What do we want the ADF to do?
With characteristic precision, Mark Thomson has put his finger on the primary question for Australian defence policy today: not how much should we spend on the ADF, but what do we want it to do? His argument for modest defence spending is properly premised on the view that Australia’s strategic objectives—by which I mean specifically the things we want to be able to achieve with armed force—should be modest. His argument has two elements, one concerning our strategic objectives as an ally of the United States, and the other about our objectives for independent military action. In both cases he argues we can set our strategic objectives pretty low. Is he right?
Let’s start with the alliance side of the story. What do we need to be able to do militarily as an ally of America, given that the huge disparity in power means that we will make no decisive operational difference to any conflict in which we fight at America’s side? There are three ways in which we might weigh this. First there is what one might call a moral imperative to pull our weight rather than free ride, and I must say I share Mark’s sense that free riding is fine as long as you can get away with it. Second there is the question about how low can you go and still ride for free? At what point does our ally stop protecting us because we won’t do our bit? That, of course, depends on why he is protecting us in the first place. On the very credible assumption that he is in the alliance more to serve his interests than ours, the threshold for this is pretty low.
Third, there is the question of whether we are doing enough to influence US policy in ways which are critical to our interest. Here I’m not so sure. We should at least ask ourselves how much we might want to influence US polices in Asia, and how much we’d need to do militarily to have a chance to exercise such influence. I’m torn two ways here. On one hand, Australia’s interests in shaping American policy are clearly very strong. On the other, Britain’s experience in the Middle East over the last few decades, where it has made big contributions and gained very little influence, suggests that the scale of effort needed to have any say in US policy is very great. Further work is needed here before I’d be sure that this is not a good reason to expand our strategic objectives as an ally. Read more