Tag Archive for: Australia

‘Forward defence in depth’ for Australia (part 2)

The intensifying competition between the US and China was on full display in Port Moresby during the recent APEC summit. For the first time in its history, the summit ended in failure without the release of a joint communiqué. This was apparently due to China’s unwillingness to countenance proposed language aimed at reforming trade practices seen as unfair and unbalanced.

At the same summit, Australia, the US and Papua New Guinea confirmed their intention to redevelop the Lombrum naval base on PNG’s Manus Island into a joint defence facility. The new facility will ensure US and Australian access to the geostrategic deep-water port, and counterbalance the growing Chinese influence and presence in the region.

The deal is important, as it provides a key forward operating base for US and Australian naval forces, strengthens the security of PNG and provides a deterrent to Chinese forward air and naval forces in the future. As ASPI’s Peter Jennings argues, it’s also important to pursue development of the Momote Airport to support US and Australian aircraft when necessary.

The Manus agreement is a good start towards shifting the Australian Defence Force to a ‘forward defence in depth’ strategy, as I have recently argued. Such a strategy should ideally be developed and enacted with Southeast Asian and South Pacific states as fully active participants not as merely passive observers.

The overriding objective should be to improve Australia’s ability to make effective military contributions to ensure the security and stability of maritime Southeast Asia and the South Pacific in the face of challenges like climate change, and provide alternatives to greater debt and dependency on Beijing.

The diplomatic dimensions of forward defence in depth for the South Pacific would involve negotiating enhanced air and naval access not only to Manus Island, but also to the facilities of countries like Vanuatu. Australia could help South Pacific states expand their intelligence-gathering capabilities and their ability to undertake more comprehensive maritime domain awareness.

This could be achieved through practical measures such as providing UAVs and boosting the Pacific Maritime Security Program, as well as through joint training and exercises, along with staff exchanges. Australia should also deepen partnerships with New Zealand, Britain and France to respond to a range of non-traditional security threats facing South Pacific states.

The approach for Southeast Asia will be different, requiring working with increasingly capable militaries and building greater commonality between forces. In this region, our priority must be strengthening our defence relations with Indonesia. Some practical measures could include reciprocal access to each other’s bases for joint training and more regular military exercises, and joint patrols as part of multinational naval flotillas.

The sharing of intelligence is important and the acquisition of common maritime domain awareness through high-altitude UAVs and even space capabilities would be a good start. With the Triton and Reaper drones, Australia is acquiring this capability, so working with Indonesia to enable sharing of information makes sense. Both Indonesia and Australia have small space programs and there’s a chance for greater collaboration to develop common C4ISR capability.

The challenge is that not all states are willing to openly identify China as a threat that they must respond to. For many South Pacific states, the effects of rising sea levels and the impact of climate change are existential challenges. The immediate risks come from issues like transnational crime, people smuggling and illegal fishing. Nor is it realistic to expect Southeast Asian states to turn away from China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the absence of a better alternative.

Yet, as ASPI’s Michael Shoebridge notes, there is a clear pushback emerging against Chinese pressure, initially through US vice president Mike Pence’s speech, and more recently from Southeast Asia (the reversal of China’s fortunes in Malaysia being a key example) and the South Pacific. The fact that PNG wouldn’t be bullied by China into changing the text of the APEC joint statement (even though it meant no communiqué was released) is a good sign.

Australia needs to work with the US, Japan and India to offer investment approaches that free Southeast Asian and South Pacific states from the threat of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy. As my colleague Huong Le Thu notes, the Quad is broadly seen in a positive light in ASEAN. The US proposal for a free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) further adds to a suite of economic, diplomatic and security alternatives. With the Quad and FOIP, ASEAN and South Pacific states don’t have to accept the BRI, with all its baggage.

Forward defence in depth would reinforce the importance of Australian diplomatic engagement and economic investment in the region in a way that takes the tools of statecraft and employs them in an aligned and linked manner. But what does going forward really mean for the ADF?

The ADF—particularly the navy—is already visible throughout the region, but forward defence in depth would mean making our force posture much more muscular and visible in order to meet threats to Australia at a greater distance. The ADF would adopt a long-range anti-access and area denial capability, which would complicate Beijing’s ability to coerce Australia and other countries in the region.

We’d focus on projection into the South China Sea, the Southeast Asian straits, and the Southwest Pacific, with air and sea power complemented by advanced cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and space capabilities. This would be incredibly expensive—with force structures akin to those mooted in debates over a ‘Plan B’ for our security. It therefore makes sense to try to reduce that impost by building closer defence relations and common capabilities with our neighbours.

Forward defence in depth would mean a higher operational tempo for the ADF, and it would dictate the development of new capabilities. A debate will need to occur within the context of the next defence capability assessment program on the force structure needed to undertake forward defence in depth.

It’s also time to take a serious look at whether the current strategy as laid out in the 2016 defence white paper is the best way to respond to a radically changed strategic outlook. Our overall approach has changed little since The defence of Australia—the 1987 defence white paper—and it needs updating.

In part 3 of this series, I’ll look at how forward defence in depth might alter ADF force structure and consider the ramifications for Australia’s defence budget.

‘Forward defence in depth’ for Australia (part 1)

In an interesting, and highly significant, recent statement, China’s Foreign Affairs spokesman, Lu Kang, challenged Australia’s traditional perception that the South Pacific is within its sphere of influence. He stated that, ‘The Pacific islands are no “sphere of influence” for any country’, and employed the traditional rhetoric of Chinese government communiqués, asserting, ‘We hope that the relevant parties could discard the outdated mindsets of Cold War mentality and zero-sum game [and] objectively view China’s relations with Pacific island countries.’

