Special Report – A stitch in time: Preserving peace on Bougainville

/in ,

Adecade after the successful peacekeeping mission, and a year and a half before the window opens for a referendum on Bougainville’s political status, the peace process is dangerously adrift.

In this paper, Peter Jennings and Karl Claxton set out a plan to help deliver a sustainable solution for next steps in the peace process. An Australian-led preventive development effort, conducted in close cooperation with our regional partners, is needed to avoid the future requirement for a larger, costlier, riskier, and more intrusive peacekeeping mission than the limited intervention appropriate in 1997-2003.

The new government’s decision to link aid more directly to our strategic interests could assist. While the initiative would require a significant initial investment, it could create a substantial longer-term cost saving and avoid serious military, diplomatic and reputational risks.

BLOG: Australia’s Bougainville challenge: aligning aid, trade and diplomacy in the national interest 

Strategic Insights 66 – Cold calculations: Australia’s Antarctic challenges

/in ,

This Strategic Insights looks at the range of Australian objectives in Antarctica, the assumptions that underpin those goals, and the options open for us to best achieve our aims. It’s hoped that this report will inform those responsible for formulating and implementing our Antarctic policies. 

The paper looks at a range of strategic policy interests we have in Antarctica and whether we need to trade off any of these goals: 

  • preserving our sovereignty over our Antarctic territory 
  • maintaining the continent free from confrontation and militarisation 
  • protecting the Antarctic environment 
  • taking advantage of the special opportunities Antarctica offers for science 
  • deriving economic benefits from Antarctica 
  • insuring against unpredictable developments down south.

How we weigh and set both complementary and competing priorities among our Antarctic objectives (even if it’s somewhat imprecise) will be a key challenge, as will judging how other Antarctic players react to our policy objectives and our pursuit of them. Some of our policies mightn’t be complementary with those of other Antarctic players.

Special Report – Compelled to control: conflicting visions of the future of cyberspace

/in ,

This report looks at the desire among states for greater control over the digital domain. It considers the convergence of controlling desires among the major cyberpowers and examines some of the main dynamics of the Russian and Chinese positions. Their positions are examined relative to each other and to the Western consensus.

The paper analyses the potential implications for the global internet and the impact that developing countries may have on the dialogue.

Special Report Issue 49 – Heavy weather: climate and the Australian Defence Force

/in , ,

The report, authored by Anthony Press, Anthony Bergin, and Eliza Garnsey, argues that the downstream implications of climate change are forcing Defence to become involved in mitigation and response tasks. Defence’s workload here will increase, so we need a new approach.

Heavy Weather makes a number of recommendations including:

  • Defence should work with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to establish an inter-agency working group on climate change and security. It would focus on addressing climate event scenarios for Australia and the Asia–Pacific  to manage the risks those scenarios pose to national resilience and regional stability.
  • Defence should appoint an adviser to the Chief of the Defence Force on climate issues to develop a Responding to Climate Change Plan that details how Defence will manage the effects of climate change on its operations and infrastructure.
  • Defence should audit its environmental data to determine its relevance for climate scientists and systematically make that data publicly available. It should set up an energy audit team to see where energy efficiencies can be achieved in Defence.
  • Australia should work with like-minded countries in the ‘Five Eyes’ community to share best practice and thinking on how military organisations should best respond to extreme weather events.

The recommendations aren’t about Defence having a ‘green’ view of the world: they’re about the ADF being well placed to deal with the potential disruptive forces of climate change.  

You can watch authors Anthony Bergin and Tony Press discussing this report here and here.

Special Report Issue 43 – More than good deeds: Disaster risk management and Australian, Japanese and US Defence forces

/in ,

This report, authored by Athol Yates and Anthony Bergin, suggests that Asia–Pacific states need to allocate greater resources to risk reduction activities and increase the speed and effectiveness of relief efforts.

Australia, Japan and the US are active in promoting disaster risk management as a key component of their Asia–Pacific relations and regional military engagement strategies.

This report argues that the three states’ militaries will continue to play an increasing role across the disaster risk management spectrum.

The primary justification for dispatching defence forces to help another country experiencing a disaster is usually humanitarian.

But for Australia, Japan and the US, there are several other drivers: reinforcing alliances and partnerships, advancing foreign policy agendas and providing knowledge of operational military capabilities.
To better match the three nations’ defence forces’ disaster assistance capabilities with government expectations, the report recommends:

Watch a video of Anthony Bergin discussing this paper on ASPI’s YouTube channel.

Strategic Insights 54 – Keeping the home fires burning: Australia’s energy security

/in ,

In this paper, Andrew Davies and Edward Mortimer look at Australia’s energy security. Energy is the lifeblood of modern economies. The correlation between energy consumption and prosperity is strong—and that’s unlikely to change. Those simple observations have some profound implications.

