From an excellent piece by Dr Richard Dunley:
'Australia’s early efforts to provide itself with security at sea rested on the duality of maintaining a degree of self-reliance within a wider alliance-based maritime strategy. HMAS Australia embodied this duality. Whilst much has changed over the following century, including the identity of Australia’s key alliance partner, the fundamentals of the country’s geography and demography ensure that this duality remains at the heart of Australian strategic policy, and is an inextricable part of the premise of AUKUS.
'The arrival of [HMAS] Australia in Australian waters in 1913 significantly altered the calculus for such [German] operations. As Vice-Admiral von Spee wrote in a letter to his wife in August 1914, "Australia ... is such a superior opponent that it must be avoided".
'The Grand Fleet, including Australia, did not destroy the German High Seas Fleet, but it did force it to lie largely inactive in Wilhelmshaven, and in doing so provided what in the British tradition of maritime strategy is referred to as “cover” ... By ensuring that no major German vessels could exit the North Sea, the Grand Fleet provided general command of the sea ... built ramparts of British power that "stretched to the ends of the earth" and in doing so was critical in ensuring Allied victory in the First World War.
'Australia’s economic lifelines run vast distances across the oceans and are extensive enough that the country cannot hope to secure them on its own. This is one of the fundamental drivers for Australia’s persistent search for security in alliances.
'... two core principles which underpinned its maritime strategy at the beginning of the twentieth century remain.
'In exactly the same way that Australian security in the early twentieth century rested upon the ability of the Royal Navy, assisted by its allies and partners, to command the world’s oceans, so twenty-first century Australian security is predicated on safe and secure access to those same oceans. Under current Australian grand strategy this task is largely devolved to the US Navy, albeit with considerable support provided by its allies and partners, including the Royal Australian Navy.
'... it can be expected that Australia’s AUKUS submarines will support US Navy submarines and other assets in assuring wider coalition sea control. At the heart of any such efforts will likely be an attempt to exercise choke-point control on the exits to the first island chain ... The language may have changed from the ideas of distant blockade and cover that were used to describe the roles played by HMAS Australia in the Grand Fleet in the First World War, but the strategic principles remain ... In doing so they would secure not only coalition supply lines to the United States, but also the island of Australia itself'.
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/hmas-australia-australian-maritime-strategy-and-the-aukus-agreement/