The reality, of course, is that China is determined to challenge the US’s strategic primacy across the Indo-Pacific, and seeks to replace the established rules-based order with a Chinese-led system that would diminish, and then ultimately eliminate, America’s influence in Asia. China’s increasing involvement in the South Pacific through the Belt and Road Initiative is an important component of the emerging strategic contest and a challenge to Australian security.

Those signing up to the BRI (the Victorian government should take note) must understand that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Small states in the South Pacific, burdened with Chinese debt they can’t pay back, risk watching as China’s presence grows in their countries through its investment in infrastructure projects that, ultimately, it will control, once the debt trap is sprung.

Most worryingly for Australia, the BRI opens up the potential for a Chinese military presence in territories close to our eastern seaboard. Such a development would give Beijing greater opportunity for military coercion against Australia in a crisis.

Given the risk a forward Chinese military presence would pose, Australia needs to consider updating its military strategy to one of ‘forward defence in depth’ throughout Indo-Pacific Asia, including into the South Pacific. Australia should not maintain a reactive military strategy that continues to rest on foundations established in the mid-1980s when our strategic outlook was far more benign.

Forward defence in depth builds on the strategy outlined in the 2016 defence white paper that was centred on three strategic defence objectives:

  • deter, deny and defeat attacks on or threats to Australia and its national interests, including incursions into its air, sea and northern approaches
  • make effective military contributions to support the security of maritime Southeast Asia and support the governments of Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Pacific island countries to build and strengthen their security
  • contribute military capabilities to global operations that support Australia’s interests in a rules-based international order.

Forward defence in depth would integrate the first objective—essentially the ‘defence of Australia’ mission—with the second objective by giving the ADF a far more visible and regular role throughout maritime Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. In doing so, we’d extend our defence in depth far forward, rather than basing the defence of Australia task on being able to defend a comparatively narrow strategic moat that is the ‘sea–air gap’. The third objective—more far-flung operations in support of a global rules-based order—should be prioritised to contingencies across the Indo-Pacific region. The objective of forward defence in depth is to expand our regular military presence and meet any threats that emerge much further from Australia’s shores.

This is not meant to discount the requirement or significance of Australia’s vast inland areas as a natural defensive advantage. One of the main reasons Australia has never been invaded is because of the vast and hostile terrain between our northern coasts and our southern population centres. But defence infrastructure in our north is too sparsely deployed and too limited. It’s a very thin front line with very long internal lines of supply to southern defence infrastructure and force concentrations. That posture is increasingly in need of review.

In an age of new types of weapons and new types of warfare, it’s not at all clear that the sea–air gap gives Australia the same advantage as it did in the days of the Paul Dibb’s 1986 review of defence capabilities or the 1987 defence white paper when the threat environment was drastically different.

A forward Chinese military presence would fundamentally change our strategic calculus for the worse. It could come both from forward military bases of the sort seen now on disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea, and dual-use facilities like Hambantota in Sri Lanka. That would enable China to concentrate its military power in a way that puts our northern bases at risk in a crisis—particularly if their defence rests on responding only if an opponent enters our northern air and maritime approaches, as suggested in the 2016 defence white paper.

That approach rests on assumptions about the strategic geography of a ‘land girt by sea’ offering us a decisive defensive advantage. Yet the growth of long-range cruise- and ballistic-missile capabilities and the emerging threat of hypersonic weapons, cyberattacks and anti-satellite weapons make new types of coercion possible that simply bypasses the strategic moat to our north. It also fails as a credible response to the ability of the Chinese navy to interdict our vital offshore fuel and energy lifelines, which all traverse chokepoints and narrows in maritime Southeast Asia. A policy based on defending the sea–air gap could potentially become the Maginot Line of the 21st century.

Forward defence in depth develops and extends an ADF anti-access and area denial (A2AD) perimeter outwards. It denies a peer adversary a cost-free ability to manoeuvre close to Australia and exploit long-range strike weapons effectively or threaten our energy security. It shifts our strategy to be more in line with 21st-century multi-domain operations and emphasises a requirement for the ADF to become a power-projection force in every sense.

It also allows us to strengthen cooperation with the US and do more to share the burden with our essential strategic partner, while opening up new opportunities for greater defence cooperation with key partners across the Indo-Pacific and into the South Pacific. The recent agreement by the US, Australia and Papua New Guinea to develop the Lombrum naval base at Manus Island is an excellent start, but that defence diplomacy needs to go much further.

In the second part of this series, I’ll consider the importance of strengthening defence diplomacy and economic relationships with our key regional partners, and then conclude in the third part with suggested enhancements to ADF force structure.

Strategic momentum shifts at APEC

The APEC meeting in Port Moresby will have been a shock to Chinese President Xi Jinping, because it showed that his assertive approach to using China’s growing power is now facing fairly broad trouble.

This has a lot to do with the clarity from the US administration delivered by Vice President Mike Pence, but it will be apparent to Xi that the problems with the way he has been pushing China’s agenda in the region are deeper than that.

What happened in Port Moresby was a reversal of strategic momentum between China and the US, with the US and its partners taking back the initiative. Although there’s a lot more to see and do before this results in sustained momentum, it has been a marked shift.

Until 2018, Xi’s ‘China Dream’ vision and economic outreach had been running along nicely. Pressure on governments that had not signed up to his signature Belt and Road Initiative was growing, driven by that millenial phenomenon known as FOMO (the fear of missing out). Mainly on Chinese cash.

China’s military was attaining dominance in the South China Sea without much resistance—in part because of its rapid territorial seizure and construction activities on reefs there, and its increasingly aggressive patrolling and challenging. Regional nations, other maritime powers and the US did not seem to be contesting creeping Chinese control.

