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Commander T.C. Baldwin[1]
Australian Naval Officers, in conjunction with their Army and Air Force colleagues, have understandably largely spent the early part of their professional careers focusing on the professional training necessary to prepare them for a specialisation. This focus on training has sometimes been to the detriment of education in spheres of knowledge that have wider and more long-term significance to future professional development and employment. The UN Law of the Sea Convention 1982 and its associated international instruments in terms of marine environmental legislation and conventions, combined with a dynamic strategic environment, has significantly altered the oceans governance landscape and the environment in which naval officers must do their business. The recognition of the need to better prepare junior naval officers in aspects of strategic studies and maritime affairs has resulted in the development and implementation of a far-reaching and comprehensive program of studies, stretching over the first 11 years of a naval officer’s career, and delivered at HMAS CRESWELL, an institution that has a long and distinguished association with naval officers’ professional development. The program promises to prepare a new generation of naval officers for their professional careers in a maritime and strategic environment far more volatile and complex than any before.
The need for development and implementation of a new and more comprehensive continuum of professional studies for ADF officers was recognised and addressed by the preparation of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Policy on Officer Education and Training completed in 1997. The RAN addressed its identified deficiencies in junior officer management and strategic studies through the introduction of a new Leadership, Management and Personal Development Continuum (LMPD) approved in February 1999. As part of a holistic approach, the need for both strategic and maritime studies was recognised as an integral part of naval officers’ professional development as both managers and leaders in a future Navy and Australian Defence Force. A new program of maritime studies and strategic studies for junior naval officers commenced in January 2000[2] under the aegis of the Training Authority Initial Training, Leadership and Management, HMAS CRESWELL, at Jervis Bay on the south coast of New South Wales.
World events over the last 3-4 years have clearly shown that the Taoist philosophy of all things fluid and changing is a most appropriate perspective on strategic affairs. Not only does this philosophy apply to global and regional affairs but also to the machinations of bureaucratic structure and management, not least in organisations such as the ADF. To prepare naval officers who can both function in and contribute to such a dynamic and evolving organisational and strategic environment requires professional studies and intellectual development well before such officers reach middle or senior level rank and management positions in Defence. Until now, that development of strategic awareness in defence studies, the role of politics in the shaping of international relations, national power and defence policy, and oceans governance, has been largely absent from junior naval officers lives, relying instead on the initiative and educational background of individual officers.
Since 1982 and the completion of the United Nations Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, resulting in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC),[3] there has been a fundamental redefining of Nation States[4] rights and obligations in their maritime space, and in the way in which States govern the ocean environment. The movement and operation of warships upon their lawful purpose has been significantly qualified by the introduction of maritime zones and jurisdictions, movement and operational regimes and the emerging and increasingly important obligations on States to manage, preserve and protect their marine environment and its resources. All professional seafarers whose business lies in the maritime sphere must have an awareness and intellectual grasp of the new landscape in which they operate. Naval operational freedom in international waters, even in peacetime, is no longer something that can be assumed and the new sensitivities attached to such regimes as innocent passage and archipelagic sea-lanes passage as well as the conduct of normal exercises, with the attendant risk of marine environmental damage, are all issues that need to be intelligently addressed and understood. Naval officers will not develop the necessary intellectual awareness if it is largely left to the occasional and ‘as required’ short course prior to specific posting or the transfer of local wisdom from one officer to another in an operational environment. The roles and tasks of our naval vessels are increasingly being determined by government mindful of the rights and obligations accruing under international law in respect of the protection of sovereignty and sovereign rights and the management of marine resources and ocean space. Naval officers need to understand the issues shaping their professional employment at sea in the 21st century.
The continuum of maritime studies (and strategic studies) now in place for junior naval officers spans 4 distinct phases[5] in their development, from entry to senior lieutenant eligible for promotion to Lieutenant Commander. This program is completely new and takes the officer from an initial introductory awareness of Law of the Sea and international law, oceans policy and marine environmental provisions at Phase 1, to an analysis in Phase 4 of navigation regimes, law of armed conflict at sea, roles and linkages of agencies involved in the totality of maritime surveillance and enforcement of Australia’s maritime space, and the importance of ‘non-warfighting’[6] roles and tasks for navies and their consequent influence on future naval capability and platforms.
