Tag Archive for: Australia

Tiptoeing around China: Australia’s framework for technology vendor review

Australia has a new framework for dealing with high-risk technology vendors, though the government isn’t brave enough to call them that.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says the framework ‘will ensure the government strikes the right balance in managing security risks while ensuring Australia continues to take advantage of economic opportunities’.

An alternative reading would be that it’s an opaque, toothless framework that gives the government wiggle room to minimise risk to the China relationship by increasing risk to our digital sovereignty.

The framework was announced on 20 December but not published. It’s a set of guidelines for assessing national security risks posed by foreign technology products and services sold in Australia. The timing was so unlikely to attract attention that it looked deliberate. Information on the Department of Home Affairs website, striking an unsatisfying balance between brevity and circumlocution, reinforces the impression that the government would be pleased if few people noticed the policy.

The framework establishes a ‘proactive process to consider foreign ownership, control or influence risks associated with technology vendors’. That will enable the government to ‘provide guidance on technology vendor risks to inform public and private sector procurement decisions about the security of technology products and services’. Risks will be assessed and mitigations considered where these risks are unacceptable.

The government’s factsheet provides a few more details. The security reviews will be led by Home Affairs in consultation with relevant agencies, presumably including technical experts in our security agencies. Assessments will be prioritised based on preliminary risk analysis of such factors as where the product or service is deployed, its prevalence and access to sensitive systems or data.

We don’t know what technologies the reviews will focus on or who will make the final decisions on which risks need mitigating. Review findings will apparently inform future government policies or support technical guidance to help organisations mitigate identified risks. The framework itself will not be released publicly to ‘ensure the integrity of the framework’s processes and protect information relating to national security’.

What’s clear is the focus on mitigating risk. Bans or restrictions on vendor access are off the table, even though, as we discovered with 5G, it is sometimes impossible to mitigate technology products and services that are one update away from being remotely manipulated by the vendor who supplies and maintains them.

But who would seek to manipulate or disrupt the critical technologies on which Australians rely?

Well, the government says the framework was not established to ‘target vendors from specific nations.’ The majority of foreign vendors ‘do not present a threat to Australia’s interests. However, in some cases, the application, market prevalence or nature of certain technologies, coupled with foreign influence, could present unacceptable risks to the Australian economy. This is particularly true if the vendor is owned, controlled or influenced by foreign governments with interests which conflict with Australia’s.’

The document steers clear of the more zingy phrase ‘high-risk vendors’, which was associated with Australia’s 2018 ban on Chinese 5G suppliers Huawei and ZTE.

It’s a tricky balance. Reluctance to point the finger at our largest trading partner is understandable, even though everyone knows we wouldn’t need a framework without our growing reliance on Chinese vendors who are indeed owned, controlled or influenced by the Chinese government. But, unsettled by China’s reaction to its predecessor singling out Chinese 5G vendors, this government seems more concerned with anticipating Chinese concerns than explaining to the public what technologies it should be worried about.

For example, will the government target electric cars and solar inverter technologies, where China’s dominant position has raised concerns? Perhaps not, since we are reminded that foreign technology companies ‘are essential’ for Australia’s net zero transition.

Businesses weighing the merits of buying cost-competitive Chinese tech will be reassured that the framework won’t introduce new legislated authorities or regulation. The focus seems to be on consultation with business so the government can ‘understand the risks introduced by a product or service, and the availability of mitigations’.

But mitigations reduce efficiency and add cost, and selecting pricier gear from alternative trusted vendors adds even more. Businesses may feel that avoiding these extra costs is worth the risk.

How might this play out? One way is we never hear about the framework again, aside from occasional technical security guidance. Low public awareness of the risks will mean inquiries can be batted back with assurances that the government has been making progress but can’t talk about it for national security reasons.

Then, one morning in the middle of an Indo-Pacific crisis, we might wake up to find the power and water don’t work.

As Mike Tyson might have said, everyone has a secret technology vendor review framework until they get punched in the mouth.

Virginia, we have a problem

Australia’s plan to acquire Virginia-class submarines from the United State is looking increasingly improbable. The US building program is slipping too badly.

This heightens the need for Australia to begin looking at other options, including acquiring Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) from France.

The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted work at the two shipyards that build Virginias, General Dynamics Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ yard at Newport News, Virginia. It badly hindered output at many companies in the supply chain, too. With too few workers, the industry has built up a backlog, and yards are filling with incomplete submarines.

Within six years, the US must decide whether to proceed with sale of the first of at least three and possibly five Virginias to Australia, a boat that will be transferred from the US Navy’s fleet.

Nine months before the transfer goes ahead, the president of the day must certify that it will not diminish USN undersea capability. This certification is unlikely if the industry has not by then cleared its backlog and achieved a production rate of 2.3 a year—the long-term building rate of two a year for the USN plus about one every three years to cover Australia’s requirement.

The chance of meeting that condition is vanishingly small.

The situation in the shipyards is stark. The industry laid down only one SSN in 2021. It delivered none from April 2020 to May 2022. The USN has requested funding for only one Virginia in fiscal year 2025, breaking the two-a-year drumbeat, ‘due to limits on Navy’s budget topline and the growing Virginia class production backlog’.

As of January 2025, five of 10 Block IV Virginias ordered are in the yards, as are five of 12 Block Vs for which acquisition has been announced. (Work has not begun on the other seven Block Vs.)

The building time from laying down until delivery has increased from between 3 and 3.5 years before the pandemic to more than 5 years. The tempo is still slowing: the next Virginia, USS Iowa, is due to be delivered on 5 April 2025, 5.8 years after it was laid down.

On the original, pre-pandemic schedule, all the Block IVs could probably have been delivered to the USN by now. This is a gap that cannot be recovered in a few years, despite all the expensive manpower training and retention programs in hand.

Exacerbating the problem for the yards, the Block V submarines are 30 percent larger, and more complex to build, making a return to shorter build times unlikely.  Speaking to their shareholders in October, the chief executives of Huntington Ingalls and General Dynamics blamed their slowing delivery tempo on supply chain and workforce issues.  HII says it is renegotiating contracts for 17 Block IV and Block V Virginias.

