Sea Control - Sea Control 430 - Australian Constabulary Missions with Sean Andrews

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Links1. Sea Power by Other Means: Naval Contributions to National Objectives Beyond Sea Control, Power Projection, and Traditional Service Missions, edited by J. Overton, Nomos, 2023.2. Sean Andrews�� Twitter Feed.

Hello and welcome to the Sea Control Podcast. I'm Nathan Miller. Today, Jared Samuelson speaks with Captain Sean Andrews of the Royal Australian Navy about his writing on constabulary operations, most prominently fisheries enforcement. Jonathan Selling edited and produced today's episode. SimSec is looking for a volunteer to join our technical team and support our web operations. We're looking for someone with a background in WordPress implementation and support, as well as knowledge in web hosting and networking. Some knowledge of identity management and security operations is also helpful. Please reach out to content at simsec.org to share your background and discuss.

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You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Captain Sean Andrews, Royal Australian Navy, and we're going to be discussing a chapter that he's contributed to the book, Sea Power by Other Means, Naval Contributions to National Objectives Beyond Sea Control and Power Projection. That chapter was on Australian Maritime Constabulary Operations. I want to salute you, sir, as well, for the great title, Hook, Line, and Sinker. Sir, could you tell the listeners a little bit more about your background now?

Yeah, thanks, Jared. Hello, everyone else. Look, thanks for having me. I'm a Principal Warfare Officer, and I think everyone knows what that is. I'm an Undersea Warfare Specialist ever since I joined the Navy. I achieved a commission in 1990. I've completed 20 years at sea, destroyers, patrol boats, frigates, full range of sea postings, including command.

The usual postings followed. Graduate of the Australian Command and Staff College, which represented the Navy at the Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, Joint Advanced Warfighting School. I've been better with the United States Navy, both 7th Fleet and 10th Mountain in Afghan. And I've deployed at four theatres, as said, Afghan, South China Sea, East China Sea, India, Pacific Oceans.

I have a Master's in Strategy and Policy in Maritime Studies and a PhD in International Relations. And that's where my, I guess, my interests lie in issues of maritime character. And I've got a book that should be out this year called Australia's Maritime Domain, an Integrated Approach. Well, thank you. And a reminder to the listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. So we'll follow up at the end here because I want to see when that book's going to be published. And I think that's probably another natural, natural talking point for us in the future. But for this case, how are you defining constabulary operations and what sort of authorities do Australian Naval Forces enjoy in conducting those operations?

Actually, I might go to the definition first, which is out of Australian Maritime Doctrine. The reason I'm going to do that is James Goldrick just passed the other day, a great naval historian. And in the 2010 version, he defined it as Constabulary operations are the use of military force To uphold a national and international law In a manner in which minimum violence is only used in enforcement As a last resort and after evidence of a breach Or intent to defy has been established beyond reasonable doubt

The level and type of violence that is permitted Will frequently be specified in law, mandate or regime That has been enforced, also called policing but in a more practical sense when we discuss maritime ideas or maritime activities the idea of constabulary operations is particularly valuable because it emphasizes historically close and continuing relationship between navies and domestic and international law enforcement you know constabulary ops for us function within the framework of domestic law and australia's international law obligations and hence the amount and degree of force that can be applied

must be strictly within that mandate given. So this highlights the important difference between constabulary and military operations in that constabulary depends upon the legitimacy deriving from a legal domestic mandate or an internationally agreed order, and the latter, whatever that degree of force implied, threatened or exercised,

is defined primarily by national interest. Look, fisheries protection is one of the oldest tasks by Navy. If memory serves me right, There is recorded history of Scottish maritim constabulary forces undertaking this task. For Australia, it also has some legitimacy that goes back. Today, in the year of extending jurisdiction and increasing exploitation of and stress on fish stocks in both coastal and oceanic waters,