Australia, like all modern economies, needs an assured supply of energy to function effectively. As a net exporter of energy, Australia is well placed in most respects. But we are still reliant on external sources of oil. The first part of this report examines Australia’s vulnerability to interruptions in the oil supply over the next few years.

Over the next couple of decades, externalities will reshape the world market for energy. In particular, the sources of oil will be increasingly concentrated in the hands of OPEC producers. At the same time, greatly increased consumption of energy by the developing economies of India and China will increasingly concentrate consumption in non-OECD countries. So the mechanisms for managing world energy markets—such as the International Energy Agency—will increasingly reflect a historic view of energy production and consumption. The second part of the paper looks at mechanisms by which Australia and other developed economies can adjust to the new realities.

The last part of the paper looks at the potential for renewable energy to meet a substantial proportion of Australian and global energy requirements. The conclusion is that current technologies are unlikely to meet demand.

King-hit: preparing for Australia’s disaster future

/in

This paper makes recommendations as to how Australia can be better prepared for and recover from future natural disasters.

Suggestions include:

  • measuring and reporting on community resilience;
  • providing disaster funds on the condition that new structures are made to be more resilient than the structures they replace;
  • asking the  Productivity Commission to investigate if the Commonwealth has got value from the billions spent on disaster response and recovery;
  • declaring an annual national disaster prevention day;
  • developing national hazard mapping and a national sea level rise policy statement;
  • introducing  durability ratings for buildings;
  • providing information to individual insurance policy holders on the risks associated with their property;
  • developing a national policy on retreating from hazardous areas to reduce people’s exposure to severe risks; and;
  • starting a national communications campaign to encourage individual and community preparedness.

Special Report Issue 37 – Sharing risk: Financing Australia’s disaster resilience

/in

This paper argues that it’s time to start thinking strategically about how we can reduce future losses from natural disasters and aid victims in their recovery efforts. We should be asking fundamental questions about how private insurance and government assistance can be better leveraged to help communities recover.

The paper makes nine recommendations to strengthen the role of insurance for Australian disaster resilience including:
 

  • establishing a regular dialogue between the insurance sector and state and federal governments to allow both sides to look at long-term disaster mitigation and recovery strategies
  • encouraging governments and insurers to work to develop programs that enhance financial literacy as a way to reduce disaster losses and cost-effective ways for individuals to be financially rewarded for taking measures to safeguard their properties
  • supporting mortgage lenders to require a property to have full insurance coverage against natural hazards and for this to be well enforced
  • implementing the Henry Review on tax that specific taxes on insurance products be abolished
  • embedding mitigation efforts with disaster assistance funding to reduce risk exposure for communities and insurers
  • conducting comprehensive landscape assessments to ensure insurance premiums are based on risk and thus send a signal to people to reduce their vulnerability to major disasters
  • urging the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to commission a study on initiatives to enhance the take-up of insurance cover and examine various schemes to encourage resilience through insurance arrangements.

We need a new approach to financing the costs of natural disasters and encouraging those living in high-risk areas to be better prepared. The reality is that all Australian taxpayers will have to bear a share of this cost.

Critical foundations: Australia’s infrastructure and national resilience

/in

This paper argues that neglecting the critical foundations that have made Australian society prosperous  isn’t a sound investment in national security resilience. A stronger strategic framework for business to work with governments on delivering such projects is needed.

Business needs a clear understanding of what projects will emerge over the next five to ten years in order to focus its resources.

We need to develop clear ways in which a project’s benefits can be expressed so the community can understand what’s proposed and measure progress.  And the cost benefit analysis has to include social benefits as well as economic benefits.

Crumbling infrastructure, whether it be clogged ports or congested roads, will imperil our safety and security, quality of life, and economic competitiveness.

Regionalism and community: Australia’s options in the Asia-Pacific

/in ,

This report explores the challenges of building a stronger community in the Asia-Pacific.  It does so by using a ‘comparative regionalism’ approach, drawing upon the lessons of region-building efforts elsewhere. 

Philomena argues in this paper for a greater emphasis in Australian foreign policy on community building in Asia.

She outlines five strategies for policymakers: that Australia should re-position itself as a ‘fore-runner state’ in Asia, promote mediation and reconciliation in the region’s long-running conflicts, develop its soft-power and educational exchanges across the region, promote sound design principles for the future of regional architecture, and build a consensus among regional states about the difficult issues of membership and mandate for future regional institutions.

Those strategies would be a longer-term recipe for better, more effective, regional institutions.