Furthermore, Electric Boat has diverted its most experienced workers to avoid further slippage in building the first two ballistic missile submarines of the Columbia class, the USN’s highest priority shipbuilding program, in which the Newport News yard also participates.

It gets worse. Many USN SSNs that have joined the US fleet over the past few decades are unavailable for service, awaiting maintenance. The pandemic similarly disrupted shipyards that maintain the SSNs of the Los Angeles and Virginia classes. In September 2022, 18 of the 50 SSNs in commission were awaiting maintenance. The Congressional Budget Office reports lack of spending on spare parts is also forcing cannibalisation and impacting the availability of Virginia class SSNs.

Australia’s SSN plan must worsen the US’s challenge in recovering from this situation, adding to the congestion in shipyards and further over loading supply chains already struggling to deliver SSNs to the USN.

A US decision not to sell SSNs to Australia is inevitable, and on current planning we will have no stopgap to cover withdrawal of our six diesel submarines of the Collins class, the oldest of which has already served for 28 years.

In the end, Australia’s unwise reliance on the US will have weakened the combined capability of the alliance. And Australia’s independent capacity for deterrence will be weakened, too.

As I wrote in December, it is time to look for another solution. One is ordering SSNs of the French Suffren class.  The design is in production, with three of six planned boats delivered.  It is optimised for anti-submarine warfare, with good anti-surface, land-strike, special-forces and mining capability. It is a smaller design, less capable than the Virginia, but should be cheaper and is a better fit for Australia’s requirements.

Importantly, it requires only half the crew of a Virginia, and we should be able to afford and crew the minimum viable force of 12 SSNs.

Let’s build on the good progress in training, industry and facility preparations for supporting US and British SSNs in Australia, all of which should continue, and find a way to add to the alliance’s overall submarine capability, not reduce it.

Gradually, then suddenly: in geopolitics, decades can happen in weeks

Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises (1926) that bankruptcy occurs gradually and then suddenly. This should be treated as a rule of geopolitical affairs.

For centuries, political structures and hierarchies of power that once were thought to be unchanging often suddenly vanished. Demise was gradual but collapse was sudden.

The Russian Empire (abolished in September 1917) and the Soviet Russian empire (dissolved in December 1991) both exhibited permanence—until they did not. So did the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (abolished in October 1918) and the Ottoman Empire (abolished in November 1922).

Only last month we witnessed the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. Rulers in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, Havana and elsewhere nervously understand the Hemingway rule, even if they have never read him.

There is another way to express this rule. After decades when nothing happens, decades can suddenly happen in weeks (a saying that is attributed to Vladimir Lenin). While we expressed hope on New Year’s Eve for a more peaceful and less chaotic world, one senses that as 2025 unfolds we will see decades suddenly happen in a blaze of geopolitical twists, turns and transformations.

The scene is bewildering. What will happen in the Russo-Ukrainian war? Will a peace deal be reached? Will Vladimir Putin keep his grip on power? Will Israel go to war against Iran? Will Iran recover from recent setbacks or will the regime start to unravel? Will it make a dash for nuclear weapons?

Will a dramatic Middle East peace deal, and a Palestinian homeland, emerge as a result of a regional realignment involving the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other key players and a freezing out of Iran? Will Islamic State or al-Qaida (or both) manage to galvanise supporters into launching a new wave of terrorist attacks in the West, perhaps by mobilising Muslim anger over the plight of the Palestinians? Will the India-China border remain quiet? What is Kim Jong-un plotting? Does he sense opportunity in South Korea’s political crisis?

What will happen in the seas of the Western Pacific, especially around Japan, Taiwan and The Philippines? Or in the next phase of US-China strategic competition? What of China’s calculations about its objectives and timelines, especially given the return of Donald Trump to the White House? Will China’s economic and social fragility combine with internal political tensions to shake Xi Jinping’s hold on power? Will Trump’s second term dramatically transform the role of the US in the world?

In the grey space between peace and war, will we see an acceleration of cyber attacks, sabotage (including against undersea infrastructure), covert disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and other forms of intimidation by Russia and China against the democracies of the West, in a bid to throw them off balance, to fracture their social cohesion and undermine the national confidence of their populations? At the other end of the spectrum, will nuclear weapons be used for the first time since 1945?

On some of these issues, there will be still months and years to play out. Some, however, will play out within weeks.

As Henry Kissinger often said, in the face of a wide range of uncertainties and imponderables, often action has to be taken when the opportunities and threats are only incompletely glimpsed, and when the probabilities and consequences cannot be calculated precisely. If we wait for time to play out, we are likely to be surprised when things happen suddenly.

As Australia grapples with this bewildering range of contingencies, it will need to focus its efforts on that which matters most. For Australia, the gradual and then sudden establishment of Chinese hegemony and a US strategic withdrawal from our region (whether by choice or through military defeat) would be the most adverse geopolitical occurrence in our history.

Everything else listed above matters. This would matter most. A hegemonic China, technologically dominant and militarily unchecked, with the US looking on from its hemispheric citadel, would be for Australia a more demanding overlord than Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or Soviet Russia would have been had any one of them managed to achieve mastery in Eurasia. A dominant China would expect to get its way, and resisting would incur high costs.

Australian policy must be constantly directed to the challenge of working with others to prevent such an outcome.

In part, this will mean intensifying and accelerating our military, civil defence and national cyber defence preparations.

In the months and years ahead, there is a significant chance of a US-China military crisis in Asia, similar to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

If China continues to pursue a course of preparing for a blockade of Taiwan, the odds of this are likely to be at least 50 per cent. In the worst possible case, war might break out, gradually in the grey space between peace and war, and then suddenly with weapons being launched with little or no warning. The odds of this occurring between now and 2030 are likely to be about 10 to 20 per cent.

Aside from intensifying preparations for such eventualities, the other arm of policy that needs to be mobilised is our regional diplomacy. Australia last faced such dire prospects in the 1930s. In the face of the growing menace of Imperial Japan, it chose not to re-arm in time and as a result was defenceless in 1941, when John Curtin was forced to ‘look to America’. Neither did Australia act confidently and effectively enough in terms of its statecraft, even though it was more seized than was the British government of the growing threat posed by Imperial Japan.

