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Australia must leverage its maritime geography and stake in the QUAD to foster keener partnerships and tackle challenges to regional stability and security
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This article is part of the series—Raisina Edit 2025
The Quad is a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States (US) committed to supporting an open, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient. It is a key pillar in Australia's foreign policy and complements its bilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation, including with partners in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean.
As the world navigates the complexities of maritime security, it becomes evident that Australia's strategic approach within the QUAD framework necessitates a multifaceted and dynamic response to emerging threats and challenges. By leveraging its maritime geography and fostering robust partnerships, Australia can enhance its contributions to regional stability and security.
Australia, like-minded friends, and QUAD partners have abiding interests in the maintenance of access at sea through freedom of navigation and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.
This brief builds upon the QUAD's maritime security initiatives and highlights an opportunity for enhanced cooperation. Currently, four foreign policy initiatives underpin the Australian concept of maritime security. First, expanding practical engagement and cooperation with partners such as Japan, Korea, and India in the wider Indo-Pacific. Second, the Pacific Patrol Boat Scheme—rebranded as the Pacific Maritime Security Program—remains a flagship programme for Australia’s defence cooperation in the region. Third, Australia’s commitment to the United Nations (UN)- and United States (US)-led operations, including maritime security tasks. Moreover, Australia, like-minded friends, and QUAD partners have abiding interests in the maintenance of access at sea through freedom of navigation and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region. It is also committed to the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which includes partners such as Malaysia and Singapore. Lastly, maritime security has been elevated to the Track 1 diplomacy schedule, prioritising the Indo-Pacific.
The oceans occupy two-thirds of the world. And without a secure ocean domain, the interconnected world cannot exist. The world order was significantly shaped by the last two global sea powers: the United Kingdom (UK) and the US. The latter’s Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Nimitz, in his 1947 haul down report, stated that the US had an abiding interest in control of the sea. First, controlling the sea assured national security but also enabled the creation and ‘perpetuation of the balance and stability among nations’. Moreover, control of the sea allowed each state to pursue its prosperity underpinned by its security design., shepherded by the framework of the UN. Modern parlance defines this as a global community of practice whose shared abiding interests at sea include maintaining oceanic access and the rule of law through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Seven decades later, the global operating system still remains a sea-based phenomenon.
Controlling the sea assured national security but also enabled the creation and ‘perpetuation of the balance and stability among nations'.
Those two common interests are also true of Australia. Moreover, this nation's approach to maritime security illuminates the benefits of multinational-multiagency cooperation—the home and away game. Success will be derived through a collaborative approach, bringing together naval security stakeholders from the national, regional, and global ecosystem, including key civilian entities. In Australia alone, 20 departments and agencies are involved in maritime security.
Some advocates of maritime strategy continually press that the global population predominantly live on the coast and that the world's trade moves by sea, potentially illuminating new threats. These maritime truisms represent continuity and were the same touchpoints setting the foundation for the developing theories of Mahan and Corbett. However, identifying new threats is useful. That is, seeking ways and means to cooperate and sustain ‘good order at sea.’ Today, the pressures on global fishing stocks, oceanic garbage patches (in the eastern and western Pacific Ocean), climate change, piracy and other crimes at sea occur daily. This presents an opportunity—humankind is intent on saving the planet yet ignores two-thirds of it: the global oceans.
But how does Australia and the QUAD maximise intellectual power at home and in the region to continually evaluate, explore and examine maritime security policy initiatives, and ideas to deliver on ‘good order at sea’? Borrowing the idea from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), a centre of excellence focused on maritime security, could be of value.
Centres of excellence specialise in one functional area, and experts focus on the pillars of education, analysis, doctrinal development, concept development, and experimentation.
Practically, centres of excellence specialise in one functional area, and experts focus on the pillars of education, analysis, doctrinal development, concept development, and experimentation. The scope of maritime security will require a broader remit. Issues of maritime character are interconnected, there is no simple binary solution. Understandably and logically any Maritime Security Centre of Excellence: Indo-Pacific (MSCEIP) concept will need to consider the daunting task of coordinating government, industry, private sector, and the academic community to pursue the goal of coming together and contributing to a secure maritime environment in the Indo-Pacific region—essentially, an international effort of contributing to ‘good order' at sea.
The charter of any potential MSCEIP would be ambitious. Two key areas to consider are maritime security risks and maritime security operations—the challenge and treatment, noting any potential treatment represents several options from diplomacy to constabulary action.
However, considering the pillars of education, analysis, doctrinal development, concept development, and experimentation, conceptually, the MSCEIP would provide expertise for theorists and practitioners alike. As a centre for academic research focused on the issues of maritime character and as a coordinating hub for training practitioners in maritime security. Success would require the centre to facilitate collaboration among stakeholders from the appropriate government, the private sector, industry, and academia.
The premise of the PM’s speech highlighted that Australia must not choose one oceanic region over another but find commonality for cooperation and collaboration.
Australia is a maritime nation surrounded by sea and forms the southern region of what American geostrategist Nicholas Spykman termed the ‘Asiatic Mediterranean.’ In 1968, during a visit to Australia, the former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, spoke to the benefits of Australia’s maritime geography. The premise of the PM’s speech highlighted that Australia must not choose one oceanic region over another but find commonality for cooperation and collaboration. Australia is a nation surrounded by connected, yet distinct, oceanic areas. An institution of the nature hypothesised through such a concept as the MSCEIP offers the opportunity to harness and connect the nation and our partners leading maritime thinkers and doers with the common goal of pursuing ‘good order at sea’ in words and deeds to contribute meaningfully to an open and secure Indo–Pacific.
Sean Andrews, CSC, PhD is a Senior Maritime Fellow at the National Security College, Australian National University
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Sean Andrews is a Senior Maritime Fellow, National Security College, Australian National University. ...
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