The Royal Australian Navy’s six-week engagement in Southeast Asia, including participation in a multilateral exercise, marks the nation’s first regional deployment of 2025.
The guided-missile destroyer HMAS Hobart, with a crew of about 230 and an MH-60R Romeo Seahawk helicopter, departed its home port of Sydney in mid-January. Such deployments “demonstrate Australia’s ongoing commitment to supporting regional security and stability, and promoting a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” Vice Adm. Justin Jones, chief of joint operations, said in a news release. “These deployments also provide the opportunity to engage with our partner nations at sea and in the air to enhance interoperability.”
In late January, the destroyer began a weeklong port call at the Indonesian Navy’s Bali Naval Base, where it was joined days later by the French Navy frigates FNS Alsace, FNS Forbin and FNS Provence, according to Indonesian news agency Antara. The visits were an opportunity to solidify military relations among Australia, France and Indonesia, which could include joint drills, educational exchanges and defense technology transfers, an Indonesian Navy spokesman said.
Indo-Pacific Allies and Partners are expanding engagements to ensure freedom of navigation and secure critical sea lines of communication in the region as the People’s Republic of China’s aggressive actions and arbitrary territorial claims spike tensions from the East China and South China seas to the Taiwan Strait.
Ahead of docking in Bali, HMAS Hobart and the French Navy frigates participated in La Perouse, a biennial exercise led by the French Navy’s Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group and also including Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
IMAGE CREDIT: AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE DEPARTMENT
More than 30 aircraft and a dozen ships conducted multidomain warfare drills, boarding operations, live-fire exercises, and air-based search and rescue in the exercise’s largest iteration. “It’s also a great honor to work alongside the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, especially as it is the first time the French carrier strike group has deployed so close to Australia,” Cmdr. Alisha Withers, commanding officer of HMAS Hobart, said in a news release.
HMAS Hobart, which was commissioned in 2017, is equipped with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and SM-2 and ESSM surface-to-air missiles, according to the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Canberra’s regional deployments are key aspects of its decades-long international engagement program.
“The deployments play a vital role in Australia’s long-term security and prosperity by protecting Australia’s interests, preserving an international rules-based order, enhancing cooperation and relationships with regional partners and allies, and developing capability and interoperability,” the ADF stated. “A peaceful, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific comprised of independent, sovereign and resilient states benefits all nations.”