We can learn the lessons of the ’30s. In the 90 years that have since passed, we have built a deep store of regional connections and we go to the region as a different Australia, independent and confident. We should engage with our neighbours on the need to stand together against Chinese coercion and aggression.

In doing so, we would not be seeking security from Asia but seeking it in Asia.

Our neighbours are highly attuned to geopolitical realities. Almost without exception, even if they do not say it, they are not keen to see China emerge as a hegemon. Equally, they would prefer to see the US remain engaged in the region, knowing that any regional power arrangement that had China at its head would be a vehicle for China to dominate.

However, most are not ready to tackle directly the question of China’s aggression and coercion. They see no need to do so—not perhaps until Chinese naval and coastguard vessels appear off their shores to assert Chinese sovereignty in disputed waters.

Short of them being directly threatened, attempts to enlist most of our neighbours into an anti-China coalition will not work. Here is where astute Australian foreign policy could have a significant impact. No one in the region believes that Australia is seriously trying to navigate US-China strategic competition. That it is trying not to choose a side.

Most believe Australia has already made its choice without being vocal about it. Australia’s presumed choice can be seen in our longstanding alliance with the US; the hosting of US strategic facilities in Australia; the basing arrangements that have been put in place for US military operations from Australia; Australia’s plan under AUKUS to acquire long-range nuclear-propelled attack submarines; and our participation in the growing US-led system of regional deterrence to counter China. While we have stabilised relations with China in recent years, our neighbours believe we are still working to thwart China’s rise as regional hegemon.

That certainty regarding Australian policy is credit in the strategic bank. We should leverage that credit. Instead of sliding and hedging, our message in the capitals of Asia and the Pacific should be a confident one of strategic solidarity. We should declare that we will stand with our neighbours in the face of Chinese aggression and coercion. This Australian pledge of solidarity should be extended to the following: Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Brunei in Southeast Asia; farther afield to Japan, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, New Zealand and East Timor; the sovereign nations of the Pacific Islands Forum; and possibly others in the Indo-Pacific region. In a carefully couched and suitably adapted form that recognised current Australian policy on its status, the pledge even could be extended to Taiwan.

We would not ask any regional partner to take sides in US-China great power competition or in an anti-China coalition. Neither would the pledge involve or require the agreeing of a military alliance with Australia, although in some cases that might be considered as well and especially so in the case of Indonesia.

Specifically, Australia would pledge that were Chinese grey-zone aggression and coercion to occur in relation to the territorial integrity or national sovereignty of a neighbour, we would consult immediately with them on the best ways in which assistance might be provided by Australia in terms of diplomatic, economic, technical, intelligence and material support. Subject to there being in place a military alliance between our nations, this could involve defence assistance.

Australia would be pledging to deploy all elements of power to assist its neighbours.

In making this pledge, and by not taking the easy road of cowering in our sheltered land, relieved that the dragon was breathing fire on someone else, Australia would be undertaking its most significant independent strategic initiative in the region. The pledge would remove from the table the possibility that Australia might sit back and calculate the advantages for itself in silently acquiescing in, or even tacitly condoning, Chinese aggression and coercion against our neighbours.

The pledge would commit us to doing no more than a resolute and confident Australia would be likely to do in our own interests in the applicable circumstances. By making an explicit declaration now, before the eruption of a sudden crisis, Australia would be signalling that it was serious about contributing to collective security and resilience in the region, and that it was prepared to forgo hedging and ambiguity. With those neighbours that desired it, discreet planning could take place that would save time in a crisis.

Were others in the region to make similar and hopefully mutual pledges to their neighbours, Beijing’s calculations would become vastly more complicated. This would not be an act of altruism on Australia’s part. A more resilient region that was better able to withstand Chinese aggression and coercion, preferably through a web of mutual pledges of solidarity, would make for a more secure Australia.

Australia has long had a strong Asia consciousness. For instance, in 1934 the government of prime minister Joseph Lyons dispatched the first ministerial goodwill diplomatic tour of China, Japan, the Netherlands East Indies, French Indochina, Malaya, Hong Kong and The Philippines. It did not yield useful results, for reasons already mentioned, but it showed that we were at least willing to act on identifiably Australian interests in the region.

After World War II, a more distinctively Australian approach to the region began to be fashioned. By the ’90s, the Keating government was speaking of Australia finding security in Asia.

Building on this tradition of engagement, we should now make starkly clear that, amid all the flux, we are deeply committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific, where all nations are free to make their choices within rules that everyone has agreed. The Australian pledge as described here would give force to this commitment.

In today’s chaotic geopolitical world, the actions that we take now will echo for decades to come.

Hemingway wrote of bankruptcy. In our region we are strategically solvent after decades of engagement. Will we use our credit to help to build a more secure region, even as events unfold at a dizzying pace?

ASPI is and will remain independent

James Curran gets a number of things wrong in his Australian Financial Review column on the Varghese Review and the work of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Above all, ASPI did not ‘work hand in glove with the Morrison government on how to play China as an issue in Australian domestic politics’. This is a baseless accusation, for which Curran provides zero evidence. One can only assume the intention is to make ASPI a political target in the aftermath of the review’s release. ASPI is a non-partisan institute that shouldn’t be painted as working or aligning with any side of politics.

Curran further alleges that ASPI has ‘strayed’ from its founding charter, regarding itself as an ‘ideological font’ for ‘calling out and confronting an assertive China’. ASPI is, and will remain, a non-partisan, independent think tank as stipulated in its charter, laid out in 2001.

He then avers that ‘some of its analysts created an atmosphere in which to question government policy settings on China was deemed unpatriotic’. These allegations are also completely unsubstantiated. Who is he talking about, exactly?

The only person at ASPI that Curran mentions by name is the executive director, Justin Bassi. He accuses Bassi of making a ‘reprehensible’ and ‘juvenile’ comparison between the 14 recommendations in former diplomat Peter Varghese’s report and the 14 grievances against the Australian government, aired by the Chinese embassy in 2020.