it remains a vital activity. Furthermore, the resource protection task that has extended considerably in recent decades to include surveillance and protection of offshore industries and the monitoring of natural environments and the actions of humans within it, sort of emphasises such operations on direct national economic benefit, has thus begun to include a more wide range in concerns of environmental quality. So in a nutshell, government directs the task that says ships deploy, patrol boats deploy, and they undertake this resource task. For the sailor, it's colloquially called a fisheries patrol. And what that does is probably twofold. It's an inverse blockade. It keeps the poachers out, and it really demonstrates probably

the fullest expression of a government's stewardship of its domestic sea. Can I ask, is the Australian Navy actually participating? This is just a little bit of a mindset thing for, you know, the American Navy audience is we're not typically doing fisheries patrols with our vessels in the U.S. or really anywhere else. Sometimes we're out there sort of providing some overwatch stuff, but it's usually because we'll have a Coast Guard, a Coast Guard team embarked on board who has some background in what it is that we're doing. So is it actually the Australian Navy who's executing this in your case? Is there an Australian Coast Guard? I know the answer to that question, but not all of our listeners will.

Actually, I quote the Carl Vinson doing a fisheries operation, I think, in May 16. I think it's May 16. Oh, no, actually May 12, 2012, in the tuna belt, which I always thought was extraordinary, the fullest expression of American maritime power. But golf power is everything. But for those listeners who are nerds and like maritime theory,

If you look at the Australian Navy and think about Boost, Trinity, Grove updated in 1990, Goldrick updated in 2000, I've updated in 2021, constabulary tasks, diplomatic tasks, and of course, maritime combat operations. I think the US Navy would be more familiar with the diplomacy span of tasks and the war fighting and constabulary, although I would suggest some are undertaken by the US Navy, I know they are, such as search and rescue, fisheries operations nest in there, and it's resource protection. It's loosely called resource protection.

We being founded off or formed on as part of the Royal Navy, that's our genesis. Constabulary tasking has already been significant, and I would argue that it was the first task we did as a modern Navy in 1911. we were directed to undertake a special cruise in a ship probably not designed for it sailed significant miles around the northwest Australia to investigate alleged fisheries poaching by traditional prows from Batavia and broader Asia

or as we know Indonesia today and they were there to demonstrate the resolve and enforce the sovereignty and security of Australia's offshore state which is basically a decade after federation So this new nation knew what constabulary operations were, and they used its new navy to do it. And it's not philosophically new, noting that even the most august of admirals, Nelson, of course, would undertake these in the Caribbean in the 1780s. Or to make the point the other way, the United States Coast Guard was established 1794 years before the United States Navy, which is important in the new state. Since the constabulary role, I should say, was important in the new state.

So we've always done it, and it's been one of those things. However, I'll probably unpack this a bit further. We really didn't embrace constabulary tasks with dedicated aircraft patrol vessels or headquarters until about 1964, a strategic announcement, the procurement of vessels. That was followed through with aircraft and then its own dedicated headquarters.

So in a nutshell, it took us about a century to get to what it is today, Maritime Border Command, which is quite an effective and comprehensive headquarters. Now, the header for your chapter is Constabulary Operations, but you've chosen to look at it through the lens of fisheries enforcement. So what are the debates in Australia on how to view fisheries enforcement? There's two predominant debates gaining momentum on illegal fishing. the first argues that illegal fishing should be viewed as an environmental ecological resource risk issue the second debate frames illegal fishing through a resource-based lens and brushes off claims that fishing enables violent crimes such as smuggling trafficking and piracy and perhaps in some cases it's alleged insurgency a third position which

synthesizes these perspectives begins with the premise that fishering governance has become a strategic issue involving consideration of ecological sustainability and stability operations. So my chapter sort of shapes the course closely aligned to the third position and it illuminates that fishery enforcement is an Australian maritime strategic challenge and task. It's infused with the Anglo- American school of maritime thought and underpinned by national policy. In fact, analysis of Australian operations, Australian naval operations revealed that over 60% of directed Australian missions are indeed

