{"id":786109,"date":"2026-07-26T21:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T21:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/786109\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T21:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T21:09:10","slug":"new-research-shows-how-vulnerable-australia-would-be-to-attacks-on-shipping-in-the-indian-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/786109\/","title":{"rendered":"New research shows how vulnerable Australia would be to attacks on shipping in the Indian Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the US-Iran war has brought home how vital maritime trading routes are to a country like Australia, which conducts 99% of its global trade by sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Protecting Australia\u2019s supply of critical goods \u2013 and exports of minerals, liquefied natural gas and agricultural products \u2013 requires maintaining maritime security across vast distances and countering threats far from Australia\u2019s coasts. <\/p>\n

This task is becoming increasingly challenging as China\u2019s naval presence expands in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

Recently, a team of researchers from Stanford University, La Trobe University and Australian National University conducted a series of simulations to test the vulnerability of Australia\u2019s economic and strategic lifelines.<\/p>\n

We conducted a two-day war game involving nine former senior military and defence officials from Australia, India, the United States and Japan. The simulations tested the abilities of the Australian, US and Indian militaries to respond to a two possible crisis scenarios involving China. <\/p>\n

Our game demonstrated that maritime trading routes required protection across the full length of the Indian Ocean, not just in waters close to Australia. <\/p>\n

For example, under certain conditions, we found even a single successful attack on shipping in the central Indian Ocean could severely disrupt trade across the entire region. It could trigger prohibitive war-risk premiums from shipping insurers, costly route diversions, or the withdrawal of commercial traffic from the Indian Ocean altogether.<\/p>\n

Why the Indian Ocean matters<\/p>\n

These findings come at a time when the commitment of the Trump administration to the Indo-Pacific region is being questioned. <\/p>\n

The US Defence Department recently announced, for example, the Indo-Pacific Command<\/a> will revert<\/a> to its former name, US Pacific Command. <\/p>\n

The command\u2019s area of responsibility \u2013 from the US West Coast to India\u2019s western border \u2013 will remain unchanged. But the move has prompted speculation<\/a> about what it could mean for the US approach to the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

Australia has the world\u2019s largest<\/a> Indian Ocean coastline. Despite this geographic reality, Canberra\u2019s focus rarely extends beyond the part of the ocean closest to Australian territory. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Both the 2024 National Defence Strategy<\/a> and the 2026 National Defence Strategy<\/a> identify this part of the northeast Indian Ocean as Australia\u2019s primary area of military interest, alongside maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific. <\/p>\n

In some ways, this makes sense. As a middle power, defence planning must be aligned with available military capabilities.<\/p>\n

But China\u2019s underwater capabilities \u2013 both manned and unmanned \u2013 pose a growing challenge to Australia\u2019s security interests across the entire Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

In peacetime, China\u2019s submarine presence in the ocean is constrained by the vast distances from its mainland bases. However, access to ports in partner countries such as Djibouti or Pakistan could potentially allow Chinese submarines to spend longer periods of time in the region. <\/p>\n

Even a relatively small number of Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean could force Australia and its partners to devote substantial resources to anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance.<\/p>\n

Other actors could further boost China\u2019s capacity to disrupt Australian interests in the ocean. These include Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are now blockading Saudi ports<\/a> in the Red Sea. <\/p>\n

These actors would not need to coordinate closely with China. Nor would they even need to pursue identical objectives. Simply creating disruptions at key points across the Indian Ocean could make it harder for Australia and its partner navies to maintain sea control and protect commercial shipping.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A screen grab taken from a video released by the Houthis showing a ship sinking after being attacked in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen in July 2025.
\n Houthis Military Media Centre\/EPA<\/p>\n

Australia needs its partners<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s defence strategy in the Indian Ocean relies on its partnerships with the United States and, increasingly, India.<\/p>\n

Yet, the Indian Ocean is not the principal strategic focus for either country. Washington\u2019s priorities remain concentrated on the Middle East, the Western Hemisphere and the Western Pacific. India\u2019s focus is divided between the Indian Ocean and territorial threats on its land borders, including the one with China.<\/p>\n

In our war games, for example, the US Navy chose to relocate its main battle force from the western to the eastern Indian Ocean. When it did, the Australian Navy had no real option but to follow. It lacked the capacity to sustain operations on its own far from the Australian coast.<\/p>\n

The exercises revealed an uncomfortable degree of Australian dependence on the US. But at the same time, the simulations showed that military cooperation improves operational effectiveness and brings strategic dividends. <\/p>\n

For Beijing, this cooperation is concerning because it could eventually outweigh China\u2019s own capabilities.<\/p>\n

Protecting sea lanes and tracking underwater threats in the ocean will require Australia\u2019s partner countries to seamlessly share data and intelligence during a crisis. And building these lines of communication now will be far easier than doing it when problems emerge.<\/p>\n

This article is part of a research project, \u201cEnhancing Military Cooperation on the Indian Ocean\u201d. Also contributing to the research: Peter Dean, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, and Ambika Vishwanath and Hannah Bourke at the Centre for Global Security at La Trobe University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the US-Iran war has brought home how vital maritime trading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-786109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}