The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a Special Report on Australia and the Middle East with contributions from Dr Rod Lyon ASPI’s Strategy and International Program Director and Professor William Maley, Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy.  ASPI is embarking this year on a major project that looks at the key strategic issues arising from the current tensions in Middle East security.  This Special Report is the first output of this project.

Readers will be struck by the different approaches they have each taken to the broad question we set them: what are Australia’s interests in a changing Middle Eastern security environment?  Dr Lyon’s approach is that of a strategic analyst, with a fascination for power shifts and conflict. Professor Maley’s approach is that of the regional expert, enriched by a close knowledge of the countries and cultures of the Middle East. 

Bill Maley, surveying a region marked by ‘an atmosphere of almost unparalleled gloom’, argues for a ‘rethinking’ of approaches and instruments to be used in the Middle East  He believes soft power has been ‘a neglected asset’ which urgently needs to be revived.  And he thinks that Australia is well-placed to embark on a more ‘carefully-constructed engagement’ with ‘a very important part’ of the world.

Moreover, Maley suggests that Australia should revisit the issue of its alliance relationship with the United States, to maintain an effective alliance relationship but one where Australia is less tied to participation in ‘wars of choice’.

Rod Lyon argues that Australian interests will remain closely engaged in the Middle East during an ‘era of strategic realignment’ within the region.  That’s because the region is important to global security, ‘simultaneously the driver of the world’s economic engine and the source of many of its greatest security threats.’  Further, Lyon argues that three geopolitical trends—a continuing eastward shift in the region’s centre of gravity, the rise of sectarianism as a potentially critical fault-line, and the increasing move towards non-conventional forms of conflict—are driving the Middle East towards new security arrangements.  He says Australia cannot pretend it has no interest in how the region manages the challenges confronting it.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released its latest report, which examines how US defence transformation affects the leading nations and militaries in the Asia–Pacific region, and how those countries and their armed forces are responding to a transforming US military.

Under the stewardship of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, transformation became the guiding principle of the US military. Ongoing developments and breakthroughs in such areas as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, precision-strike, stealth technologies and command and control have made the US military the most formidable armed force in the world.

The report is authored by Richard A Bitzinger, a Senior Fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) in Singapore. His work focuses on military and defence issues relating to the Asia–Pacific region, including the challenges of defence transformation in the Asia–Pacific, regional military modernisation activities, and local defence industries, arms production and weapons proliferation.

‘Defence transformation has major implications for the future course of US military and security policy, particularly when it comes to the Asia–Pacific region, says Bitzinger.

‘As the US continues to transform its forces, this process will have a profound impact on the ways in which US forces operate in the region, including their future basing and deployment, where and how they’ll operate, and what kind of equipment they’ll require.’

US defence transformation will affect a number of critical regional security concerns, such as alliance relationships and interoperability, regional competition and cooperation, and local force modernisation activities.

For Australia there might be hard choices to make in how far we should adapt our military capabilities given US transformation strategies and their implications. Mark Thomson, of ASPI, takes up this theme in a short counter-point to Bitzinger’s analysis.

Release of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Strategic Insight No. 31/2006

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a new Strategic Insight publication titled ‘Australian domestic security: The role of Defence’ by Brigadier Andrew Smith and ASPI Director of Research Programs Dr Anthony Bergin.

Over the last five years the need for greater involvement by Defence in domestic security, both in counter-terrorism and consequence management, has been recognised by the government and the community.

While Defence has certainly not dropped its focus on traditional warfighting, much greater attention has been given to internal missions.

This paper examines the factors that have shaped the Defence organisation’s role in Australia’s response to the domestic security environment that has emerged since September 11 2001 and suggests that, while progress has been impressive, some further changes are needed.

These include developing a dedicated strategy for Defence support to domestic security, including capability benchmarks for military and civil agencies for counter terrorism missions, examining the need for a designated agency to assume standing responsibilities for special event security, finding a more relevant role for our reserve forces in domestic security and developing standing relationships between the military and local law enforcement and emergency response communities.

The Insight paper suggests that Defence should devote more intellectual effort to domestic security challenges, including adapting military culture to embrace domestic security as core business. Defence response capabilities, along with the emergency services, should be tested much more in no-warning exercises involving whole-city terrorism. Defence and civilian emergency services should share training and experience opportunities more regularly.

Release of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Strategic Insight No. 29/2006

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a new ASPI Strategic Insight entitled Wedgetail: Australia’s eagle-eyed Sentinel by Dr Carlo Kopp, defence analyst, consulting engineer, and research fellow in regional military strategy at the Monash Asia Institute, in Melbourne. 

Recent reports of project delays in the Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) program have brought this important Defence project yet again into the media spotlight. Unfortunately, the Wedgetail has been the subject of ongoing controversy since 2000, yet it is absolutely critical to the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) future combat capability. 

This ASPI Strategic Insight explains why the Wedgetail is so important to the Australian Defence Force (ADF), and provides the reader with some understanding of this complex program. 

‘Wedgetail is a vital capability for the ADF, providing the only effective means of air defence surveillance and control across Australia’s northern geography and maritime approaches. With the proliferation of advanced Russian fighters, smart weapons, and cruise missiles across Asia, the Wedgetail is the only credible AEW&C system available which can deal with the developing strategic environment’, says Dr Kopp. 

‘Other than covering basic strategic imperatives in national air defence, the Wedgetail offers a valuable expeditionary capability to support not only coalition military campaigns, but also civil emergency, humanitarian and disaster relief contingencies abroad and in Australia, as well as border surveillance and enforcement of national sovereignty.’

‘A strong strategic argument can be made for the acquisition of additional Wedgetail aircraft. A fleet of eight or nine would allow for a much more comprehensive coverage of Australia’s strategic approaches and northern landmass.’

‘No matter what choices Australia makes for its future fighter fleets, aerial refueling fleets and other key capabilities, the Wedgetail AEW&C system is a pivotal capability at the core of the RAAF’s fleet’, states Dr Kopp. 

Release of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Strategic Insight No. 28/2006

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a new Strategic Insight publication titled Australian uranium exports and security: Preventing proliferation by Andrew Davies, ASPI Program Director Operations and Capability.

The government has recently put the issue of Australia’s future nuclear industry firmly on the table, and has established a taskforce to review uranium mining processing and nuclear energy in Australia. This ASPI Strategic Insight examines the impact that any change to Australia’s place in the nuclear supply chain might have on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. 

It examines the issues that need to be managed if Australian-sourced nuclear materials are to be sold to a wider customer set without leading to a growth in the number of nuclear weapon armed states.

Australia has the world’s largest reserves of uranium ore, totalling almost a quarter of known deposits and 40 per cent of the uranium that is easily exploitable. 

‘There is little doubt that increased global interest in nuclear energy is a potential economic opportunity for Australia. However, the laws of physics impose a necessary overlap between the technologies required to generate nuclear energy or to produce nuclear weapons’, Dr Davies says. 

‘It is therefore incumbent upon us to adopt a defence-in-depth approach that can minimise the possibility of a would-be proliferant nation being able to use a civil power program to develop expertise and technologies required to ‘break out’ into a nuclear weapons program.’

The paper also offers several policy recommendations to help Australia continue to be a responsible nuclear supplier.

‘For exports to countries with no existing capability to enrich uranium or separate plutonium, the best security solution is for Australia to export uranium through NPT-signatories that already possess those capabilities. If Australia was to develop its own value-adding nuclear industry it would need careful diplomacy and the utmost openness and transparency.’