constabulary in nature with a focus on fishery tasks um empirically australia has evolved its maritime security efforts by way of background between 1911 1964 there was extraordinary little coordinated action in providing security and sovereignty in the maritime domain in australia's maritime domain i should say world war one focused the duties of the government and the navy and the inner war period saw economic pressures drive politics to contemplate the abolition of the navy as an independent service on uh in july uh 1931 july 17 1931 i'm on it um and a quick sidebar that gentleman would go on to become prime minister of australia and order aircraft carriers so from getting rid of the navy to aircraft carriers that's a story of another day

and then uh world war ii again focused critical decisions regarding procurement training operations um which the navy would support the global love the global effort against the war against the Axis powers but the need to protect marine resources didn't subside in the years after the Second World War and Australian Navy frigates were tasked for resource protection these were based in Manus Island literally hundreds of miles from where they're required but these were considered non-germane by the Navy and the use of frigates for such a mundane task was a waste of costly resources in fact in 1960 the general purpose vessel Banks initially acquired the survey duties and patrol will have undertook fisheries surveillance in the northern waters but

she only had a top speed of nine or ten knots which is ineffective and effectively was out just outrun by fishing vessels now this could be argued that was symptomatic symptomatic of the broader political and naval inattention to protecting the maritime domain there is plenty of argument that says that naval officers didn't think that that constabulary tasking was a glamorous task they preferred the other i guess what we could what we consider is um the prosecution of proper trade like any submarine warfare anti-air warfare however in 1964 the menzies government who were influenced by naval operational experiences during the malaysian emergency announced the initial procurement of nine patrol craft in australia

and five to papua new guinea however in 65 he increased that purchase order to additional six this is interesting because those five patrol craft would go to new guinea arguably are the foundation which sets up the pacific patrol boat scheme or as we know it now the pacific maritime security partnership which i think is some 22 vessels plus to x amount of countries so its lineage goes back you know 50 odd years but anyway menzies stated the patrol path would replace the over overage search and rescue craft the general purpose vessels and the sea with defence vessels, and these craft would be deployed in Australia's

northern and western oceans to undertake surveillance missions in Australia's maritime domain. So this heralded the advent of a dedicated persistent naval patrol and surveillance force of Australia. Just a quick side note,

you may notice how I use the term western, northern, eastern, southern ocean. The reason I do that is Australia is bounded by three oceans, and the northern area, Sulu's Obviously, these Timor-Wetar Straits are really tributaries of the Indian and the Pacific Ocean. I look upon this as the Northern Ocean because it's a dynamic water space in its own right. So without causing any confusion, I'm not geographically on another planet.

I've just chosen to use the cardinal points when I refer to a water space for argument. I mean, that's good. It gets us right to the next question, which is kind of the geography. And I think the listeners will have a better understanding of the enormity of the task facing the Royal Australian Navy once you answer this question. But how much area does the Navy have to patrol? And are there other Australian agencies that contribute forces? How much area are we talking about? You already mentioned the Maritime Border Command, but see if there's anyone else out there.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks, Joe. Look, in recent policy statements, both the Department of Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs acknowledge that illegal fishing presents an economic and social challenge to states in the Indo-Pacific. Likewise, the Australian Department of Defence also recognises that the risk of illegal fishing exists and commits to protect Australia's maritime domain from that exploitation. and so our maritime area of operation covers approximately 10% of the Earth's surface so the enormity of that task is unambiguous. In 2005, nearly a century after the special cruise

of the Gayander in 2011, I failed to mention that ship's name, the Commonwealth Government established the Joint Offshore Protection Command to integrate the operations of Defence and Coast Watch to police Australia's offshore state. They rebadged that to Border Protection Command in 2006 and this agency coordinates maritime patrol operations in Arlia Fisheries Enforcement