Bassi simply noted that there was a ‘grim irony’ in the numerical coincidence, as one of the complaints was widely interpreted as a demand to defund ASPI because it has produced research and commentary critical of the Chinese Communist Party. How is this observation in any sense juvenile? Varghese did not recommend closing down ASPI, but he did recommend that direct government funding for ASPI’s office in Washington DC be discontinued, along with other moves designed to tighten government controls over the sector, including a role for ministers in setting research priorities and appointing government observers to ASPI’s board.

The fact that the government has agreed with most of Varghese’s recommendations is worrying in itself, but especially in light of the Chinese government’s long-running campaign to vilify ASPI. Regardless of the government’s or Varghese’s intentions, Beijing might be forgiven for leaping to the conclusion that ASPI has had its wings clipped in the diplomatic and economic cause of stabilisation—a policy that some ASPI analysts (myself included) have legitimately contested.

The fact that the government coincidentally celebrated the full resumption of the live lobster trade with China the same week it released the Varghese review and its official response can only have strengthened such associations, and perhaps even buoyed the belief in Beijing that its economic coercion of Australia was effective, after all. The timing of this statement, at a minimum, showed poor judgment.

ASPI continues to abide by the guidance in its charter that its main purpose is to provide ‘alternative sources of input to Government decision-making processes on major strategic and defence policy issues’. Also, that it should help to ‘nourish public debate and understanding’.

ASPI’s research output on China is an important part of what we do, though only one part. As an institution, ASPI is proud of the breadth of its China expertise and language skills, which is unsurpassed among think tanks in Australia. ASPI has also provided an outlet for prominent Australia-based academics to publish policy-relevant research on China. ASPI has contributed significantly to Australia’s stock of China expertise. Just this week, the US designated companies, including battery maker CATL, as Chinese military companies after years of research from institutions such as ASPI about links to the Chinese government and military, and about human rights abuses.

Ministers from around the world seek out ASPI analysts for briefings on our research. Datasets we have built over the past decade as a public good have been used by governments and organisations worldwide.

In his report, Varghese was indeed right to point out that Australia has failed to nurture academic expertise on China. But universities, for their own reasons, have long since abandoned the field in the areas that matter most for Australia’s strategic policy—the external behaviours of China’s Communist Party, through its state security apparatus and the People’s Liberation Army. ASPI will continue to do what it can to nurture the talent required to fill that national blind spot and to publish ground-breaking research in these areas. ASPI’s researchers would collegially welcome a greater investment of resources by other think tanks, universities and the government in this regard.

Curran and others are free to criticise ASPI and other research institutes but should focus on evidence, not innuendo. I, for one, would much prefer to be writing about Australia’s regional security environment, defence capability and military strategy. A glance at the international headlines is sufficient to understand there is an urgent and growing appetite for expert analysis in these areas, to inform the general public, and provide alternative policy inputs for the Australian government.

Pacific security in 2025

2025 will be a big year for Pacific security as Pacific island nations grapple with upcoming elections, disaster recovery, watching the situation in New Caledonia and navigating geopolitical tensions. The Australian government will be kept busy as it seeks to remain the region’s primary security partner.

In 2024, tensions escalated into unrest in New Caledonia, many Pacific countries faced political instability, natural disasters caused devastation across the region, and Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong declared that Australia and China are in a ‘permanent state of contest’.

Many of the same security challenges will feature in 2025, but new regional security initiatives and new governments could change how they are addressed.

In 2025, we can expect national elections in Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The Tongan and Vanuatu elections will follow political instability of late last year.

Tonga’s new prime minister, Aisake Eke, was voted in by parliament on Christmas Eve, following Siaosi Sovaleni’s resignation in the face of a looming motion of no confidence earlier in December. Eke will have less than a year to deliver before Tonga returns to the polls.

Vanuatu will hold snap national elections on 16 January after the president dissolved parliament in mid-November as a result of ongoing instability. Like most elections, people primarily will vote based on domestic issues, particularly as the country faces a lengthy rebuild of Port Vila following the December earthquake. But the election could have greater implications for regional security than usual.

Over the past few years, Australia has pursued a security agreement with Vanuatu. However, the proposed agreement has contributed to political instability and leadership change. While new leadership may present an opportunity to progress the agreement, continuing political instability may obstruct security development.

Even if the agreement remains stalled, the Australian government will have its hands full delivering on the promises it’s made across the region.

Just before Christmas, Australia made a flurry of announcements with Pacific partners—including Nauru, PNG and Solomon Islands—demonstrating its commitment to security in the region. Those agreements are in addition to commitments through Pacific owned and led regional security initiatives financed by Australia, such as the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) and Pacific Response Group.

The ‘permanent contest’ with China has shifted Australia’s approach to Pacific policy. In making agreements, Canberra has started adding conditions that support government’s aim of being the region’s primary security partner.

Agreements with Nauru and PNG, as well as the Tuvalu–Australia Falepili Union, have shown that Australia wants to ensure that its efforts, investments and infrastructure are adequately secured. In 2025 and beyond, Australia should ensure these agreements are transparent—for example, by detailing the strings attached to the deal to create a PNG team for Australia’s National Rugby League. This would set Australia apart from others, such as China, which still hasn’t made public any details of its 2022 security agreement with Solomon Islands.

Unfortunately, natural disasters and environmental challenges are almost certain in 2025. Humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations will be necessary as we approach the peak of the 2024–25 high-risk weather season.

The Pacific Response Group should provide a platform for regional military coordination on disaster response, but there’s still plenty of work to be done to show how it will interact with civilian or regional relief mechanisms, such as the PPI.

Competition with China is likely to continue to creep into this space, and those wary of China’s influence will be watching the use of aid in the battle for hearts and minds.

New Caledonia will also remain on the radar of many, with little progress being made on political negotiations. Political instability in Noumea and Paris is affecting efforts to recover from the 2024 riots. Pacific nations are ready to support New Caledonia and, if progress isn’t made before the Pacific Islands Forum this year, additional missions to the French overseas territory could occur.

Many eyes will be on the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, to be hosted by Solomon Islands in September. Positive security outcomes of last year’s meeting, including endorsement of the PPI, were overshadowed by a controversial change in recognition of Taiwan in an official statement. China is likely to further push Pacific nations to cut ties with Taiwan and undermine its legitimacy in regional forums, and Honiara might be more lenient towards Chinese pressure.

