ABSTRACT
This chapter features the Southern Ocean and reveals that the strategic discourse is limited and has focused on the region’s significance in terms of science and the concept of demilitarisation. This approach inhibits a strategic conversation on appropriate responses to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activity, which in turn fails to provide the on-water capability requirements necessary to undertake these difficult missions in Australia’s most vicious ocean. This absence of a coherent strategic approach has caused limited problems until now due to the isolation of the region and the lack of any powers seeking to shift the status quo. However, other actors are now emerging with strategic patience that will test the resilience of the rules and norms currently underpinning this hostile and sparse region.
