The Australian Strategic Policy Institute today released The Cost of Defence: ASPI Defence Budget Brief 2008-09. 

This document has been written to give readers greater access to the complex workings of the Defence budget and to promote informed debate on defence budget issues.  

In releasing the document, ASPI Defence Analyst Mark Thomson said: 

Defence is not short of money at the moment. Not only will they hand back $812 million of unspent funds this year, but they’ll receive an extra $939 million in price indexation for next year. This explains why they’ve been told to absorb around $1 billion of operational deployment costs in 2008-09. 

Nonetheless, the Defence budget will still exceed $22 billion next year representing 1.8% of GDP. 

Deployment costs continue to mount. Over the next three years, a further $702 million will be spent in Afghanistan and $268 million in Iraq, which will bring the accumulated cost in these two theatres to $2.1 billion and $2.3 billion respectively.  

For the long term, the government extended 3% real growth in the Defence budget from 2016 to 2018. 

Unfortunately, Defence’s long-troubled acquisition program again looks to be faltering. Another $2.3 billion of planned investment in new equipment was deferred in the budget.  

In a sign that recent personnel initiatives are making a difference, the permanent defence force has grown for the second year in a row, after having fallen across the preceding three years.  Over the next four years the force is planned to grow from just over 53,000 to around 57,500. 

Despite the present healthy budget situation, Defence is likely to need more money to deliver the plans presently in place for the defence force.  For this reason, the recently announced decade-long $10 billion internal savings program is critical.  

But even for a colossus like Defence $1 billion a year is a lot of money. To free up this much money will demand root and branch reform to how Defence goes about its business.  

Release of ASPI Strategic Insight  Making it count: Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan 

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report on Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan. The report, written by ASPI Research Fellow Raspal Khosa, argues Australia’s security interests are tied to the success of the International Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. 

Afghanistan will become the main focus of Australian Defence Force Operations supporting Australia’s wider interests over the next year. Recently the Australian Government announced it will commit $619 million in 2008–2009 to Operation Slipper: Australia’s contribution to the ISAF armed state-building mission in Afghanistan. 

The report makes three key recommendations on how Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan can increase its effectiveness: 

• focus on security sector reform by training competent Afghan security forces 
• improve reconstruction and development efforts through better coordination of civil and military resources 
• engage with Pakistan to contain cross-border insurgent activity.

 Author Raspal Khosa contends the only way to expedite our withdrawal and protect our interests is to work towards a sustainable, democratic and secure Afghanistan.  

Release of ASPI Special Report  

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new Special Report on Australia’s national security. Defining national security priorities in the current international environment is a complicated task. National security concepts that focus on military threats and responses are no longer sufficient to deal with the range of security risks that Australia faces in this new environment.  This paper addresses four critical questions highlighting the key challenges for the Australian Government as it seeks to implement a national security agenda: 

• What is the definition of national security?
• Why do emerging security issues such as organised crime, pandemic diseases and climate change pose a national security risk?
• How have other countries such as Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom approached national security planning?
• What bureaucratic changes are necessary in Australia in order to deal with the contemporary security environment?

 In answering these questions, the paper puts forward a number of recommendations including the publication of an annual security risk assessment and the creation of a single national security budget to be administered by the new Office of National Security. Author Dr Carl Ungerer says ‘At its core, the concept of a national security policy requires governments to think about three interrelated questions; the trajectory of the international and domestic security environment and its implications for the modern democratic state; judgements about the likely probability and consequences of events across the emerging threat spectrum; and the range and combination of policy instruments needed to meet those risks today and into the future’.  

Release of ASPI Reports on the relationship between Australia and the Pacific Island Countries 
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released two new Special Reports on the relationship between Australia and the Pacific Island Countries, Australia and the South Pacific: Rising to the challenge and Engaging our neighbours: Towards a new relationship between Australia and the Pacific Islands. 

The publications were launched by The Hon Duncan Kerr SC MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs at Parliament House.

The reports are the products of an eight-month project designed to find ways of improving the prospects for economic development and political stability in the region. The reports analyse the diverse challenges facing South Pacific island states and their impacts on regional security, as well as Australia’s role in the region, leading to recommendations for policy makers.

Australia and the South Pacific: Rising to the challenge, a research collection of seven distinct papers by leading experts, examines key issues in South Pacific security and Australia’s role in the region. It offers a range of suggestions that should be considered in the development of Australia’s regional strategy. 

ASPI convened a group of prominent Australian academics, researchers, business representatives and policy makers to develop a consensus view about Australia’s relationships with the Pacific Island Countries. ‘Engaging our neighbours: Towards a new relationship between Australia and the Pacific Islands’, is the report of this Independent Task Force.
The Pacific Islands will always matter strategically to Australia and it is important that we engage our regional neighbours over the long term, especially Melanesia.  ‘That’s a key message from these two reports’ says ASPI Executive Director Peter Abigail, who served as co-chair of the ASPI Pacific Task Force.  ‘Another is that while we cannot fully open our doors to our Pacific neighbours, we should open them more than we have in the past’.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released its latest report, Power plays: Energy and Australia’s security, which looks at the global demand for energy, its growth and the potential effects this has on Australia’s security.  The report examines Australia’s need to factor energy security into its foreign and defence policies, and develop a greater awareness of its dependence on fossil fuels. 

The report is authored by Professor Michael Wesley, Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University University. 

The world is entering an era of steadily tightening energy markets.  The growth in demand of the United States, China and India for imported oil and gas, and the increasing dependence of the world on supplies from unstable regions means that the adequate supply of affordable energy will become increasingly a part of most states’ security calculations in the coming decades. 

Australia is a country with a modern economy that is dependent on fossil fuels.  Our economy has become so interdependent domestically and internationally that the disruption of energy supplies could lead to major economic damage.  

‘Canberra should also reconsider developing a more conventional oil stockpile, administered by the state, as an emergency response to supply disruptions or significant short-term tightening of the market’ says Professor Wesley. ‘..given Australia’s distances and reliance on road transport, major price fluctuations or supply shocks stand to hit it extremely hard.  Against these potential effects, the cost of developing a conventional stockpile, in addition to Australia’s surge capacity, may be worth considering’.  

Australia’s interests will be best served by maintaining and developing our position as a dependable energy supplier, by supporting the further integration of naval security mechanisms to protect energy shipping, and by promoting multilateral forums that include major energy consumers as well as producers.’s interests will be best served by maintaining and developing our position as a dependable energy supplier, by supporting the further integration of naval security mechanisms to protect energy shipping, and by promoting multilateral forums that include major energy consumers as well as producers.