FREE LECTURE: Towards an Australian Maritime Strategy for the 21st Century

Perth USAsia Centre together with Australian Industry & Defence Network WA (AIDN-WA) are pleased to invite you to attend our second Indo-Pacific Security Forum event with Professor Michael Evans, General Sir Francis Hassett Chair of Military Studies at the Australian Defence College and a Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

Professor Michael Evans will be discussing his latest paper, The Third Way: Towards an Australian Maritime Strategy for the Twenty-first Century.

Despite being the world’s largest island, the greatest paradox of Australia’s existence is that the country lacks a maritime consciousness to guide defence policy. National development has been marked by several historical characteristics which have created an ingrained culture of sea-blindness. These include a long tradition of maritime dependence on great powers; the growth of a martial cult centred on Anzac; a schism between continental and expeditionary approaches in strategic behaviour; and the fact that, until the twentieth century, a lack of direct responsibility for security permitted a continental rather than a maritime ethos to shape the country’s essential cultural traditions.