with one another to fight. The general judgment about White, however, is damning of a defence commentator much admired by the media. Is Monk correct? Regrettably, given White's background, I fear that he is.

In my own public and private debates with White over the years, he has insisted that his preferred strategy for the defence of Australia is a maritime strategy. In fact, his 2000 Defence White Paper strategy is no more than a small part of a maritime strategy. A maritime strategy is one that uses the sea to permit the strategist to deploy his total forces to implement the government's security policy. The classical maritime strategy has three basic elements: sea denial, sea control and sea assertion. Sea denial, that element preferred by White, his mentors and pupils, seeks merely to prevent an adversary using the sea to threaten Australian territory. Sea control on the other hand allows the maritime strategist to deny the use of the sea to his adversary, while sea assertion permits the use of the sea to project force to a theatre of operations in support of government policy. The three elements demand different mixes of military capabilities.

White's real strategy (and it is not really his) seeks to ensure control over any government's defence policy by denying it the military resources that it may wish to use. This fundamental strategy emerged with the 1973 reorganisation of the higher defence machinery. Control of defence policy across the board was ...