An inflection point for Australian intelligence: revisiting the 2004 Flood Report

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The 2003 Iraq war, and more particularly intelligence failure in relation to Iraqi WMD, led to a broad-ranging inquiry into Australian intelligence conducted by Philip Flood AO. Flood’s July 2004 report has proven an inflection point between the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) of the immediate post–Cold War period and today’s National Intelligence Community (NIC).

Flood laid out an ambitious vision for Australian intelligence and forcefully advocated for sovereign intelligence capability. The scope of his review extended beyond more than ‘recent intelligence lessons’ – that is, Iraq’s WMD, the 2002 Bali bombings and the unrest that led to 2003’s Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands – to the effectiveness of oversight and accountability within the AIC (including priority setting), ‘division of labour’ between AIC agencies and their communications with each other, maintenance of contestability in intelligence assessments, and adequacy of resourcing (especially for the Office of National Assessments – ONA).

It was in addressing these matters that Flood laid the foundation for the future NIC, upon which would be constructed the reforms instituted by the L’Estrange-Merchant review of 2017.

Importantly, Flood’s recommendations significantly enhanced ONA’s capabilities—not just analytical resources but also the resources (and tasking) needed to address the more effective coordination and evaluation of foreign intelligence across the AIC. This was a critical step towards the more structured and institutionalised (if sometimes bureaucratic) NIC of 2023 and an enhanced community leadership role for, ultimately, ONI.

In addition, the Flood Report identified issues that remain pertinent and challenging today – including the vexed issue of the public presentation of intelligence for policy purposes, the central importance of the intelligence community’s people (including training, career management, recruitment and language proficiency), intelligence distribution (including avoiding overloading time-poor customers), the need to maximise collaborative opportunities between agencies, and how best to leverage intelligence relationships (including broadening relations beyond traditional allied partners).

Informing Australia’s next independent intelligence review: learning from the past

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The Australian Government commissions a review of its intelligence community every five to seven years. With July 2023 marking six years since release of the last review’s report and, with funding already allocated in this year’s federal budget, the next one is likely to commence shortly.

The best starting place for the forthcoming review is the work that precedes it, so reflection on 2017’s Independent Intelligence Review proves valuable. This report, Informing Australia’s next independent intelligence review, reflects on the experiences of the 2017 review and the implementation of its recommendations, and draws lessons to inform the terms of reference, approach and suggested focus of the next review.

In doing so the report identifies three broad topics upon which the next review can most profitably ground its work: attracting, building and retaining a skilled workforce; adapting to rapid and profound technological change; and leveraging more, and closer, partnerships. It also highlights how the past six years have raised important and challenging questions in relation to each of those broad topics and identifies opportunities to further advance the future performance of the National Intelligence Community. In addition, specific recommendations are made to inform government’s planning and preparation for the new review.

AUKUS and critical minerals: hedging Beijing’s pervasive, clever and coordinated statecraft

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AUKUS has a heavy focus on R&D of military capabilities. A number of departments, including defence, foreign affairs and prime ministerial equivalents are engaged. The science and technology to deliver those capabilities must resolve issues of insecure supply chains. Currently, supply chains for processed critical minerals and their resulting materials aren’t specifically included.

Yet all AUKUS capabilities, and the rules-based order that they uphold, depend heavily on critical minerals. China eclipses not only AUKUS for processing those minerals into usable forms, but the rest of the world combined. Without critical minerals, states are open to economic coercion in various technological industries, and defence manufacturing is particularly exposed to unnecessary supply-chain challenges.

This is where Australia comes in. Australia has the essential minerals, which are more readily exploitable because they’re located in less densely populated or ecologically sensitive areas. Australia also has the right expertise, including universities offering the appropriate advanced geoscience degrees, as well as advanced infrastructure, world-class resources technology and deep industry connections with Asia and Africa, which are also vital global sources of critical minerals.

This paper outlines why Australia offers an unrivalled rallying point to drive secure critical-mineral supply among a wide field of vested nations, using AUKUS but not limited to AUKUS partners, how WA has globally superior reserves and substantial expertise, and why northern Australia more generally has a key role to play. The paper also explains why policy action here must be prioritised by the Australian Government.

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7

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The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months. It builds on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building, resilience and Australia’s north.

This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as critical minerals, rare earth, equatorial space launch, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. Importantly, it addresses the Defence Strategic from a northern Australian perspective. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia.

Minister King writes, “Northern Australia is central to the prosperity, security and future of our nation and will be the engine room of Australia’s decarbonisation effort and drive towards net zero.”

The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.

Impactful mateship: Strengthening the US–Australia defence relationship through enhanced mutual understanding

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AUKUS, and the Australian Government’s release of the 2023 report of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), reinforce to Canberra and Washington DC that there’s an urgent need to continue strengthening the US–Australia alliance. Those efforts underpin allied cooperation within the Indo-Pacific, which is an increasingly complex security environment. 
 
This report highlights 9 opportunities for both US and Australian defence decision-makers at a vital time in the relationship as it develops in complexity and builds towards the ambitions of AUKUS over the coming decade. 
 
