A2/AD: A Strategy for the Defence of Australia in the 21st Century

Australia is enetresing a new and dangerous strategic epoch. For the first time in 70 years the nation faces the possibility of large-scale, general regional conflict in the Indo-Pacific. A great naval power has risen in East Asia, a revisionist power that seeks to challenge the US led order upon which Australia's security and prosperity has been based. Worse, that power will very soon have the ability to penetrate Australia’s maritime defences, at least as they stood in the late 2000s. The last time Australia’s strategic environment had a similar character the nation faced a war of national survival. But how can Australia hope to avoid the worst possible outcomes in this most dangerous decade? This video outlines a plausible path Canberra can take; Anti Access/Area Denial. Ironically enough pioneered by the PLA, at least in its modern incarnation, A2/AD offers Australia the possibility of offsetting Beijing’s naval superiority by leveraging pervasive sensor networks and long range maritime strike systems to deny vast areas of maritime geography to enemy naval forces. 0:00 Australia’s Grand Strategy and the Defence of Australia 25:25 The Sino-American War and Australia’s Role In It 52:33 Anti Access/Area Denial: A Lesson from Beijing 1:08:35 Long Range Maritime Strike Systems 1:24:50 Hardening Australia’s Northern Bases 1:43:23 History Might Not Wait