to enable timely on-water response to maritime threats in Australia's maritime domain. And subsequently, it was assigned the operational title of Resolute, Operation Resolute. And let me just give you the mission statement. It's the Defence Force's contribution to the whole of government effort to protect Australia's border and offshore maritime interest. The Operation Resolute area of operations

covers approximately 10% of the world's surface. This includes Australia's EEZ, which extends up to 200 miles from the Australian mainland and offshore territories, which are Christmas, Cocos, Keeling, Hurd, Macdonald, Macquarie, Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, and they also fall within the operational resolute boundary. Defence also contributes forces under resolute through Joint Task Force 639,

so now what is known as Maritime Border Command, formerly known as Border Protection Command, and it's a multi-agency task force within the Australian Border Force, the Border Customs, which utilises assets from the Border Force and the Defence Force to conduct civil maritime security operations. So Maritime Border Command's surveillance and response activities

are commanded, controlled by a rear admiral, and always have been, from their headquarters in Canberra. Most recently, on the 6th of April, the Australian Government released its Civil Maritime Security Strategy. The aim of the strategy is to provide the framework to deliver a whole-of-government approach for a strong, integrated and adaptive national civil maritime security. and the strategy's vision is to advance, protect Australia's interests

through strong, integrated and adaptive national civil maritime security. Very much a home game maritime security approach. And what I mean by that is I look at MARSEC as two elements, a home game and a way game. There's really four foreign policy pillars. One is cooperation with allies. One is capacity building. One is risks mitigation, counter-terrorism.

And the last one, of course, is track one diplomacy. Cypher Australia and in fact I was just probably having a little bit of a Twitter debate with John Bradford I was just going to bring it up it's like I'm an hour removed from like watching you two go back and forth very professionally by the way so like you're both gentlemen

so like I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation it's the kind of exchange that Twitter at its best is like watching two subject matter experts have a civil debate bringing up different points about how they view an issue but please continue well that's the beauty of Twitter

you know if you use it well it informs um so that that's that's really how it looks and so um maritime border force really does or maritime border command really looks after the home game and they have multiple lines of effort in fact that's a chapter in a story in itself uh always has been commanded by an admiral the joint task force is joint navy army air force um and and i don't think it's going away it's a pretty professional force and the current commander there for those who may not know is um rear admiral justin jones who may be familiar for practitioners in the Indo-Pacific. What are the three schools

of maritime strategy within the Australian Defence Establishment? How do they approach constabulary operations and maritime security, respectively? Yeah, that's a great question because it's strategies becoming important again. So the impact of the changing Indo-Pacific upon Australia has been

profound. You know, Australia is increasingly aware of these emerging challenges and the necessity to be able to respond within the maritime domain. You know, political and policy debate shaped by the hard power focus of the Anglo-American school of maritime thought has failed to integrate all the new maritime challenges facing the region. While it's important to recognise the dominance of the Anglo-American schools

of maritime thought in shaping Australia's debate, it should be acknowledged there have been and continue to be an active Australian... There continues to be and has been active Australian literature on this. There's an Australian academic called Peter Leighton. He asserts that maritime strategies are regaining intellectual prominence. And there are several schools in Australia, and I reflect on them in equal parts. The first school really is a sea denial school that was championed in the 1987 Defence White Paper. For those unfamiliar, Australia's strategic policy statements generally align with the White Paper, 76, 87, 90, I think, 92, so on and so on.