A series of ‘quick wins’ for the US DoD are recommended, including arranging more training for inbound DoD personnel and conducting allied-centric training for relevant US-based action officers and planners at US headquarters. US DoD Funding should be provided for US action officers to visit Australia to build rapport with their counterparts and facilitate appreciation for the relationship in person. Broadly, US professional military education at every level should incorporate Australian Defence-centric views when appropriate, and the DoD can better leverage its US liaison network throughout Australia earlier in planning and when considering new initiatives. 
 
Recommended quick wins for Australian Defence to include further leveraging of US-based Australian Defence personnel and encouraging greater transparency with US counterparts regarding capacity. Enhanced transparency would provide maximum clarity on capacity challenges at all echelons, especially regarding the potential impacts of a future crisis within the Indo-Pacific. It’s also recommended that Australian Defence provide greater clarity regarding sovereignty and security concerns for the US DoD. 
 
Finally, this report also makes a major long-term recommendation that will require more resourcing, coordination and focus from US and Australian defence decision-makers, and that’s to establish and empower a US Forces Australia headquarters (USFOR-A) to synergise US DoD efforts with the Australian defence establishment. It’s inevitable that the US–Australia defence relationship will grow in scope and complexity. That will quickly outgrow and challenge the current coordination structure, which was built and implemented decades ago. This report also notes that there are lessons to be learned from the US–Japan bilateral coordination mechanisms, especially in the light of the US–Japan–Australia defence relationship, as it is set to grow in importance in the coming years.

Smooth sailing? Australia, New Zealand and the United States partnering in–and with–the Pacific islands

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Australia, New Zealand and the United States should help create an ASEAN-style forum for Pacific island nations to discuss security and manage geopolitical challenges.

The call for a dialogue, modelled on the ASEAN regional forum, is one of several recommendations to improve security partnerships and coordination in the region, reducing the risk that the three countries trip over one another and lose sight of the Pacific’s own priorities as they deepen their Pacific ties out of strategic necessity amid China’s growing interest.

While focussing on those three countries, this report stresses that wider partnerships should be considered, including with France, India, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and European Union.

The report states that the three countries will have to get used to greater Chinese involvement in the Pacific, even if they don’t accept it, much less like it.

Quad Technology Business and Investment Forum outcomes report

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The Quad has prioritised supporting and guiding investment in critical and emerging technology projects consistent with its intent to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Governments cannot do this alone. Success requires a concerted and coordinated effort between governments, industry, private capital partners and civil society.

To explore opportunities and challenges to this success, the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group convened the inaugural Quad Technology Business and Investment Forum in Sydney, Australia on 2 December 2022. The forum was supported by the Australian Department of Home Affairs and delivered by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The forum brought together senior Quad public- and private-sector leaders, laid the foundations for enhanced private–public collaboration and canvassed a range of practical action-oriented initiatives. Sessions were designed to identify the key challenges and opportunities Quad member nations face in developing coordinated strategic, targeted investment into critical and emerging technology.

Attendees of the forum overwhelmingly endorsed the sentiment that, with our governments, industry, investors and civil society working better together, collectively, our countries can lead the world in quantum technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and other critical and emerging technologies.

This report reflects the discussions and key findings from the forum and recommends that the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group establish an Industry Engagement Sub-Group to develop and deliver a Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Forward Work Plan.

China, climate and conflict in the Indo-Pacific

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This paper surveys the current reporting and analysis on climate and security to explore the implications that climate change may have for China’s ability to prosecute its security goals in the region’s three major hotspots: the SCS, Taiwan and the India–China border conflict. Those three hotspots all involve longstanding border and territorial disputes between China and other nations and may draw in various levels of US involvement should China continue to escalate tensions.

China, climate change and the energy transition

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This report surveys China’s enormous energy transition to renewables. It begins by sketching the energy challenges China faces and its climate-change-related energy policies, in the context of the global geopolitics of the energy transformation. Next the report focuses on conventional energy sources (oil and natural gas), followed by electricity, and energy technologies. Although the report is intended primarily to survey developments to date, it concludes with some brief observations about the considerable energy challenges China faces in the years ahead.

Escalation risks in the Indo-Pacific: a review for practitioners

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The outbreak of war in the Indo-Pacific is a real possibility. Increased competition, a growing trust deficit between global and regional powers and potential miscalculations heighten the risk. There needs to be a more engaged Australian discussion on conflict-escalation risks and how they might be managed.

Policymakers and leaders need to understand escalation risks as they manage Australia’s relationship with the US, China, North Korea and Australia’s key regional defence partners over coming decades. In rhetoric and in action, Australia also needs to be attentive to how the acquisition and employment of our own new capabilities—strike missiles, evolving cyber capabilities and nuclear-propelled submarines—affect strategic stability dynamics in a fast-changing world.

Multiple factors mean that there are all-too-imaginable possibilities for inadvertent and accidental escalation around flashpoints like the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, the maritime nature of the Western Pacific as a military theatre, combined with emerging technologies like hypersonics, means that decision makers could face very strong pressures toward pre-emption in a crisis. Put more simply, the fear-driven pressure to ‘shoot first’ could be very strong and very dangerous.

Managing these risks has clearly been made a priority by the Australian government – with senior ministers frequently talking about ‘guardrails’ – and the report suggests some options for doing so.