Pacific countries will have to ensure their voices are heard when navigating these tensions. To this end, Fiji and Vanuatu released their first foreign policy white papers last year, and in April PNG will table its first since 1981.

In September, PNG will celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence, so the month will be busy for Pacific leaders. Development partners will seek to capitalise on the occasion, making large announcements in partnership with PNG.

Very few of the events in 2024 could have been accurately predicted, including leadership changes, unrest and disasters. This year will be no exception, and the region and its partners must be ready, as always, to adapt.

Innovation for security: why Australia needs its own DARPA

Australia should establish a national centre for breakthrough technologies along the lines of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

An Australian Advanced Research Projects Agency (AARPA) is needed to stay competitive with other powers in the Indo-Pacific in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and biotechnology.

China, well aware of the power of state guidance and funding for high-risk, high-reward technological development, aims to position itself as a world leader in those technologies. It has spent more than US$15 billion on quantum computing, US$220 billion on biotech and US$184 billion on AI, guided by the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year strategic plans.

In 2023, Britain established its own DARPA equivalent, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). So an AARPA would be the third leg of a tripod of AUKUS organisations. It would enhance collaboration on breakthrough technologies under pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement.

In December, the Australian government announced a review of the Australian research-and-development landscape. If it is serious about technological collaboration within the AUKUS agreement and being a key player in Indo-Pacific security, it will need to back that up with serious changes to Australian research funding.

Australia has the potential for greater contribution to global research. However, it has historically failed to spend much on science. Government research and development spending has been less than 0.2 percent of GDP for years. Even gross R&D spending, which includes business, is only 1.68 percent of GDP, well below the OECD average of 2.7 percent. China is spending 2.4 percent and the US 3.5 percent.

Despite that, Australia publishes more papers per capita than Britain, the US or China. Imagine the volume and impact of high-value inventions that we could be producing if we invested properly in research and translation.

Australia consistently underestimates itself. Selling minerals to China shouldn’t be our future. Economic de-coupling from Chinese growth is essential for Australia’s national security and sovereignty. In a more fragmented world, where nations are increasingly investing in onshoring advanced manufacturing, investing in critical technologies is essential. Establishing an AARPA would be a big step in that direction.

The Chinese Communist Party’s five-year plan for the period to 2025 has outlined China’s ambition to become the world leader in AI, biotech and quantum technologies.

AI is already rapidly accelerating progress in biotechnology, enabling the design of new drugs. However, those technologies have dual-use potential, enabling the design of advanced bioweapons. BGI Group, which has ties to the Chinese military, collected vast amounts of genetic information globally during the Covid-19 pandemic, raising concerns about potential misuse. BGI was recently restricted from doing business with US companies due to serious national-security concerns.

In response to the threat of Chinese dominance of biotechnologies, the US has established the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. The commission’s first report highlighted the convergence of biotechnology with AI and quantum computing and the ability of those technologies to rapidly transform the security landscape.

Western democracies must respond to these emerging threats by maintaining a technological advantage and reducing dependence on Chinese supply chains. That can be done only through strategic investment in sovereign technological capability.

The current government research funding model is broken. The success rate for government grants was below one in five in 2024 and has fallen steadily for the past two decades. Continuing decline risks serious brain drain to other countries.

To understand the value that an AARPA would bring, consider that, for decades, DARPA has been the world leader in funding transformative technologies. It created programs that gave us mRNA vaccines, GPS, drones, the internet and many other technologies that define the 21st century.

In contrast to the Australian government’s Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG), which directly employs scientists to conduct research, an organisation using the DARPA model would employ sector experts as term-limited program managers who are given autonomy in the design of funding programs. They would focus on high-risk, high-reward projects, creating breakthrough technologies for national security. In the US, DARPA’s independence enables it to respond to new developments and bet on technologies with transformational potential that would otherwise go unfunded. AARPA would complement DSTG by acting as a dynamic funding body able in invest in research across academia, government and industry.

The 21st century will be defined by advances in AI, biotech and quantum technologies, which are quickly combining to create faster advances than previously predicted. Those technologies have huge national-security implications. They will fundamentally change the security risks to Australia and our allies in ways that we can’t yet foresee. Australia is already a hub of innovation in these technologies, and our researchers can deliver projects faster than global competitors. Establishing an AARPA will ensure that Australia is able to continue to innovate and compete in a rapidly changing security environment.

The next Australian government needs a bolder plan for the navy

The past year brought a renewed focus on Australia’s deteriorating security situation and maritime capability. Despite the maritime emphasis in Australia’s 2024 defence announcements, the country remains far from being adequately positioned to defend its extensive sea lines of communication, subsea cables and broader national interests at sea.

With a federal election due by May, the next Australian government must spend on the navy, address the capability gaps and make timely decisions on future capability.

In the past 12 months, the oceans on which we depend for our protection and prosperity have experi­enced a dramatic deteriora­tion in security terms, unseen in recent decades. Globally, from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, maritime trade is under pressure. Europe has experienced further attacks on critical maritime infrastructure, including subsea cables – the backbone of internet connectivity.

Closer to home, we’ve witnessed escalating aggression from China’s coastguard, which regularly has attacked Philippine vessels in the West Philippine Sea.

Australian sailors have been placed at risk, most recently when a Chinese fighter pilot inexplicably deployed flares in front of an Australian helicopter operating in international airspace. This is not simply a canary in the coalmine; it means the breakdown of global norms.

If a conflict arises in the Indo-Pacific, it will be inherently maritime in nature and we will be compelled to fight with the capabilities we have at the time.

In February 2024, the government announced a historic expansion of the surface combatant fleet—the destroyers and frigates of the Royal Australian Navy equipped with offensive and defensive weapons including missiles and torpedoes. But this expansion is not expected to materialise until the 2030s.

During the past 12 months there has been an integration of new missile capabilities in the navy’s small fleet. Announcements have included the acceleration of building ships for the army and key achievements in training, treaties and export controls to support Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. In fact, 38 percent of Defence’s spending plan, the Integrated Investment Program, across the next decade will be directed towards maritime capabilities.

