Defense in Depths
Navigating Australia's risky dependence on maritime trade
Aidan Morrison, director of energy research at The Centre for Independent Studies, takes us to the depths of Australia’s security predicament as a country dependent on liquid hydrocarbon imports near Maritime Southeast Asia. We discuss military strategy, the use of nuclear and diesel-electric submarines, and the continent’s precarious dependence on maritime trade and military alliances.
Watch now on Youtube, Apple, and Spotify.
We talk about
Australia's historical military alliances and strategic dependencies
Australia’s abundance of most bulky resources except for oil
The AUKUS submarine deal and its strategic implications
Electric grid vulnerabilities
Alternative approaches to Australian defense strategy
Some takeaways
If Australia remains highly dependent on liquid hydrocarbon imports, frequent deliveries via large tanker ships make for easy targets in the case of potential regional conflict. Traditional naval escort strategies may be obsolete against modern weapons systems.
Australia’s location relative to Asia, combined with its strategic needs, call for new approaches to the use of submarine technology. The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, a good long term play, is a “silly” non-solution to urgent problems, according to Morrison.
To Morrison, investing in redundant infrastructure (runways, hangars, fuel storage) may be more valuable for infrastructure resilience than ordering new, expensive military hardware.
Concentrated power generation systems in southern Australia may be more resilient than distributed renewable systems.
Watch Aidan’s video on diesel vs. nuclear submarines, mentioned at 43:50:
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
03:33 Australia's military history and strategy
11:32 Australia natural resource weakness: oil
19:35 Australia's energy situation in a hot war
23:30 Defending martime hydrocarbon imports
34:07 AUKUS submarine strategy
44:00 Political consensus for AUKUS
50:55 Facing geostrategic challenges
1:04:53 Liquid hydrocarbon strategy
1:11:03 Power grid vulnerabilities
1:23:40 Closing thoughts
Keywords
Australian defense strategy, AUKUS submarines, energy security, naval warfare, military procurement, fuel reserves, power grid vulnerability, strategic infrastructure, brown coal conversion, maritime trade routes, Chinese trade dependence, military modernization, defense infrastructure
This was an exceptional chat thanks mate