The mass forcible detention of China’s Uyghur population was proceeding, gathering pace and scale, but this was an internal problem that wasn’t very visible to the rest of the world.

Xi felt confident enough that the world couldn’t get in his way to launch ‘Made in China 2025’ and his civil–military fusion agenda. The first explicitly seeks to make China the indigenous source of breakthrough internet and communications technologies, because these next-generation platforms will give China strategic and economic power. The second seeks to turn China’s corporations and non-military university sector to advance the state’s military capability, so that the People’s Liberation Army achieves breakthrough warfighting capabilities that advance China’s security interests in the world.

As recently as January 2017, Xi was hailed by the leaders at Davos as the protector and advocate of globalisation, with critical comparisons drawn between Xi and Donald Trump.

Xi’s language in Port Moresby last weekend was much the same as he used in Davos in 2017—there was lots in the spirit of ‘win–win development’, lots about how ‘China will pursue with resolve continued reform’ and lots about ‘China’s strong commitment to support free and open trade and to voluntarily open its market to the world’. But the ears that heard it and the environment in which his words landed has changed.

And what he didn’t say was loud. He didn’t show a sign that China would change the core policies guiding ‘Made in China 2025’ or the civil–military fusion agenda. On the key issues that are at the heart of the US–China trade dispute, he referred to ‘better protecting intellectual property rights and making our investment and business environment more attractive’.

This is all about stopping Chinese intellectual property from being shared and opening up non-strategic sectors. There will be no reduction in cyber theft of intellectual property and no opening of the strategic sectors around high technology or advanced manufacturing which are key to the US administration.

Xi was silent on any steps to reverse Chinese militarisation of the South China Sea, silent on the brutalisation of his Uyghur population, and upbeat about his Belt and Road Initiative moving to ‘full implementation’. He made no mention of increasing transparency on project goals, finances or debt burdens. Again, he is not stepping back—he pushed the Digital Silk Road aspects of the BRI hard.

Xi is probably shocked by the breadth of initiatives that the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand rolled out at the summit with Pacific partners (including Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu), and by the applause that some of Pence’s remarks—most obviously pointed at China—received. Like ‘a free and open Indo-Pacific also deserves a free and open internet’. Or, more pointedly, ‘Do not accept foreign debt that could compromise your sovereignty. Protect your interests. Preserve your independence. And, just like America, always put your country first.’

Xi isn’t used to dissent he can’t control or international forays where the momentum isn’t with him. But he’s likely to adapt.

The most Xi was able to say about the newly defined US policy of strategic competition with China was that ‘Protectionism and unilateralism are resurfacing. The multilateral trading system is under assault.’ He said he wanted World Trade Organization reform, but that it shouldn’t involve ‘the organisation being overhauled’.

Xi’s core problem is that his words aren’t being believed. The gaps between his lofty language about an ‘open, inclusive, balanced, global economy’ with ‘opportunities more equal and societies more inclusive’ and Chinese state actions are just too great to bridge even with the rose-tinted goggles of greed for Chinese money.

This year, there’s been transparency about the seamy downside to Xi’s China Dream: US$22 billion in cancelled corrupt BRI deals with Malaysia, publicity over unpayable Chinese loans from Tonga to the Maldives, and exposure of the brutal repression of millions of Uyghurs and of Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea. Most clearly, from an APEC perspective, is that despite words of opening and reform, Xi continues with state-driven policies to secure economic control and dominance under ‘Made in China 2025’.

In contrast, Pence was representing a US administration that a few months ago was looking like being a global wrecking ball for international trade and a unilateralist military and strategic power. Risks to the global economy from Trump’s ‘America First’ mindset remain, as do tremors in various alliance and security partnerships.

However, we now see a genuine US commitment to strategic and economic partnerships across the Indo-Pacific—whether through the BUILD Act that is putting billions of US dollars at the call of US businesses to operate in Asia, or through the kinds of new initiatives Pence announced with partners at APEC, like the joint PNG–Australia–US initiative to develop the Manus Island naval base and the US–Japan–Australia trilateral Indo-Pacific infrastructure initiative. And the US now seems to have a clear agenda to engage in strategic competition with China that has both economic and security aspects.

The contrast is pretty stark. The US leadership is able to talk about and demonstrate strategic and economic partnerships, while Xi has only economics to sell. And Pence was standing with multiple other leaders announcing joint initiatives with Pacific partners, while Xi was talking at people.

The most positive thing for Xi might be how Scott Morrison handled questioning about Australia’s relationship with China. The prime minister is obviously very keen to keep on the ‘reset’ bus in the relationship, so he stuck to the strong policy line that Australia wants ‘to see an Indo-Pacific which is open and which is free and which respects all independent sovereign states and nations’.

On Australia’s approach to China and to the US, he said, ‘Our role here is to ensure that we maximise Australia’s interests and that is done by working incredibly constructively with our long-term partner in the United States—a great friend and ally—and working very closely with the Chinese government with whom we also have an excellent Comprehensive Strategic Partnership which is advancing Australia’s economic interests.’

Note here that our relationship with China is all about economic opportunity. Our relationship with the US is much broader.

Morrison refused to be drawn on reports of argumentative Chinese officials berating their PNG hosts, or on whether any of the announcements—including the Manus base—had any relevance to limiting the potential for growth of the Chinese military presence in the South Pacific.

This is an understandable effort at positive public diplomacy. Morrison also acknowledged that public statements were one thing, but there was ‘a lot more pragmatism going on here’ and ‘a lot of movement under the water’.

