Strategist Article Archives - Page 1151 of 1187

Henny Youngman and Indonesian military reform: part I

27 March 2013

One of the routines of 1950s American stand-up comedian Henny Youngman was to have his sidekick ask: ‘So, Henny, how’s your wife?’ Youngman would face the audience, roll his eyes to the roof and fire back: ‘Compared to what?’

Many critics of post-New Order reform of Indonesia’s National Defence Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, or TNI) could take a leaf from Youngman’s book of one-liners. Those who challenge the nature, extent and pace of TNI reform over the past 15 years mostly frame their judgments in absolute terms, unleavened by context or comparisons. The process of reform is viewed as an end in itself rather than a means of achieving the important goal of military professionalism. Those critics would do well to heed Youngman’s question; compared to what? Read more

Cyber in the Pacific Islands

27 March 2013

Internet access in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia is on the rise. That’s a good thing, but there are gaps in governance. It would be in Australia’s interests, and those of our friends and neighbours to help.

Mobile phones with 3G and 4G are rapidly spreading across the region (PDF)—around 60% of Pacific Islanders have access to one. In 2012, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu announced that they would be undertaking an undersea fibre cable project to improve their internet connection. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Fiji is already connected to the Southern Cross Cable and enjoys good internet connection. These and other benefits also bring new cyber security challenges. Read more

Mobility, endurance, and payload: lots of each for our submarines

26 March 2013

Andrew Davies’ recent post on The Who, What, Where, and Why of the Future Submarine reverts to the beginning of the argument about submarines. Anyone who read my earlier response, ‘Why submarines for Australia?’ would guess that I disagree with some of the points he is making!

I’ve previously endeavoured to show the limitations of a defensive strategy for Australia’s submarine operations. Restricting Australia’s submarine capability to operating in or below the Indonesian archipelago by acquiring a smaller submarine might be cheaper, but it wouldn’t be money well spent. The SIA’s submission to the 2013 Defence White Paper argues the case well.

Given the unfolding strategic landscape, we should indeed accept Andrew’s challenge and convince ourselves that our submarine force must be able to operate north of the archipelago, throughout the South China Sea, and be able to observe, report and if necessary strike. Read more

Strengthening Parliament’s role over military operations

26 March 2013

I certainly agree with Graeme Dobell’s recent post that debating the powers of the Prime Minister and the Parliament over the prerogative to go to war is an important subject. Moreover it’s one on which I suspect Graeme and I would mostly agree. He stops short of saying that Parliament should have some final right to authorise deploying Australian troops. Frankly that’s the only sensible response when you consider the structure of our system of government. The fact is that, although the media increasingly presents Australian politics as being like Washington, we remain resolutely a Westminster system—where the executive government is of the Parliament, not separate to it. Our Parliament can’t act like the US Congress, as an arm of government separate to the executive, because doing so in our system in effect brings the government down. And our Senate is there as a house of review rather than an alternate executive government.

So much for politics 101. Those who support giving Parliament a right of veto over Government decisions to deploy troops tend to that view, I would argue, out of a hope that the Senate will block such deployments; governments tend seldom to have majorities there. In other words, their position is based more on an expectation about how Australian politics really works (Oppositions oppose things, for example) than out of any belief that Parliament will redesign itself into the US Congress and hold different policy positions on national security to the government. Read more

Indonesia and ‘strategic trust’

26 March 2013

One of the main features of the Indonesian President’s speech to last week’s Jakarta International Defense Dialogue was the concept of ‘strategic trust’. Admitting this was difficult to define, he referred to it as ‘an evolving sense of mutual confidence between nations – particularly between government and militaries’ that enables parties to work together more effectively and, more importantly, peacefully.

President SBY offered two examples from Indonesia’s own history where strategic trust has been the glue in otherwise shattered relationships: between Indonesia and East Timor (a poignant reference given East Timor’s PM Xanana Gusmão was sitting in the audience), and between the Indonesian government and GAM in Aceh. His message is that it’s something that can bring bitter enemies together very gradually over time, ‘brick by brick’, and it has to reach from top leadership to the bottom rung.

It’s not a particularly radical concept, and it has been bounced around before. But what President SBY has put in words is, for instance, what Australia is seeking to build with regional partners. If we were asking ourselves, ‘what does it take to be strategic partners with Indonesia?’, SBY has got an easy answer: ‘strategic trust’, as it’s understood in Jakarta. And that’s the beauty of abstraction: you’re off the hook proving it in quantitative terms but you certainly can say you’re working towards it. Read more

Rethinking the Defence White Paper after next

25 March 2013

As Andrew mentioned last week, we were recently invited by RUSI ACT to talk about challenges and prospects of the next Defence White Paper. Actually, it was more about the White Paper after next, as a document released only shortly before an election is likely to be short-lived, particularly if there’s a change in government.