These developments are positive, but they have not shifted the needle in the near term to address Australia’s vulnerabilities in the maritime domain.

Australia’s surface combatant fleet has been reduced from 11 to 10 with the decommissioning of HMAS Anzac because of its age. The mine-hunting fleet also has been diminished, leaving only two vessels remaining after a mid-year decision to cancel their replacements. Australia’s two tankers, critical for replenishing fuel, food and ammunition for naval ships, have been laid up for most of 2024 because of defects. Additionally, much of Australia’s hydrographic capability, vital for surveying beneath the surface of the water, has been decommissioned, leaving only one ship in operation.

The list goes on. These issues are the product of decades of delayed and indecisive decision-making compounded by a lack of investment. The increasing frequency of attacks in the maritime domain, coupled with the absence of strategic warning time for a potential regional conflict, highlights the urgent need to address Australia’s waning maritime power. This is not simply a nice-to-have but an essential requirement for an island nation when global security norms are being redefined.

In 2025 a timely decision on Australia’s future frigate design will be critical to achieving the planned 2029 delivery of the first of 11 ships. This decision must prioritise the option that minimises delivery risks, ensures operational capability by 2029 (or sooner), maximises commonality with existing Australian systems and offers the design flexibility to accommodate future upgrades.

We must be even bolder than this. While the thought of another review may make us groan, the next government must conduct a thorough assessment of our broader naval and maritime capabilities. If we acknowledge that we’re not currently equipped to protect our trade routes or subsea cables, we must critically examine the composition of the wider fleet—not just the surface combatants but also our mine warfare, hydrographic, amphibious, replenishment and clearance diving capabilities.

Finally, we must confront the difficult conversation about spending to deliver these capabilities at speed. While the current government has made the first substantial increase to the defence budget in nearly a decade—projecting defence spending to rise from the current 2 per cent of GDP to 2.4 per cent by the end of the next decade—this will not be enough to revitalise our defence, particularly our naval capabilities.

During the Cold War, Australia consistently spent an average of 2.7 percent of GDP on defence, with spending exceeding that level during major naval construction efforts. If Australia is truly facing its most complex and challenging strategic environment since World War II, as outlined in the 2024 National Defence Strategy, we cannot afford to continue underspending.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ’20 years after the first Australian meth epidemic, another is upon us’

Originally published on 29 August 2024.

Australian communities are teetering on the edge of a second methylamphetamine crisis that, if not addressed urgently, will lead to widespread health and safety issues.

To deal with this emerging epidemic, the Albanese government must formally recognise the findings of the latest Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) report on wastewater monitoring, released in July 2024, and demonstrate a commitment to decisive action.

Methylamphetamine, a potent synthetic stimulant, has a profound impact on the central nervous system of the human body. It induces heightened wakefulness, intense euphoria and increased physical activity. It poses serious health risks, including cardiovascular problems, neurotoxicity and addiction. The widespread use of methylamphetamine significantly affects Australian communities through elevated rates of crime, social disruption and an increased burden on healthcare systems.

Australia’s first methylamphetamine epidemic began in the early 2000s, with a marked increase in both the availability and use of crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as ‘ice’. The crisis peaked around 2014 to 2015, when the drug’s purity and consumption rates soared, leading to widespread public health and safety concerns.

During the first epidemic, police drug seizure data, arrest records, health reports and drug user surveys underpinned our knowledge of the scope and scale of the problem. Today, Australia has a much more effective early warning system for illicit drug epidemics: the ACIC National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program. And this canary in the coal mine is warning us.

The wastewater monitoring program is a comprehensive surveillance initiative that systematically analyses samples to detect and quantify a range of contaminants, including pharmaceuticals and illicit substances. These samples are examined to determine the concentration of drug metabolites, from which estimates of population-scale consumption are derived based on wastewater volume, population size and substance metabolism. The program monitors trends in the use of 12 licit and illicit substances. Wastewater analysis provides essential insights for law enforcement, health agencies and policymakers, enabling them to tailor drug demand reduction and harm mitigation strategies. Continuous wastewater analysis provides the necessary quantitative data to ensure policy responses can adapt to evolving drug market trends and effectively address the impact of drug abuse on communities.

The report indicates a significant rise in methylamphetamine consumption over the past two years, with peak levels observed in regional areas across all states and territories. Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland report notably high levels. Furthermore, the December 2023 results showed the highest average consumption in capital cities since the program’s inception in 2016. Australia now ranks among the highest globally for illicit stimulant use. Its per capita consumption of methylamphetamine is second highest among 30 countries. This highlights the drug’s prominence in the Australian drug market.

This latest report emphasises the pressing need for more effective strategies to deal with the escalating challenge of methylamphetamine use in Australia.

On the supply side, the volume of methylamphetamine entering the country is staggering, with the Australian Federal Police and international partners seizing up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs in the 2022–23 financial year. Yet, despite these seizures, consumption continues to grow. From August 2023 to April 2024, Australians consumed 17 percent more methamphetamine than in the year before and more than double the amount of cocaine.

The potential profound social and economic impacts of a second methylamphetamine epidemic, including heightened crime rates, health issues and the strain on marginalised communities, highlight the need for a significant policy shift and increased international collaboration.

The Australian approach to addressing illicit drugs is guided by its National Drug Strategy 2017–2026. It’s built on three main pillars. The first is demand reduction, which focuses on decreasing the desire for drug use through prevention and education. The second is supply reduction, which aims to limit availability of drugs by disrupting trafficking and production. The third is harm minimisation, which seeks to reduce the adverse health and social impacts of drug use on individuals and communities.

The Commonwealth Law Enforcement International Engagement Methylamphetamine Disruption Strategy complements this by focusing on four key areas:

—Understanding the global drug landscape;

—Enhancing law enforcement and border security cooperation;

—Developing targeted capacity-building initiatives; and

—Boosting advocacy and political engagement.

Despite all this good work, based on best practices, there is now clear data that we are on the verge of a second methylamphetamine epidemic and that our current approaches have not been effective at preventing this.