So, the overall outcome from APEC might not be a joint communiqué, but the summit communicated one big thing very clearly—the US administration has called it right: we can see that Xi’s China and Trump’s America are indeed now engaged in long-term strategic and economic competition.

Australian policy at this moment is to buy into the positive agenda coming out of Washington, while downplaying its gravity and seeking to preserve the newly returned positive harmonics with Beijing. We still have a China policy that dare not speak its name.

Luckily for Morrison, Xi seems to realise that it’s the wrong time to turn the freezer back on, no matter how much he wants to. But, as the song says, ‘We’ve only just begun’.

Five constants for Australia’s Asia policy

The increasing strategic competition between the US and China means one thing for most of the countries in the Asia–Pacific region: it’s going to be harder to respond to a more assertive China that challenges the international order and to a US that alternates between isolationist tendencies and confronting China.

The South China Sea continues to be one of the main theatres in which the great-power contest plays out, as the recent USS Decatur incident showed. In the face of rising tensions, Canberra and other key regional players may need to show more willingness to protect their economic interests in the sea lanes of communication. An emerging wave of pushback against Chinese investments in critical infrastructure in the region also hints that key US allies might be expected to collectively resist China’s overt economic expansion.

But in light of the tectonic shifts in the region, it’s important for Canberra to develop an Asia strategy of its own that reflects Australia’s national interests and sets a far-sighted policy for its interactions in the neighbourhood.

Here are five Cs or ‘constants’ for Australia to bear in mind in formulating its Asia policy in the wake of escalating great-power competition.

The first one is careful. It’s easy to get carried away by the confrontational narrative in an atmosphere that’s been heated up by speeches from Washington and Beijing on the possibilities of confrontation and preparedness for war. Aggression is contagious.

Australia is a responsible middle power and should keep a cool head. China’s political influence operations in Australia have already led to a ‘reset’ in Canberra’s thinking about relations and a diplomatic ‘freeze’ that only started thawing when Foreign Minister Marise Payne met her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last week. Beijing will likely be involved in more incidents, such as further attempts to take advantage of Australia’s democratic and open society that could make Canberra pursue more retaliatory policies. Instead, Australia needs to strengthen domestic regulation to prevent further penetration; last year’s foreign interference law is a good example of that.

But beyond protecting its own political integrity, Australia has a larger, parallel, challenge of managing its alliance with the US. Canberra is facing both the fear of abandonment and the fear of entanglement—where the more powerful ally drags its partners into conflicts. Dealing with that challenge requires strategic planning rather than ad hoc responses.

Being careful also means having a thorough understanding of regional affairs and sentiments. To achieve that, Australia needs to show the second C—committed.

Canberra’s commitment to its direct neighbourhood has fluctuated in the past. Many have identified an ‘Australian ambivalence’—a tendency to be preoccupied with big and powerful, but often distant, partners, sometimes at the expense of those that are smaller but closer.

The Special Summit with ASEAN in March was a welcome initiative, but a long-term commitment needs more than sporadic gatherings. Australia needs to commit to a continued invested presence in the region. That will require a level of constant attention to, and engagement with, the region, regardless the political mood of the government of the day—which brings us to the third C: consistent.

Consistency is a rare quality these days in global politics. It should be an indispensable element in Australia’s policy. Inconsistency can have catastrophic effects—just look at the Philippines’ flip-flop under Rodrigo Duterte and how that has affected developments in the South China Sea.

Canberra’s stance should be consistent with what it believes and has announced through government policy statements over the years: a rules-based order and rejection of force or the threat of the use of force, in accordance with international law and UN conventions.

Notwithstanding the recent lively debate on a Plan B, the Australia–US alliance remains a cornerstone for Australia’s security posture. Australia is bound to work with Washington despite Canberra’s reservations about the Trump’s administration politics. Hence, there is an even a stronger need for the fourth constant: coordinated.

Alliance coordination is vital. Poor coordination among the allies can not only weaken the alliance but also erode trust between alliance members. Canberra still shares many of the fundamental goals that guide Washington’s engagement with the region. Australia and the US need to coordinate their efforts to avoid sending misleading signals that weaken confidence in the alliance, as well as undercut or raise the cost of efforts while decreasing the effect.

For example, if Australia wants to join forces with the US and Japan, and other like-minded partners, in offering ‘quality infrastructure’ as an alternative to the China’s debt-trap belt-and-road projects, it needs to refrain from making individual announcements in favour of a well-coordinated cooperative response. All participants need a detailed, research-based understanding of the areas in which they can multiply the outputs and areas in which individual efforts can be complementary.

Finally, as the region grows increasingly anxious about the machinations of the great powers, Australia should double down on the fifth C and be constructive. An example of playing a constructive role is further conceptualising the Indo-Pacific strategy so that it includes as many players in the region as possible and puts collective interests at the core of regional politics.

Such a strategy would seek to promote an equal playing field, economic and trade liberalisation, and respect for international law. Support for international institutions and their continued role in a free and open Indo-Pacific region that rejects both domination and isolationism would be the most welcome constructive input.

ASD moves into the light with landmark speech

So, 71 years after its creation, the Australian Signals Directorate has stepped out of the shadows. Last night ASD Director-General Mike Burgess gave probably the most broad-ranging public outline of the work of a modern, high-end cyber organisation that we have seen internationally.

Burgess has joined the head of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, in having a public presence and role.

There are two extraordinary things about this in the Australian environment: the first is that the head of the normally very secretive signals directorate has spoken publicly outside a parliamentary committee at all. The second is what he said.

Beginning to give ASD a voice in public debates is a big thing. But it’s important if Australia is to effectively manage the wide range of cybersecurity, technology and intelligence issues ASD is involved in.

ASD now has a very broad mandate.

