Soundings Papers: Framing Australia’s Maritime Domain

HMAS Sirius sails under the Milky Way during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 21. Photographer: LSIS Sittichai Sakonpoonpol.

In the popular imagination, Australia is not a maritime nation. Australians remember the ‘Rats of Tobruk’, but the ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’ that contested Hitler in the Mediterranean is unknown. Australians are familiar with the battle for the ‘Kokoda Track’ but the battle of ‘Leyte Gulf’ is unfamiliar. Australia has never had a ‘grand fleet’. The Navy cannot survive without securing a place in the Australian psyche. The Navy cannot be independent, separate and dislocated from the national consciousness. The Navy must exist within the political establishment, since the Navy is integral to the overall strategic-political enterprise.