Of course, now we've got a mental black 2009, 2013, 2016 and then a strategic update in 2020. A former senior Australian defence official and academic argued that sea denial using a pure subsurface force and fighter aircraft is achievable for Australia, even against significant power. And if we approach the problem single-mindedly, the Chief Law and Rights Plan,

that Australia's dependent upon the oceans for its trade and the great Australian academic T.B. Miller argued that a state does not have to evade Australia, it merely has to control the sea lanes and disrupt Australian trade. Look, the Sea Denial School was disputed by the second school, which is a Joint Maritime Strategy School. This sort of follows the doctrines of the Joint Maritime Strategy. The Australian Defence Force should be structured

to sort of undertake expeditionary operation in its primary operating area and not fixated on the Sino-American regional competition. Among the advocates are really the land guys, of note, of course, Professor Michael Evans, who wrote a wonderful paper, Captains of My Soul. But he argues the importance of land power, and Evans cites historical relevance of land power

and notes Australian policymakers have utilised the Army to uphold national interests and ties to security from crisis, World War II, of course, to Afghan. Look, the third school, and the one I subscribe to, It really is the third school. It's the wide-ranging maritime school. It was first proposed a decade ago by the then Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Griggs, and the retired Rear Admiral and Academic James Goldrick.

The school focuses on using the sea as an essential infrastructure for global communications, including trade and maritime trade protection. The wide-ranging school, for the wide-ranging school, I should say, the maritime strategy is not about navies. A maritime strategy is inherently joint and integrated across the whole of government concept as part of a broader national security effort. In broad terms, as I said, I'm aligned to the last school. Noting all these other schools sort of focus heavily on general warfare, the third school has a more broad and integrated whole of government lens and illuminates issues below the threshold of war to the left of war, you know, maritime domain phase zero stuff. which is important because the enduring focus upon high-end challenges

makes it difficult to respond to the life problems of the Indo-Pacific and hinders development of a meaningful and coordinated response to maritime challenges emerging in the Indo-Pacific. And then a final question, if you'll permit me. You wrote, naval policy and maritime strategy are in a loop of causal reciprocity. What did you mean by that? Yeah, it's pertinent today. pardon me um naval policy and maritime strategy are in a loop of causal reciprocity what i mean

by that is it's strategy what the government directs and practical strategy what the navy does should converge at the fault lines of maritime operations uh policy informed strategy and vice versa so to restate the point the deployment of ships at sea should give practical expression to government policy in turn action undertaken at sea by deployed ships should exert a shaping influence or a shaping effect upon policy direction since patterns of action demonstrate the feasible limits and the practical consequences of policy direction in the absence of hostilities naval operations are yet to receive the strategic framework that benefits the state sea power that is guided by policy and well-funded and resourced with the means to achieve the fullest

expression of policy and ambition so in other words operations inform policy policy should be shaped and then advise operations hence the causal loop of reciprocity and that's the chapter in a nutshell there we go i mean that's what we were going for um i still encourage everyone to go out and buy the book because like your chapter is great there's a number of other great chapters in there from what i can tell from the table of contents but that is all that we have time for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Kevin Sean Andrews. Sir, where can we find you online? And then if you could give us just a few more nuggets about what you're working on next, as far as that book, if you have any other details

you want to share. Okay. So you can find me at Sean Andrews, at SeanAndrews65 on Twitter, always up for a civil debate, particularly on issues of maritime character. Look, a quick nod to Jay Overton that is doing all the heavy lifting and the grind for sea power by other means. I should dip my lid. I have a couple of works in progress. Australia's Maritime Domain, an integrated approach.

I'm hopeful it'll be out before the end of the year and that really unpacks. And I wanted to call it Four Oceans, but the editors have decided that it must be called this. And then I'm engaging in a project, a book project, hopefully with Kevin Rowland in the UK called Maritime Domain Phase Zero, Left of War. I've just started to put the, I guess,

the final flourishes to a draft called The Accidental Sea Power, Some Principles of the Australian Maritime Strategy. Look, and then I'm off to Oxford as a fellow to Change Your Character War School in September, which I'm really looking forward to. And then I'll be riding like a madman for the next little while.

Well, thank you again for joining us. To listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. We'll be right back. Butter, wine, both white and red. Oh, put it on the shimbo now. So help me, Bob, I'm pulling the alley. Why are you pulling the alley?

Help me, Bob, I'm pulling the alley. Put it on the shimbo now.