While health and law enforcement agencies are dedicated to implementing the National Drug Strategy, they often lack the capacity and capability to respond to emerging trends effectively. It’s time for these agencies to come together and think outside the box. We need a new, potentially more innovative strategy to tackle the growing challenge of methylamphetamine.

Before taking any policy action, it’s crucial for the government to acknowledge the existence of a problem, as this provides the foundational understanding required to develop a targeted and effective response. The Albanese government must formally recognise the implications of the latest Wastewater Monitoring Report and commit to taking action.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘The house always wins: how to boost ADF recruitment’

Originally published on 11 June 2024.

The Australian Defence Force needs bold, creative initiatives to attract and keep enough personnel to reach expansion targets.

Ask Australians in their 20s what matters to them right now, and housing will rank high. The response from Defence should be ‘Well, do we have a deal for you.’

Defence should be making strikingly good housing offers.

There has been a lot of talk about innovative ways to attract the best Australian talent to Defence but not much action. At the Air and Space Power Conference in Canberra in May, Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty admitted that ‘attracting people to the ADF is proving challenging‘, and he tasked his department to ‘think really creatively‘. The 2024 National Defence Strategy also underlined this challenge, reinforcing the priorities laid out in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and announcing a workforce review to be tabled in 2025.

Part of the problem lies in the language used by uniformed and civilian leaders when discussing the issue: they don’t emphasise the enormity of the task.The ADF doesn’t just need to be competitive by the ordinary standards of the labour market; it must lead the competition at length. Jobseekers applying for a uniformed position are signing up to the possibility of losing their lives on the job, so they make decisions far more cautiously than those considering civilian employment.

Current salary and conditions from the ADF are clearly not persuasive enough in their weighty decision-making. The ADF needs something else to convince possible candidates for service.

The government has formerly made attractive housing offers to recruit the best talent to the ADF. In 1918 it established the War Service Homes Scheme, which helped servicemen who returned from World War I and later World War II and the Korean War. The government handed out Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits pensions to the baby boomers. And it launched the Home Purchase Assistance Scheme (HPAS), Home Purchase Sale and Expense Allowance (HPSEA) and the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme (DHOAS) for Generation X. These tangible benefits were decisively better than those offered by other potential employers.

The existing support schemes, however, are not enough to win over those currently considering a military career. The HPAS, HPSEA and DHOAS have not kept pace with the increases in cost of living or housing prices, and no longer provide a significant incentive to join the ADF.

Now, Defence needs to offer something more in its promise of housing support. It could provide super-cheap living-in accommodation, better and cheaper married quarters, increase rent allowance for those living off base, and increasing HPAS and DHOAS payments. These initiatives can be paid for with the salaries of the 5000 people whom the ADF has budgeted for but failed to recruit. The initiatives would also have second order effects of injecting more federal funds into construction and the property market.

Increasing the size of the ADF is a daunting problem when the unemployment rate is low and many industries are competing for the best talent. The ADF isn’t even in the same class as those industries. The perils of military service put it out on its own.

For the ADF to win over potential recruits, it needs creative ideas that would land a knockout blow on Millennials and Gen-Z. Give them what they want—strong support on housing—and it might just win them over.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘Submarine agency chief: Australia’s SSNs will be bigger, better, faster’

Originally published on 28 May 2024.

The nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines to be built under the AUKUS agreement are on track to be the world’s most advanced fighting machines, says Australian Submarine Agency Director-General Jonathan Mead.

‘They’ll have greater firepower, a more powerful reactor, more capability and they’ll be able to do more bespoke operations, including intelligence gathering, surveillance, strike warfare, special forces missions and dispatching uncrewed vessels, than our current in-service submarines,’ Vice Admiral Mead says in an interview.

With a displacement of more than 10,000 tonnes, the SSN-AUKUS class will be larger than current US Virginia-class attack submarine of just over 7000 tonnes. Australia’s six conventionally powered Collins-class submarines are each about 3300 tonnes.

The SSN-AUKUS submarines to be built for Australia and Britain, with help from the United States, will be a ‘bigger, better, faster and bolder’ evolution of Britain’s Astute-class submarines, Mead says. The design will have the advantage of more US technology and greater commonality with US boats.

Australian steel will be used to build Australia’s SSN-AUKUS submarines, subject to a comprehensive qualification process expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.

The steel is also being qualified to both the British and US standards. Having Australian industry involved will deepen and bring resilience to the three nations’ supply chains, with greater mass, confidence and scale, Mead says.

In April, major US warship builder Newport News Shipbuilding lodged an initial purchase order for processed Australian steel from Bisalloy Steel’s Port Kembla plant for testing and training.

The government has committed to having eight nuclear submarines, Mead says, ‘and we’re on track’.

‘We’re planning on three Virginias and five SSN-AUKUS. That takes the program through to 2054.’

The SSN-AUKUS submarines built by Australia and Britain will be identical, incorporating technology from all three nations, including cutting-edge US technologies.

Those for the Royal Australian Navy will all be built at Osborne in South Australia. ‘Osborne will be the fourth nuclear-powered submarine shipyard among the three countries and one of the world’s most advanced technology hubs,’ Mead says.

The SSNs will all have an advanced version of the AN/BYG-1 combat system, used in the Collins class and in US submarines, and the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo, an advanced version of which has been developed by the United States and Australia.

Mead says each Virginia has a crew of about 133 and the likely size of the SSN-AUKUS crew is being calculated as design work progresses.

The massive scale of the program and the nuclear element has understandably attracted strong attention, including criticism and questions about how skilled workforces will be found to build and crew the boats. Commentary has included suggestions that AUKUS is ‘dead in the water’.

Mead has no doubt that the project can be completed as planned. ‘Every day we ask ourselves the same question: ”Are we on track?” The answer is “yes.”’

For the program to succeed, it must be a national endeavour involving the Commonwealth, states and territories, industry, academia and the Australian people, Mead says. ‘To develop that social licence, we must provide confidence that we are going to deliver this capability safely and securely and not harm the environment.’

