Stepping up military support to humanitarian assistance in the Pacific
On October 3 the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting (SPDMM) endorsed the establishment of the Pacific Response Group (PRG), a novel multinational military cooperation initiative that will seek to address the need for more efficient and effective cooperation between Pacific militaries to deliver military support to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).
In the coming years, the PRG will have to address challenges surrounding the potential expansion of the group and its mission, including into areas like stability operations, and Australia will need to commit greater resources to ensuring that it successfully adapts to the region’s needs. It is important that the thinking, consultation and some of the planning for that starts now.
Any decisions regarding the PRG will be made by SPDMM members as a collective, but each member state will have its own perspectives on the group’s development. This report provides 12 recommendations focused on areas including resourcing, encouraging a whole-of-government support, and expansion of the group in size and in scope. The report is intended to inform policymakers in Australia as a contributing member of the PRG, but many of the recommendations could also be valuable for, and hence adopted by, other members of the group.
A summary of the recommendations contained in the report are as follows:
Recommendation 1: PRG members states should consider the need for an expansion of the PRG beginning as soon as the 2025/2026 high risk weather season and must be able to deal with concurrent disasters.
Recommendation 2: The end goal of the HADR component of the PRG should be dedicated forces from each military able to be readily deployed in immediate response to natural disasters in the region.
Recommendation 3: PRG member states should consider ways it can guarantee capabilities for PRG use in the high-risk season from Australia, New Zealand and France for much needed transport, including maritime and air assets.
Recommendation 4: The Australian government should acknowledge that the PRG is not designed to address all of Australia’s domestic HADR demands so should consider other solutions to bolster its domestic disaster response.
Recommendation 5: The Australian government should consider how a whole-of-government approach can actively coordinate across departmental initiatives so that the PRG, and other initiatives, can make the best contribution to regional environmental security concerns.
Recommendation 6: SPDMM member states participating in the PRG should address the potential for the inclusion of police units or paramilitary from countries such as Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in the future.
Recommendation 7: The PRG should think ahead and consider outlining a role for SPDMM observers such as Japan, the UK and the US in supporting the group without changing its core makeup. This could include financial support for transport, maintenance or infrastructure and supplies.
Recommendation 8: Australia should be willing and ready to support the expansion the PRG mission as desired by its member states to address instability through a coordinated multilateral response, provided this is desired by other members of SPDMM.
Recommendation 9: If there is an expansion of the mission to include stability operations, Australia should lead the way in the development of a multilateral security agreement that formalises the PRG’s approach to stability operations in any SPDMM member state.
Recommendation 10: Together, PRG members should publicly push-back against any narratives that suggest this initiative is competition driven and remind other states that successful security initiatives inevitably lead to a reduced need for other external support. Australia should also be more transparent about its concerns with a greater Chinese security presence in the region.
Recommendation 11: Australia should encourage some of the region’s key partners to support the PRG with supplies, funding and – if needed – additional vessels and aircraft for transport.
Recommendation 12: If, in the future, the PRG is requested to support alongside Chinese security forces, Australia must combat potential narratives pushed by China of welcome cooperation and partnership between Australia as a PRG-member and China in the region that legitimise a Chinese security presence while respecting the sovereign decision making of recipient countries.
Lessons in leadership: Interviews with 11 of Australia’s former Defence Ministers
In a time of growing strategic uncertainty, 11 of Australia’s former defence ministers have shared valuable lessons they learned over decades running one of the toughest portfolios in government.
In this compendium, the former ministers from both sides of politics give their views on topics ranging from the complexity of dealing with a massive department, to the grief they shared with families at the funerals of slain soldiers.
The pieces are drawn from interviews with former ASPI executive director Peter Jennings and links to the original video interviews are available in the posts on The Strategist site.
When China knocks at the door of New Caledonia
China’s covert foreign interference activities in the Pacific are a very important, and yet under-researched, topic. This report uses New Caledonia as the case study to examine China’s hidden front, 隐蔽战线, throughout the wider Pacific.
Successive months of violence and unrest in New Caledonia in 2024, have heightened regional and international awareness of the uncertain future of the territory, and the role of China in that future. The unrest erupted after France pushed through legislation extending voting rights in the territory.
The CCP has engaged in a range of foreign interference activities in New Caledonia over many decades, targeting political and economic elites, and attempting to utilise the ethnic Chinese diaspora and PRC companies as tools of CCP interests. Local elites have at times actively courted China’s assistance, willingly working with CCP front organisations.
