As a land girt by sea, Australia has a number of military choices. It can use geographical advantage and fight enemy forces from continental beaches, and in national airspace and both on and under territorial waters. Alternatively, it can project military force to engage enemies further from the Australian homeland: closer to or in it enemies’ homelands—preferably in the company of powerful allies. There is also a choice about responding to regional and international events that require military intervention: stay at home, leaving allies (and the United Nations) to face military and humanitarian emergencies alone, or participate in those operations deemed by the government of the day to be in the national interest. Australian military history testifies to the choices that Australians traditionally make. The Australian people and their governments invariably choose regional and international force projection over ‘fortress defence’ and isolationism.
Australia also has a geographical dilemma and more military choices. The continent is vast and divided into southern and eastern heartlands, where most Australians live, and a remote western and northern crescent hinterland. This hinterland can be likened to a curved archipelago located forward of the heartlands. It is comprised of an island of people and infrastructure in the southwest, near Perth, and isolated pockets of people and economically important resources and infrastructure extending north to another island of people and infrastructure near Darwin and then east across northern Australia to the Torres Strait Islands. How should Australia defend this national archipelago? Will there be sufficient warning time and political will to permit mobilisation and deployment of sufficient military force from the south and east coasts to the west and north? What proportion of Australia’s armed forces should be located in the west and north? Australian military and political responses during the Second World War show that Australians will defend their national archipelago. Western and northern basing and conduct of major exercises in northern Australia in the latter two decades of the twentieth century confirm their choice. The strategic preference is to do so through a combination of pre-positioning forces and projecting military force from the heartlands to the hinterland.