With ANZUS a core pillar of our own strategic policy, it should come as no surprise that Australians frequently turn (and return) to the subject of just how reliable that alliance is. Most of the debate tends to be remarkably impressionistic. For some, history is the best guide—and Britain’s inability to come to Australia’s aid after the fall of Singapore in 1942 a salutary warning about the dangers of a smaller power becoming too reliant on a great power to protect it. For others, reliability is simply assumed—sometimes on the basis that if the US refused to honour its ANZUS commitments all of its other alliances would come under increased pressure.

But we should look at some data to take the impressionism out of the debate. We should be interested not just in the big question—is ANZUS reliable or isn’t it—but in the specifics: how reliable is it? There are several ways of judging the utility of alliances—including whether they deliver strategic gains during peacetime through training, technology, intelligence exchange and the like. Still, the real test of an alliance’s reliability is whether alliance partners end up honouring their commitments to each other on the battlefield.

It’s instructive, then, to turn to the academic literature for a set of insights on just how reliable alliances actually are.

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The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper was released only six weeks ago but since then, in the accelerated world of current politics, there’s been a flurry of launches: an Energy White Paper, a Royal Commission examining cases of suspected child sexual abuse, and an independent taskforce to follow the DLA Piper review of Defence abuses. The Prime Minister even found time to launch, of all things, a Defence pin. And while launches come and go, the implementation of policy falls to the Public Service. I don’t know how the grand but cashless Asian Century White Paper will be implemented, but I can offer some thoughts on how progress will be reported to government.

A media release from Dr Craig Emerson, now Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy, says an ‘implementation plan and team have been established.’ This will be based at PM&C, ‘staffed by officials from agencies across the Commonwealth.’ Departments will certainly have been told to wear the cost of sending staff to head office. A ‘Strategic Advisory Board’ of Ken Henry and heavy hitters from the White Paper will advise a new implementation committee of Cabinet chaired by the PM with no less than eight ministers.

Spare a thought for the earnest officials focused on this task. How will they do their job? Read more

Last week, with the Asian Century White Paper, it was all about Australia’s relationship to Asia. This week it will be all about our security relationship with the US as the 2012 AUSMIN meets in Perth. In being about prosperity and security respectively, the two sets of relationships seem very different at first glance. But in terms of Australia’s policy approach, they are similar in reflecting a certain Australian penchant for opportunism.

The Asian Century White Paper is quite explicit in seeking to take advantage of the opportunities that Asian economic growth offers. Like an inverse JFK, ‘we ask not what we can do for Asia but rather what Asia can do for us’. The security dimension is similar. A recent analysis of our involvement in the Vietnam and Iraq wars asserts that Australia was a ‘hound dog’ that purposefully seized the opportunities these wars presented so as to deepen our relationship with the US. Others see similar dynamics in our Afghanistan involvement.

Putting to one side whether those observations are right or not, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with such opportunism. Most nations seek to leverage off others and gain greater power by exploiting useful events and the actions of others. Opportunism may at times be astute policy, but in so doing there are some factors to consider. Read more

Military organisations have a formalism for describing capability that involves a number of factors but there’s distressing tendency to focus on equipment and systems at the expense of some of the others. This focus is a useful, particularly when thinking about acquisitions. However, as the Australian Army knows, the capability that matters most is the quality of its people, which explains why it spends so much time and money on education and training.

Recently I had the privilege of speaking at the 2nd Commando Regiment’s new Captains course in Holsworthy. The topic was the educational requirements of future operations, and I felt privileged because it was good to be in the presence of young officers who were seeking ways to improve themselves and the institution they love.

As I reflected on what I would say I could not help but return to one of the points I made in my The Future of War Debate in Australia paper. There is no doubt that the Army possesses smart people, including many who hold advanced degrees similar to those that the 2 Cdo captains and I discussed. Yet I could not help myself from thinking that that was not enough. Having educated smart people is just one part of what is needed to make an effective Army. An institution that knows how to manage and get the best out of such people is the real enabling factor for creating a force that prides itself on achieving outcomes rather than outputs. Read more

Our Antarctic claim is about the size of Australia, minus Queensland. So it’s pleasing to see that the new Asian Century White Paper gave a decent acknowledgement to the cold continent (p. 248):

The development of the close relations we have with our Asian regional partners involved in Antarctica will be increasingly important in protecting the Antarctic region as well as in frontier marine, biological and climate research in the Asian century. Australia’s scientific research and basing capacities in Hobart and in Antarctica have fostered closer cooperation with China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia and other partners on Antarctic research and logistics. This cooperation can be elevated through the Australia’s Antarctic science strategic plan, working within the Antarctic Treaty system.

Asia doesn’t operate as a bloc in Antarctic affairs. But there’s an eight year old Asian Forum for Polar Sciences. It coordinates research among India, Japan, China, Korea, and Malaysia. At some point we might consider requesting observer status at AFoPS.

Malaysia joined the Antarctic Treaty system last year. It had previously actively promoted the idea at the UN that the common heritage of mankind regime should apply, like the international seabed, to Antarctica. But unlike the deep seabed beyond national jurisdiction, Antarctica’s subject to sovereign claims.

China already has two stations inside Australia’s Antarctic Territory and we’ve recently concluded an MoU with China on Antarctic cooperation: China’s now an important player in climate change science in Antarctica. Read more