Assessing the extent of China’s foreign interference in New Caledonia is a legitimate and necessary inquiry. The debate about China’s interests, intentions and activities in the territory has lacked concrete, publicly available evidence until now. This study aims to help fill that lacuna. The report draws on open-source data collection and analysis in Chinese, French and English. It was also informed by interviews and discussions that took place during my visits to New Caledonia and France in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023, as well as conversations in New Zealand.
My research shows that the French Government and New Caledonian authorities are working to manage risks in the China – New Caledonia relationship. Moreover, civil society, the New Caledonian media, many politicians, and Kanak traditional leadership have also had a role in restraining the extent of the CCP’s foreign interference activities in New Caledonia. Few Pacific Island peoples would welcome a relationship of dependency with China or having the Pacific become part of a China-centred order.
The report concludes by recommending that New Caledonia be included in all regional security discussions as an equal partner. New Caledonia needs to rebalance its economy and it needs help with the rebuild from the riots. Supportive partner states should work with France and New Caledonia to facilitate this.
The big wins for a stronger Australia out of AUSMIN talks
This week’s AUSMIN dialogue between Australia and the United States has delivered some important policy agreements that will strengthen the vital US-Australia alliance in the face of a strategic outlook that Australia’s National Defence Strategy, released in April, characterises as “the most challenging environment since the Second World War”.
Of greatest concern in confronting the risks ahead must be that China will seek to impose unification on Taiwan, against the wishes of the Taiwanese people, through use of force, if necessary, with a crisis potentially coming as early as this decade.
China also continues aggressive provocations, notably against the Philippines, in an effort to dominate and control the South China Sea.
In the longer term, Chinese success in these territorial disputes would see it then well placed to control maritime trade routes that are vital to Australia’s security and economic prosperity in the 2030s and beyond.
In the face of this growing challenge, Australia and the US must continue to strengthen their alliance and reinforce credible deterrence against the risk that Beijing will seek to use military force to achieve its geostrategic ambitions in the coming decade and beyond.
The latest round of AUSMIN talks saw very practical and sensible steps being taken towards this goal.
Most importantly, AUSMIN saw agreement between Canberra and Washington that Australia’s defence facilities in the north will be enhanced to enable greater access and sustained use by US military forces during a crisis. This makes eminent sense.
Australia’s key role in any future war with China would be to act as a secure rear area for US and allied forces to operate from and to sustain and support allied military operations in what is likely to be protracted major power war lasting months or longer.
The agreement out of AUSMIN to enhance airbases at Darwin and Tindal in the Northern Territory, and to consider upgrades to the “bare bases” at Curtin, Learmonth and Scherger, as well as at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, will give US and ADF forces greater flexibility to conduct forward operations in a crisis.
Important agreements were made on combined logistics, sustainment and maintenance that builds on a demonstration of pre-positioned US Army equipment at Albury-Wodonga and will consider requirements for establishing a logistics support area in Queensland.
It is sensible for Australia and the United States to prioritise the steps needed to ensure that the US, and other allied partners in the Indo-Pacific, can operate on a sustained basis from Australia in a future war in the Indo-Pacific.
AUSMIN 2024 thus has produced some practical and sensible outcomes which will not only contribute to strengthened deterrence to ideally prevent such a war from happening in the first place, but also ensure that Australia and the United States and other partners are best placed to respond if a crisis were to emerge.
The second key outcome from AUSMIN is a focus on technology co-operation that can lead to key new military capabilities. There has been important progress on new mechanisms which can circumvent onerous defence trade regulations that would otherwise stifle the prospect of progress under AUKUS Pillar 2.
These include greater integration between the US and Australia on defence innovation, and enhanced co-operation within the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise to enable co-development of long-range missile capabilities to facilitate ‘impactful projection’. Of key importance is an agreement on securing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on building the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), and continued work on developing hypersonic weapons, with both supporting the urgent requirement for greater long-range strike capabilities for the ADF and also for the US military.
AUSMIN has produced an opportunity for greater co-operation to counter threats in new domains such as space and cyberspace. For example, AUSMIN has reinforced the importance of norms of responsible behaviour in space, and opposed Russia’s development of a nuclear weapons-based anti-satellite capability. Given the importance of the space domain for Australia’s security and prosperity, it’s vital that states stand together to oppose and deter any move by Moscow to deploy such a destabilising weapon, that would effectively destroy the 1967 Outer Space Treaty even if the weapon itself was never used, and in doing so, ensure that space was a battleground in future wars.