It’s still about supporting the Australian Defence Force on operations, obtaining intelligence by collecting foreign communications and signals, being part of counterterrorism operations to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks against Australians and Australian interests, securing government networks and information, and conducting offensive cyber operations.

In its new incarnation as an independent statutory agency within the defence portfolio, though, ASD’s mandate has broadened further—it now also covers countering cyber espionage and serious cyber-enabled crime offshore—and it has a clear role in providing cybersecurity assistance and advice to Australian businesses and citizens. This makes it relevant to many more Australians than ever before.

This broad mandate may explain why Burgess has gone public about ASD’s work. He knows that if ASD is to be a trusted, credible adviser to Australia’s business sector and to the public, then he has to demystify the organisation and engage in the public discussion.

Letting other stakeholders—whether they’re firms with cybersecurity products to sell or critics of government intelligence agencies—determine the direction of discussion in the absence of ASD’s perspectives doesn’t advance informed public debate. The encryption legislation is one current example.

Back to the speech itself. Like many big speeches, this one will take time to digest and analyse, and we’ll no doubt see a few informed commentators bringing out different elements covered by Burgess over the next few weeks.

A few specific things got my attention listening to him last night.

He didn’t leave the audience wondering what he thought about claims that ASD was interested in wholesale collection of Australians’ electronic communications, for example, saying, ‘We have no interest in the communications of everyday Australians’; instead, ASD is focused on foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity.

Unsurprisingly but refreshingly, he also recommitted ASD to being ‘meticulous in execution’, including ‘always acting legally and ethically’, and understanding that to have continued public and government support, ASD needs to be ‘accountable to the public through government for everything we do’.

He politely but bluntly warned company boards in Australia that might be ‘contemplating the prospect of hacking back to defend themselves against potential attacks’ that this ‘would be an illegal act here in Australia’, saying, ‘An obligation to protect corporate assets does not extend to breaking the law.’

We also got a pretty good insight into the future directions of this highly secretive organisation deep within the Australian government’s intelligence apparatus.

In what might be the part of his speech most worth thinking over carefully and deeply, Burgess talked about the full potential of technology, connectivity and software being realised. As director-general, he thinks it is time to ‘turn our mind equally to integrity and availability’ of data and information.

This means moving beyond the last decade’s focus on preventing data theft and security of government networks.

ASD is now becoming the government’s trusted adviser as it navigates through the huge technological changes bringing us the connected ‘internet of things’, and as we see the emergence of China as a source of innovation in communications and critical infrastructure systems and technologies.

The best example here was his openness about the recent government decision to exclude ‘high-risk vendors’ from Australia’s 5G networks—notably China’s two tech telco giants ZTE and Huawei.

He laid out ASD’s advice on 5G in crystal-clear language: ‘Our starting point was that, if 5G technology delivers on its promise, the next generation of telecommunications networks will be at the top of every country’s list of critical national infrastructure.’ (And presumably every nation’s intelligence agencies’ target lists as a result.)

‘5G is not just fast data, it is also high density connection of devices—human to human, human to machine and machine to machine—and finally it is much lower signal latency or speed of response.

‘5G technology will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day, from our health systems and the potential applications of remote surgery, to self-driving cars and through to the operation of our power and water supply.

‘The stakes could not be higher. This is about more than protecting the confidentiality of our information—it is also about the integrity and availability of the data and systems on which we depend.’

So, we have a new voice in Australian national security policy and cybersecurity. Let’s look for more from ASD’s new head now that he has stepped out of the shadows. Australian businesses and Australian citizens now know who to call. And Australia’s cyber adversaries—whether criminals, terrorists or state actors—know they have ASD’s full attention.

Is Indonesia Australia’s ‘most important’ security partner?

In late August, Indonesia and Australia signed a new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement during Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s visit to Jakarta. The document provides a new long-term framework for the bilateral relationship as part of a broader Indo-Pacific vision. Defence cooperation is a central component of that vision.

The relationship between the Indonesian defence force (TNI) and the Australian defence force (ADF) has been on the upswing. In early September, the Indonesian navy participated in Exercise Kakadu, Australia’s largest maritime exercise involving 27 countries. And in 2016, the Indonesian army held a joint training exercise in Darwin as part of Exercise Wirra Jaya, which is now an annual event. It was the first time an Indonesian unit had trained on Australian soil since 1995.

Back in July, senior leaders of the armed forces agreed to hold more joint TNI–ADF exercises and training in 2019 and 2020.

Such developments reinforce the common refrain in the Australian strategic community that Indonesia is the country’s ‘most important’ regional security partner.

This notion goes back to the 1995 Agreement to Maintain Security, the first defence agreement between the two countries. Although the pact was scrapped after the 1999 Australian-led UN intervention in East Timor, the 2006 Lombok Treaty revived the narrative.

The 2009 defence white paper noted that ‘Australia’s relationship with Indonesia remains our most important defence relationship in the immediate region’. Despite the bilateral crises and hiccups over the past decade, that view has persisted among Australian officials and analysts. The 2016 white paper stated that a ‘strong and productive relationship with Indonesia is critical to Australia’s national security’. Most recently, one former senior Department of Defence official argued that Indonesia remains ‘the country of most importance to Australia and our long-term security’.

But this story of Indonesia’s importance is inaccurate.

First, Indonesia has never been the largest recipient of funding from Australia’s defence cooperation program (DCP). That position has been held by Papua New Guinea since the 1970s. Indonesia wasn’t even always the highest DCP recipient among Southeast Asian nations.