To build a nuclear mindset there must be an unwavering commitment to upholding the highest standards of safety, security, stewardship and safeguards, with all decisions underpinned by strong technical evidence. ‘It’s essential that everything we do is underpinned by strong technical and engineering evidence,’ he says. The reactor will be delivered as a sealed and welded unit that won’t be opened for the life of the submarine.

Mead acknowledges that recruiting is the big challenge.

He says comprehensive training of crews has begun, with Australian officers and enlisted sailors already passing nuclear training courses. ‘Australian officers have also topped courses in both the US and UK, showing that our people are up for the task that lies ahead.’

It’s intended that about 100 Australian officers and sailors will be in US training programs this year and they’ll go on to serve on US submarines as part of their crews. Other Australians will train in Britain and serve in Royal Navy boats.

Mead’s agency now has 597 staff, including engineers, project managers, lawyers, international relations specialists and policy makers. That is likely to rise to about 1000.

Given that Australia is the first non-nuclear nation acquiring nuclear-powered warships, the agency is working flat out to ensure rigorous regulations and safeguards are in place, along with the international agreements to back them.

Mead says Australia’s Optimal Pathway for acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) was designed to ensure that Australia would meet the exhaustive requirements to own and operate such vessels as soon as possible.

According to the Optimal Pathway, the first stage will see the first of several US and British submarines operating from the base HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as Submarine Rotational Force–West (SRF-West) from 2027.

In 2032, Australia will receive the first of three Virginia-class submarines from the US. One of the Australian officers now in US submarines is likely to be its commanding officer after extensive service on a US boat. The first two of those boats will be Block 4 Virginias, each with about 10 years’ US service, and they’ll be delivered after two years of deep maintenance and with 23 years of operational life left in them, Mead says, adding that the third US boat will be a brand new Block 6 Virginia. The US Navy has not yet put the Block 6 design into production.

The plan is to have the first SSN-AUKUS completed in Australia by early 2040s. Australia has an option to ask for two more Virginias if the SSN-AUKUS effort is delayed.

Mead says that how long the Collins are kept operational will be a decision for the government of the day as the SSNs arrive. The current plan is to begin big overhauls, called life-of-type extensions, for the Collins class in 2026.

He acknowledges that having the Virginias, SSN-AUKUS and Collin classes all operational could bring supply chain and training issues, but he believes those challenges can be handled. Having combat systems and torpedoes that are common to all these submarines will help.

Australians are on the design and design review teams for SSN-AUKUS. ‘We are embedding more technical and engineering people into the British program.’

Large numbers of Australian workers will soon be embedded in the British submarine construction site run by BAE Systems at Barrow, UK. ‘Many will come from the Australian Submarine Corporation, where they’ve been working on Collins. They’ll deepen their expertise, very specifically on how to build a nuclear-powered submarine,’ Mead says.

BAE will bring the intellectual property to the partnership with ASC to develop Osborne into a shipyard for nuclear-powered submarines.

It’s often suggested in Australia that, because the US has fewer submarines than it believes it needs, it will refuse to hand any over to Australia if its own situation worsens.

Senior American officials have expressed strong alternative views on why the project’s success is very important to the US and why it is in their own interests to make it work.

The US publication Defense News quoted the commander of US submarine forces, Vice-Admiral Rob Gaucher, telling a conference in April that co-operation with Australia would help the US submarine fleet in important ways. These included increasing the number of allied boats working together on operations. Having Australian personnel gaining experience on US boats would help ease a recruiting shortfall in the US Navy that flowed from the Covid-19 epidemic, and having access to the Australian base at HMAS Stirling in WA would extend the US Navy’s reach and maintenance options.

Gaucher said that, because the Australian SSNs would operate in co-ordination with American boats, ‘we get more submarines far forward. We get a port that gives us access’ to the Indo-Pacific region.

He said that by the end of this year the US Navy would graduate about 50 Australians as nuclear-trained operators and another 50 submarine combat operators. They would train on US submarines for the rest of this decade, increasing the number of people qualified to stand watch on American boats.

‘We get the opportunity to leverage an ally who can help us with manning and operating. We get surge capacity because now I have another area [where] I can do maintenance,’ Gaucher said.

Dan Packer, a former navy captain who is now the US director of naval submarine forces for AUKUS, told Defense News that Australia had eight officers in the inaugural training cohort that began in 2023. Three of those eight will be moved into an accelerated training pipeline, and one will eventually be the first Australian Virginia-class commanding officer.

Packer said the US was helping Australia build its submarine force from about 800 personnel to 3000. This year the US would bring 17 Australian officers, 37 nuclear enlisted and 50 non-nuclear enlisted into its training program. ‘And we’re going to up that number every year.’

These personnel would be fully integrated into US attack submarine crews until Australia could stand up its own training pipeline.

At some point, he said, the US Navy would have 440 Australians on 25 attack submarines, with each fully integrated crew including two or three Australian officers, seven nuclear enlisted and nine non-nuclear enlisted sailors. ‘They will do everything that we do’.

Mead says Australian navy personnel have been aboard the US submarine tender USS Emory S. Land for several months learning to maintain and sustain nuclear-powered submarines, and a US Virginia-class boat will visit HMAS Stirling for maintenance this year. Parts will come from an evolving Australian supply chain.

That visit will not include reactor work, ‘but ultimately, we will undertake work on systems that support the sealed power unit, within the compartment that houses it on the submarine,’ Mead says.

He says providing the industrial base to build and sustain the submarines, and crewing them, will involve about 20,000 jobs. A lot of work is being done with universities, technical schools and industry to prepare this formidable workforce.

Mead has long been a student of international relations and says the decision to equip Australia with SSNs was based on recognition that the Indo-Pacific is becoming a more dangerous place and ‘nuclear submarines provide a very effective deterrent’.

He rejects the argument that technology will soon make the oceans too transparent for crewed submarines to operate safely. ‘Our allies and partners and other countries in the region do not see it that way, and neither do we. We’ve done our analysis, and we see that crewed, nuclear-powered submarines will be the leading war-fighting capability for the next 50 to 100 years.’

He’s at pains to stress that the submarines will always be under full Australian sovereign control.

‘They will always be under the Australian government’s direction, operated by the RAN, and under the command of an Australian naval officer.’