The government’s approach to AUSMIN is a welcome one, which recognises the importance of the US-Australia alliance, and which is based on undertaking practical steps that strengthen Australia’s ability to support the US in deterring a major power crisis. Key defence capabilities such as the nuclear powered but conventionally armed submarines, won’t appear until the mid-2030s, so its important for government to work with the US and other allies to strengthen defence capabilities now. In this uncertain environment, dialogues such as AUSMIN that generate practical steps towards enhanced defence co-operation are more important than ever.
Gender mainstreaming in United Nations peace operations: An unfulfilled promise?
The principle of gender equality is a cornerstone of the United Nations (UN). Centred on equal access to rights, opportunities, resources and decision-making powers irrespective of gender, it’s embedded within the UN Charter and championed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mechanisms such as the inaugural resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agreed to in 2000 by the UN Security Council (UNSC), and the adoption of an additional nine WPS resolutions, further represent the critical intent to achieve this goal. The purpose of such WPS mechanisms is to cultivate gender balance, foster diverse leadership and champion gender equality in a global effort to establish sustainable peace after conflict.
Yet, as we stand on the threshold of the 25th anniversary of UNSC resolution 1325, the UN’s stride towards gender equality for uniformed women in peace operations has been ‘exceedingly slow’. The lofty aspiration of ‘equal opportunity peacekeeping’ through gender mainstreaming policies and practices remains elusive, entangled in a web of misconceptions and entrenched systemic barriers and institutional challenges.
The purpose of this ASPI report is threefold.
First, it examines the blocks to implementation and the effects of gender mainstreaming strategies.
Second, it advances three strategic interventions for the UN system and its global peace and security community:
- redefining peacekeeping benchmarks for an efficient and effective uniformed component
- shifting the narrative on peacekeepers’ contributions regardless of gender
- incorporating feminist voices and practices in the development of policies and practices for the deployment of peacekeepers.
These proposed interventions offer a unique prospect for the final section of this report: encouraging Australian Government departments and agencies that have responsibilities for and commitments to execute the Australian National Action Plan (NAP) on WPS. Those commitments extend to fostering gender equality in both domestic and international WPS endeavours, thereby strengthening Australia’s position as a proactive UN member state.
Full tilt: The UK’s defence role in the Pacific: Views from The Strategist
Britain has a new prime minister, Keir Starmer, leading its first Labour government in 14 years. Key questions for us now are how Britain under Labour will approach the security partnership with Australia and whether London will remain committed to investing defence resources in the Indo-Pacific.
This report provides vital context for addressing these questions. In this series of articles, originally published in ASPI’s The Strategist this year, ASPI authors review the historical underpinnings and future course of Britain’s strategic recoupling with Australia and this region, especially the Pacific Islands, from perspectives ranging from deterrence to climate resilience.
The report makes some recommendations for how to strengthen the Australia-UK defence partnership and shape Britain’s approach to our region.
Stop the World: Defence innovation and investment with Heather Richman and Linda Lourie
This week on Stop the World, we bring you a special episode from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’. In this first episode of a short series, ASPI’s Director of Defence Strategy and National Security, Bec Shrimpton, speaks to defence innovation and investment experts Heather Richman and Linda Lourie.
They discuss defence innovation and opportunities for the government to work with the private sector to achieve national security outcomes. They also consider how the investment landscape has changed in the United States, including increased willingness from entrepreneurs to invest in national security.
About the guests:
Heather Richman is founder of the Defense Investor Network in the US, and has held a wide array of roles at the intersection of national security, technology, and investment—including at Stanford University and on Capitol Hill.
Linda Lourie is a Principal with WestExec Advisors. She is also a Principal with the Washington Circle Advisory Group, LLC, and a Member of the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s Advisory Subcommittee on Strategic Competition with the People’s Republic of China. Linda has previously held senior roles in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and in the Defense Innovation Unit.
Bec is Director Defence Strategy and National Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Bec has over 20 years experience in policy, operational and corporate roles in the Australian Department of Defence and DFAT. She has served as senior adviser Major Powers to Australia’s Foreign Minister, and led trade and investment in the defence and space sectors in Austrade.