After the Lombok Treaty, DCP funding to Indonesia averaged around A$4.4 million per year. But compared to other DCP recipients over the past two decades, Indonesia ranked second-highest only twice (2006–07 and 2016–17). Most often, Indonesia ranked third (12 years), fourth (two years), fifth (three years) or sixth (once, in 2000–01).

The DCP may not be the only form of defence engagement, but historically it constitutes the bulk of it, and the available DCP data provides a powerful measure that is difficult to ignore.

Second, Indonesia has never been Australia’s most important training partner. That title belongs to the United States.

Bilateral exercises with Indonesia amount to only around 8% (37 out of 449) of all ADF bilateral exercises between 1997 and 2015. The United States, New Zealand, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia have had more exercises with Australia than Indonesia has in that period.

Third, Indonesia and Australia don’t have a well-developed and institutionalised arrangement for defence technological cooperation or defence industrial collaboration.

Policymakers only recently explored the possibility of industrial collaboration. In late 2016, Australia and Indonesia agreed to work together on developing an armoured vehicle based on the design of Thales Australia’s Bushmaster.

But such efforts pale in comparison to the low level of Indonesia–Australia technological cooperation. From 1969 to 2016, for example, Australia sent patrol boats, fighter aircraft, and light transport and maritime patrol aircraft to Indonesia. Most of the vessels, however, were provided during the Cold War and are by now around 40 years old.

Indeed, according to a survey of Indonesian recipients of Australian education and training programs, the lack of technological cooperation remains one of the big stumbling blocks in defence collaboration.

Taken together, these indicators suggest that Australia has more important security partners than Indonesia. Instead, Indonesia’s significance to Australia’s strategic geography and the historical volatility of bilateral ties seem to have driven the narrative.

In any case, to ensure that the broad vision outlined in the new partnership agreement can materialise, both Jakarta and Canberra need to stabilise and institutionalise bilateral defence ties. One of the first steps needs to be to stop saying that Indonesia is Australia’s most important security partner. After all, that label is not only inaccurate, but also raises unnecessary and unrealistic expectations of what defence cooperation can accomplish.

Learning to listen to Asia

The 2017 foreign policy white paper makes much of Australia’s values. Malcolm Turnbull’s introduction to the white paper says that ‘Australia’s values are enduring’. Turnbull has now moved on, but the focus on Australia’s values remains a core theme of official statements about Australian foreign policy. That’s hardly surprising; all nations have principles that guide their foreign policies.

But the emphasis on values runs into two problems in our relations with our Asian neighbours. First, quite a few Australian values jar markedly with Asian ones. Second, it often isn’t clear that we’re even aware of this clash. In short, we don’t seem to be good at listening to the voices in our region.

Just what are the values that we point to? The white paper lists support for such things as democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law, and mutual respect. In the economic arena, Australian statements frequently mention such things as the need for stronger markets, free trade, the private sector and limited government.

But it’s easier to espouse principles than to apply them. Most countries in the world say (frequently) that they subscribe to ideals such as freedom, democracy and free trade. However, these statements often mean little. And there’s no shortage of examples in recent years of Australia’s actions in Asia not living up to Australian rhetoric.

Australia has struggled to define a coherent set of principles to guide its relations with Asia for over a century. One of Australia’s leading diplomats, Rawdon Dalrymple, wrote about a ‘sense of unease’ about Asia at the core of Australia’s nationhood in his book Continental drift. The subtitle of the book was ‘Australia’s search for a regional identity’.

And the situation is complicated by the awkward fact that there are around 4 billion of them and only 25 million of us. Sticking close to our protectors—first, the United Kingdom, and more recently, the United States—has brought comfort but hasn’t really solved the problem. After all, they may not be reliable. President Donald Trump, for example, might not respond if we call. And Asia is changing rapidly.

Reform in our relations with Asia requires at least two major changes.

First, we need to pay more attention to our neighbours. The problem with focusing on promoting our values is that while we’re talking, we’re not listening. Indeed, disagreements over values are not really the issue. There are key differences between Australia and our regional neighbours—not over values but, rather, over priorities.

Energy is a case in point. In Australia, much discussion about energy policy focuses on the goal of shifting towards cleaner energy. But in developing Asia, there’s a second priority as well: the urgent need to get much more electricity.

Average annual electricity consumption in Australia is around 10,000 kilowatt hours per person. In India, Indonesia and the Philippines, the figure is below 1,000. So, as our Asian neighbours see it, top priority needs to be given to the rapid expansion of electricity supplies. And it seems inevitable that much of this expansion will be in coal-fired power plants.

For Australia to have an effective conversation with our regional neighbours about global energy issues, we need to recognise their priorities as well as talk about our own.

Second, we need to find ways of being more open to the economies and markets of the region. Openness is a key factor for any country in promoting economic success.

Australia’s policies of promoting open trade with Asia and the world have brought enormous economic gain to Australians. But an emphasis on openness needs to go well beyond trade—it needs to extend to other markets such as capital and labour markets, and to all sorts of other flows, such as exchanges of ideas and technology.

To share in the huge economic boom now gathering strength in Asia, we will need to continue making reforms to promote openness. The deregulation of the education sector with the opening to overseas students in the mid-1980s, for example, transformed Australian universities from inward-looking institutions servicing a protected local market to a rapidly expanding export-oriented sector. Similar forms of deregulation are needed across other parts of Australia’s service sector.

And, difficult though it is, we need to consider carefully the economic implications of an expanded focus on security issues in our dealings with Asia. Increased security might provide increased protection—but it is also protectionist. It’s not possible to build walls and to open markets at the same time. We need to find ways of opening our doors to Asia, not closing them.