The emphasis in maritime studies over the four phases is twofold. First, to develop a greater awareness and understanding of the significance and impact of international and domestic law, State responsibilities and obligations for ocean space and resources, and the integration of effort by the various national agencies tasked with responsibilities in the marine environment, on the tasks and duties that naval officers are involved in as part of their operational employment, not just as junior officers but as Executive Officers, Commanding Officers, senior warfare officers, aircraft captain or staff officer in an operational headquarters. Second, the continuum takes the officer from an initial level of purely intellectual awareness of the basic principles and facets of oceans law and policy to a level of analysis and evaluation of the relative importance of maritime affairs in all their complexity to maritime doctrine and the exercise of maritime power, and the interdependence of such affairs with other aspects of national policy, governance and the employment of maritime forces.
Previously, junior officers’ strategic education was accommodated partially by the existence of a small component of strategic studies on the Junior Officers Staff Course, another component in the Maritime Studies Program and another set of studies as part of the Naval Staff Course. These components were not necessarily coordinated and progressive in terms of their sequencing, nor were they part of the education of a significant percentage of naval officers. This relative paucity of strategic studies education has existed concurrently with an environment that has not only become more strategically complex in military terms but also expects more of naval officers in terms of their intellectual ability to analyse and shape the development of strategic policy and respond to and participate in government initiatives in defence policy.
If naval officers are to understand the way in which defence policy is formed and influenced, maritime power is exercised, and the importance of their input to these processes, they must first understand the wider context of international relations and affairs of States. The continuum of strategic studies takes naval officers from an initial introduction in Phase 1[7] to the historical background to the employment of naval forces and maritime power, the maritime strategists and the way in which modern weapon systems are employed at sea, through Phase 2 and an introduction to SLOCs[8] and maritime security in the Asia Pacific, to an analysis of theories of international relations, regional security architecture, strategic guidance and security policy and defence policy formulation at Phase 3 and 4. The emphasis is on an intellectual grasp of the development of defence policy in response to the perceived determinants existing in the international, regional and domestic environments, and the distillation of maritime policy. Junior naval officers will now complete their initial careers with a far better understanding and assessment of the strategic defence environment and their role in it. This strategic studies education has profound implications for the further strategic and defence studies content of Naval and Defence Staff Course programs that naval officers will attend later in their careers.
An important aspect of the professional delivery of components of both the Maritime Studies and Strategic Studies modules in Phase 3 and 4 is the involvement of contractor-provided lecturers in specialist areas of international law, law of the sea, marine environmental law, strategic studies and oceans governance. These lecturers complement the provision of specialist naval and defence staff and ensure the program of studies is at a level that is truly intellectually stimulating and challenging. The studies are intended to be at postgraduate level and the assessment is also pitched at this level in order to provide academic credit for students who progress to further postgraduate study and appropriate accreditation for completion of this program. The contractor delivering the components of Phase 3 and 4 is the Centre for Maritime Policy at the University of Wollongong, a unique multi-disciplinary research and teaching body specialising in oceans law, policy and management.
In essence, the Maritime and Strategic Studies program recognises the need to better prepare junior officers for intellectual engagement with the complex and dynamic environment in which they must serve. More is expected of them in their contribution and performance in both the staff and operational spheres. Intellectual preparation cannot be purely left to chance, personal initiative or attendance at a short course on an ‘as required’ basis. An ad hoc approach does not provide the scope for true understanding and comprehensive assessment of all the issues and facets of defence and the exercise of maritime power. Junior naval officers are now being prepared by naval and academic specialists for employment in a maritime and strategic environment that expects more of them and is unwilling and increasingly unlikely to accept ignorance or lack of preparation. In turn, our junior naval officers are attaining a level of professional maritime and strategic competence that will serve as a standard for our regional navies and allies.
[1] Director, Maritime Studies, RAN Sea Power Centre
[2] The studies consist of leadership, management, personal development and maritime and strategic studies.
[3] 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea entered into force on 16 Nov 1994, and was ratified by Australia on 5 Oct 1994.
[4] ‘Nation States’ refers to those sovereign entities recognised within the relevant articles of the United Nations Charter, and will henceforth be abbreviated to just ‘States’.
[5] Phase 1 – NEOC/REOC/ADFA 2000
Phase 2 – JOLC at 3yrs in approx
Phase 3 – JOMC at 6yrs in approx
Phase 4 – JOSSC at 9-11 yrs in approx
Phase 1, 2, 3 and 4 courses have all now been run.
[6] Non-warfighting roles refer to those tasks and missions encompassed under constabulary or diplomatic headings as used in Australian Maritime Doctrine Ch. 7.
[7] op. cit.
[8] SLOCs – sea lines of communication. The students are introduced to issues of maritime trade and shipping and the importance and vulnerability of SLOCs.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MarStudies/2001/7.html