Andrew talked about White Papers then and now. My talk focused on how to readjust the strategy that must underpin any defence policy as it relates to dealing with the two major powers in our region, the US and China, and how we might approach our bigger neighbour to the north, Indonesia. The good news is that we are entering another ‘interwar period’ and we could use the ‘strategic pause’ to make changes to strategy and force structure. We don’t live in a rapidly deteriorating security environment, and there is no imminent major power war or destabilising arms race in Southeast Asia.

Undoubtedly, China will become stronger militarily and flex its muscles in East Asia and parts of the South China Sea. But that doesn’t mean that conflict or war is inevitable, or that we have to choose between China and the United States. Nor need we buy into inflated assessments of the PLA’s rising military capabilities. In fact, China faces major challenges to project significant military power beyond its ‘near seas’. Moreover, Chinese investments in lower-end military capabilities for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and protection of sea-lanes are largely underreported, and are all avenues for cooperation with the PLA. Read more

US–Australia military interoperability II

25 March 2013

In his recent summary of his Alliance 21 paper for this blog, ADM Gary Roughead cogently explained why Australia and the United States benefit from high levels of military interoperability. He also suggested several fertile areas where further developing shared approaches would pay dividends, including the establishment of a governance mechanism to move what has been a somewhat ad hoc (but often successful) approach onto a more formal footing. I’ll resist covering the ground again here, other than to say ‘what he said’. In any case, my perspectives on some of those issues can be found in my full length paper.

ADM Roughead’s paper comes with the perspective you’d expect from someone with an impressive career as an operator of military capability. My paper takes a different tack and focuses on acquisition and industry policy, mostly here in Australia but also raises some issues where the United States could helpfully review its approach.

A couple of the recommendations for the development of Australia’s defence industry policy have appeared in my previous ASPI publications on off-the-shelf procurement and naval shipbuilding: Read more

A change in climate

25 March 2013

Today ASPI releases a report, Heavy Weather: Climate and the Australian Defence Force, which I’ve co-authored with Anthony Press, the CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, and former ASPI analyst Eliza Garnsey, now based in Cambridge.

The 2009 Defence White Paper dismissed climate change as an issue for future generations, judging that the strategic consequences wouldn’t be felt before 2030. But we think that’s no longer the case. Heavy Weather argues that the downstream implications of climate change are forcing Defence to become involved in mitigation and response tasks right now. Defence’s workload will only increase, so we need a new approach.

Climate change is a change in Defence’s operating environment. Just as the ADF changes in response to shifts in economic conditions, technology and demographics, it needs to adapt in response to changes in the physical battlespace. Climate science involves no more uncertainty than other environmental factors in Defence planning. The ADF operates on ‘warning times’, so it needs to understand how environmental changes can affect risk management and prepare accordingly. Read more

What Vietnam and Iraq should teach Canberra

24 March 2013

If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain from examining its lousy performance in the processes that took Australia to war in Vietnam and Iraq. For Australia, both wars were all about the alliance with the United States. Both were wars of choice, although the regional implications Canberra read into Vietnam meant it was closer to a war of necessity than Iraq.

Both wars exemplify the Prime Minister’s most profound prerogative and Parliament’s lack of power. The entry to both showed the Canberra system performing below its best, revealing again the truth that artifice and farce often attend the most serious of moments of government.

In announcing the deployment to Vietnam, the farce was the last minute rush to extract a formal request from the government of South Vietnam, to veil the patent reality that this was a response to US needs. In the case of Iraq, the artifice was the Howard Government’s claim through 2002 and early 2003 that it was still to make up its mind about whether or not to go to war—a thin veil over the patent reality that this was all about the alliance and that Australia was deeply committed to US invasion plans.

A quickly mocked-up invitation to Vietnam and a false will-we-won’t-we facade on the approach to Iraq… Q: Why are voters so cynical and dismissive about the noble and historic efforts of their leaders to shape and direct history? A: History. Read more

US–Australia military interoperability

22 March 2013

Cooperation and military interoperability come easily to the United States and Australia. The extraordinary level attained reflects our compatible national attitudes and common traits of confidence, ingenuity, optimism and initiative. Interoperability is too frequently associated with common systems and shared acquisitions, but important opportunities exist elsewhere and that is my focus here.

Adjustments to the US defence budget will not cause the US to be displaced as the dominant global military power, and even as the US grapples with its fiscal future and the US Department of Defense adjusts to a period of austerity, the Asia–Pacific region will remain the priority. There is no question each country must engage in other important bilateral and regional relationships, but our common regional priority, unmatched commitment to military jointness and a keen awareness of the changes and opportunities of an expanding information environment can underpin even closer cooperation.

We should start with resetting the governance model of military cooperation and interoperability. Coordination can be improved if we better integrate initiatives among the strategic, operational and acquisition domains. While coordination is good, it remains stove-piped by domain. Bringing the leaders of those domains together will enable better benchmarking and results at every level of coordination. Assumptions and objectives can be discussed, coordinated, reset where needed and synchronised. Read more