Pivoting to the Pacific

Over the past year, there’s been a frenzy of public interest—in Australia and beyond—in the Pacific region. The concern has, of course, been focused on China’s growing activities in the Pacific islands. All of the sudden, it has become a hotly contested geopolitical space. Conventional partners are reacting. Australia is ‘stepping up’. New Zealand is ‘resetting’. The UK is opening new diplomatic posts in the region. France wants to ‘pivot’ back to the region. The US is taking a more active interest.

Close watchers of the Pacific are scratching their heads asking, why now? The growing presence of China in the Pacific has been well documented for some time, and indeed the roots of Chinese engagement in many parts of the region date back generations. Michael Powles was writing about it in 2007. Graeme Smith was talking about China in the Pacific in 2011. Books have been written and a number of PhDs have been completed on the subject. In 2015, the Lowy Institute released its map of Chinese aid in the Pacific, which received significant attention for being the first to quantify the size and reach of China’s aid program in the region.

For whatever reason, the pin has clearly dropped in the past year.

Before China’s engagement in the Pacific, geopolitics in the region had been relatively benign—a point the 2013 PNG defence white paper acknowledged, and Greg Colton examines in his recent Lowy Institute paper. Thanks to China, the Pacific has been empowered with options beyond its traditional partners of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. In response to this, along with upping their own games, Australia and New Zealand are actively recruiting ‘traditional’ partners to get back into the game. But what would a ‘Pacific pivot’ from more ‘like-minded’ or ‘traditional’ partners look like?

Since China has used its aid program as a vehicle to spread into the region, we’ll focus on the role of development assistance. This is only one part, and in many cases a minor one, of broader diplomatic and geostrategic relations. But, for many donors, the aid relationship remains a critical component of interaction with Pacific island nations.

Over the past 18 months, we have also been developing a tool—the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, launched today—that will make analysis of foreign assistance in the Pacific far more comprehensive. The map is an interactive, multi-faceted platform that contains data on close to 13,000 projects in 14 Pacific countries from 62 donors (new and old) from 2011 onwards. With the primary objective of enhancing aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment and accountability of foreign aid, it is the most comprehensive data-collection effort of aid in the Pacific that has ever been undertaken.

The Pacific Aid Map also illustrates how far these partners will have to go to increase their presence on the ground.

View site in full screen

Top donors to the Pacific islands region, 2011–2016

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Source: Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map

Let’s start with the United States. The US has a long and turbulent history with the North Pacific. The Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau all maintain a compact of free association with the US. Between 2011 and 2016, more than 85% of US aid to the region has gone to these three countries. The compact is up for renegotiation in 2023, and Palau (already under pressure from China) hasn’t received compact funding for seven years.

There are also problems brewing in US territories in the region, notably Saipan. The US should look to reaffirm its role in the north Pacific and engage in more targeted action further south, such as enhancing its diplomatic footprint, supporting regional organisations, providing more scholarship support, and involving Pacific partners in more joint military operations.

France has a very strong presence in the region, but only in its territories of French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. More than 500,000 French citizens call the Pacific home. The territories benefit from annual domestic transfers from Paris to the tune of US$3–3.5 billion, almost double the total aid budget for the rest of the region. Close to 2,000 troops are permanently stationed in New Caledonia, and they actively police their vast exclusive economic zones in the East Pacific.

In the ‘Anglo-Pacific’ (or sovereign Pacific), however, the footprint of France is hardly noticed. France didn’t participate in the Bougainville or Solomon Islands interventions. While France has the third largest diplomatic network in the world, it maintains only three posts in the Pacific. France has taken steps in recent years to engage more in the region, most notably working with French Polynesia and New Caledonia on their accession to full membership of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2016. Despite this, the Pacific Aid Map shows that aid from both France and the EU has been in decline since 2011. France should focus on reversing this trend and continuing to crack out of its territorial shell in the Pacific.

The UK has perhaps the longest way to go, with marginal development and diplomatic footprints. Leaving the EU (now far from certain) does present an opportunity as the UK looks to reassert itself bilaterally and reassign aid resources. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson saw the Commonwealth, a dated community of 53 current and former UK colonies, as a vehicle for reengagement. While 20% of Commonwealth countries are in the Pacific, it remains to be seen whether this ambition will be realised without Johnson at the helm. New diplomatic posts are welcome, but they will be a sideshow if concerted aid dollars don’t come in behind them.

None of this is to say that these countries shouldn’t look to take a more active role in the Pacific, or that Australia and New Zealand shouldn’t be actively courting them. The Pacific faces critical development challenges. Overall aid is on the decline. France, the UK and the US may also bring new ideas and relationships along with their money that could be of benefit of the Pacific. Just don’t expect a Pacific pivot to drastically shift the dial on our new and competitive status quo.

Australia’s deteriorating strategic outlook

Australia’s strategic outlook is deteriorating and, for the first time since World War II, we face an increased prospect of threat from a major power. This means that a major change in Australia’s approach to the management of strategic risk is needed.

Strategic risk is a grey area in which governments need to make critical assessments of capability, motive and intent. Over recent decades, judgements in this area have relied heavily on the conclusion that the capabilities required for a serious assault on Australia simply didn’t exist in our region. In contrast, in the years ahead, the level of capability able to be brought to bear against Australia will increase, so judgements relating to contingencies and the associated warning time will need to rely less on evidence of capability and more on assessments of motive and intent. Such areas for judgement are inherently ambiguous and uncertain.

In particular, China’s economic and political influence continues to grow, and its program of military modernisation and expansion is ambitious. The latter means that the comfortable judgements of previous years about the limited levels of capability within our region are no longer appropriate. The potential warning time is now shorter, because capability levels are higher and will increase yet further. This observation applies both to shorter term contingencies and, increasingly, to more serious contingencies credible in the foreseeable future.

