‘Our region is first priority’: still no answer on ships to Red Sea

Since news of the request was first reported by The Australian newspaper last week, speculation has swirled over whether the Royal Australian Navy has the ships available to deploy to the Red Sea, and whether they are equipped to deal with the threat of drone attacks.

US and British militaries have been forced to shoot down drones launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, which has vowed to disrupt merchant shipping through one of the world’s busiest trade routes.

‘Valuable partner’

Experts, including Professor White, say Australia’s long deployments of warships to the Middle East over more than three decades ending in late 2020 have made the navy a favoured and seasoned partner for the US.

“Australia is a more valuable partner because of the ships we have and which we can integrate seamlessly [into US-led taskforces],” said Professor White.

The navy would have some ships to spare, he said, but “it’s always a legitimate question, particularly over the Christmas period, what the fleet program allows”.

The emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University said the government’s apparent caution over the request was “notable given how hard they’ve worked to be seen as the best possible ally to America”.

“The normal thing you’d expect – under both sides of politics – is that if one can say yes to the US, one does. So it’s a little bit striking that they’ve been as cautious as they’ve been.”

Despite calls for Australia to meet the request, Professor White offered a strategic defence for Labor not sending immediate assistance.

Back to the ’50s and ’60s

“Australia, for a long time going back into the ’80s, made a point of deploying forces around the Middle East to support the US because there were no demands on us to support the US in Asia,” he said.

“The long period in which US primacy was uncontested made it easy for us to turn up in the Middle East … [and] it’s important to recognise that we’ve all grown up through an era where supporting the US in the Middle East was what we did.”

By contrast, as tensions over China’s aggression in the South China Sea intensify, the geopolitical landscape has changed.

“Over the last five years and more intensively over the last two years, the priority for Australia to deploy its forces to support the US in Asia has returned,” Professor White said.“And that in a sense takes us back to the ’50s and ’60s.“

The Albanese government “may be setting themselves up to say a polite ‘thanks, but no thanks’.”

“On the one hand there’s some strategic logic in the position ministers are taking. On the other hand, I don’t think that will get them off the hook completely in Washington because the nature of the beast is that Australia is a more valued and experienced partner in these kinds of operations than other countries they’d be asking.”

He noted that the US request is for a “fairly routine style of deployment”.

“And it’s important to note that it’s not directly connected to what’s happening in Gaza at the moment. What these Houthis are doing to shipping in the Red Sea is a separate issue.”