It’s important not to designate China as inevitably hostile to Australia, and to recognise in any case that there would be constraints on the expansion of its military influence. Beyond the short to medium term, there would be intrinsic difficulties in operating in waters potentially dominated by Indian anti-access capabilities, and there’s potential, too, for Indonesia to develop significant sea-denial capabilities. Nevertheless, China’s aggressive policies towards the South China Sea and elsewhere are grounds for concern that it seeks political domination over countries in its region, including countries in Southeast Asia and including Australia. It’s China, therefore, that could come to pose serious challenges for Australian defence policy.

We need also to keep a watchful eye on Indonesia against the possibility that Islamist extremism will come to dominate that country. This isn’t the country’s current trajectory, but the security consequences for Australia of such a development would be severe, especially if Indonesia over the years ahead were to become a major regional power.

How should Australia respond? Contingencies that are credible in the shorter term could now be characterised by higher levels of intensity and technological sophistication than those of earlier decades. This means that readiness and sustainability need to be increased: we need higher training levels, a demonstrable and sustainable surge capacity, increased stocks of munitions, more maintenance spares, a robust fuel supply system, and modernised operational bases, especially in the north of Australia.

For the longer term, the key issue is whether there’s a sound basis for the timely expansion of the ADF. In many ways, the expansion base is impressive, in that relevant capabilities already exist or are in the forward program, although not necessarily in the right numbers. Matters that would benefit from specific examination include the development of an Australian equivalent of an anti-access and area denial capability (especially for our vulnerable northern and western approaches) and an improved capacity for antisubmarine warfare.

The prospect of shortened warning times now needs to be a major factor in today’s defence planning. Much more thought needs to be given to planning for the expansion of the ADF and its capacity to engage in high-intensity conflict in our own defence—in a way that we haven’t previously had to consider. Planning for the defence of Australia needs to take the new realities into account, including by re-examining the ADF’s preparedness levels and the lead times for key elements of the expansion base. The conduct of operations further afield, and Defence’s involvement in counterterrorism, mustn’t be allowed to distract either from the effort that needs to go into this planning or from the funding that enhanced capabilities will require.

This is the executive summary of an ASPI Strategic Insights paper, Australia’s management of strategic risk in the new era, released today.

Limited ‘Trump time’ has implications for Australia

Donald Trump sows a great deal of uncertainty, but there’s every indication that he’ll see less of the Australian prime minister than did his two immediate predecessors, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Consider each president’s first year in office. John Howard met Bush in the Oval Office in September 2001 during a four-day visit when he also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, hosted the president and a third of his cabinet at the Australian ambassador’s residence, and was coincidentally in Washington when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. Kevin Rudd made two trips to the White House in 2009, in what Obama called a ‘great meeting of the minds’, and saw the new president at several multilateral summits that year.

The length and quality of leader-to-leader engagement between the US and Australia in the first year of the Trump administration has been lower, and not just because of that phone call. While Trump and Malcolm Turnbull seemingly soothed any lingering tensions in a 45-minute meeting prior to the Coral Sea commemoration event in New York in May, and are expected to hold a second in Asia next week, Trump won’t have spent much time with his Australian counterpart by the end of his first year in the presidency.

Looking ahead, that’s not likely to change. Trump’s aversion to travel, the delicately poised Australian parliament, and an upcoming federal election don’t foreshadow a high level of engagement between the 45th president and Australia’s prime minister.

A new database compiled by the United States Studies Centre enables direct comparisons between Trump and his two predecessors. The database chronicles every in-person interaction between Bush, Obama and Trump (so far) with Australian prime ministers, and shows that over the past 16 years the US president has interacted with his Australian counterpart in either a formal or informal capacity an average of 3.4 times per year.

The US president has hosted the Australian prime minister in the Oval Office on 12 occasions since Bush was inaugurated in January 2001—more than the comparable figure for both the Japanese (10) and Canadian (11) prime ministers. Bush and Obama each visited Australia twice during their presidencies—they logged one international summit and one bilateral visit apiece, including presidential addresses to the Australian parliament in 2003 and 2011. During their two-term presidencies, Bush held more official working visits with his Australian counterpart (10) than Obama (6), but Obama attended a regional or global summit with the Australian prime minister on no fewer than 28 occasions.

The upward trend in the frequency of personal contact—if not necessarily the length or depth of direct leader-to-leader engagement—under President Obama was primarily due to his prolific attendance at multilateral meetings. In addition to long-standing presidential and prime ministerial attendance at summits such as the UN General Assembly, APEC and NATO, the US has attended the G20 since Bush first hosted the grouping in 2008. Obama first attended the East Asia Summit in 2011 and only missed one thereafter (in 2013, but only because he was dealing with a US government shutdown at the time).

By contrast, Trump has shown himself to be less willing to travel interstate, let alone overseas, than presidents before him: one New York Times journalist labelled Trump a ‘homebody president’. Trump’s first foreign trip was on 20 May—the latest first foreign trip in more than 50 years by a US president.

The White House’s initial suggestion that the president would not attend next week’s East Asia Summit (a decision that has now been reversed), despite being in the Philippines the day before, was the latest indicator that the Trump administration holds a dim view of multilateral engagement. The US has either left or is threatening to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Agreement, UNESCO, NAFTA and the Iran nuclear deal. This ‘withdrawal doctrine’, in combination with the president’s aversion to foreign travel, portends a lower level of US–Australia leader-to-leader contact throughout Trump’s presidency.

Whether or not Trump manages a visit to Australia—and follows his predecessors by addressing the Australian parliament—it’s time for Australian stewards of the alliance to grapple with the implications of limited ‘Trump time’.