North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: Views from The Strategist

North of 26° south and the security of Australia’, a new report by ASPI’s The North and Australia’s Security Program, presents a series of articles by a range of trusted and up and coming authors exploring the continued importance of Northern Australia to national security and defence strategy.

The last time real attention was paid to what our regional environment means for defence in the north of Australia was in Paul Dibb’s 1986 Review of Defence Capabilities and the 1987 Defence White Paper. Following that work, the Australian government invested billions of dollars in bases and bare base infrastructure in the north, with a real focus on the Northern Territory.

The strategic environment since then has changed dramatically.

First, regional nations continue to get richer and more capable, including in their ability to project military power within and beyond their own territories—meaning that near-region partners like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are becoming more important in Australia’s security and diplomacy.

Second, great-power competition and potential conflict have returned to the forefront of world affairs. China and the US are now actively engaged in deep strategic competition and arm-wrestling over political, economic and strategic relationships and technological dominance across our Indo-Pacific region.

There are credible prospects of a major military conflict between these great powers over the next couple of decades, which, if it happens, will most likely spill beyond a bilateral conflict into a wider regional war.

Northern Australia’s dispersed critical infrastructure and primary resources remain vulnerable to traditional and non-traditional national security threats. Modern weapon systems put these resources within striking distance of conventional weapons, and they’re also susceptible to hybrid warfare strategies like that used by Russia in Ukraine.

While Australia has a long-term defence capability plan, we need to continue to test our assumptions about the defence of northern Australia and the north’s significance to national security. On paper, government has made a strong declaratory commitment to northern Australia. But there is evidence of a widening gap between declaratory policy and Defence’s activities in the North.

This report provides much needed contemporary analysis of the criticality of the North to Australia’s national security and defence.

Australia-China law enforcement cooperation

Australia and China have an extensive and growing economic relationship underpinned by diverse people-to-people connections. China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in goods and services (A$195 billion in 2017–18). Chinese investment into Australia’s real estate industry increased by 400% in the five years to 2015, to A$12 billion in 2014–15. Money flows from China into Australia almost doubled between 2011–12 and 2015–16, from A$42 billion to almost A$77 billion. China is Australia’s largest source of overseas students (over 157,000 studied in Australia in 2016) and second largest and highest spending inbound tourism market (with 1.2 million visits in 2016).

This economic relationship is mutually beneficial, but it also creates opportunities for criminals. The large volume of money, goods and people moving between the two countries makes it easier to conceal crimes, such as trafficked drugs or laundered money. Much activity also takes place online, making the cyber realm a major vector for cross-border criminal activity. It’s therefore important that the two governments work together to fight transnational crime where there are links between Australia and China, or where either’s citizens play key facilitator roles.

18 years and counting

This report provides a general overview of what successive Australian governments have done since 9/11 to counter the threat posed by Salafi-jihadi to the maintenance of international peace and security, to regional security and to domestic security.

Since 2014, the threat level in Australia has been assessed as ‘Probable’, which means that credible intelligence exists to indicate that individuals or groups continue to possess the intent and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia. Both Melbourne and Sydney have featured in jihadist videos and publications.

Jemaah Islamiyah: An uncertain future

The reappearance of JI has major relevance for Australia given that Indonesia is a large and important strategic partner; any threats to Jakarta’s internal stability must therefore occupy a central place in Canberra’s foreign, defence and security calculations.

This is especially true at a time when Australia is seeking to court a closer relationship with Indonesia in response to Beijing’s increased assertiveness in the region and its uncompromising stance on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. At the same time, Australia has been directly caught in the cross-hairs of JI’s past violent activities, with the 2002 bombings in Bali remaining the largest loss of life to a terrorist attack in the nation’s history. 

Australia could do several things to help Indonesia in dealing with the re-emergent JI threat:

  • First, the scope of support that Canberra is currently providing for Jakarta’s evolving strategy of countering violent extremism could be further expanded, particularly by better leveraging civil society organisations in program design and implementation.
  • Second, advice could be rendered on how best to ensure that kinetic counterterrorist responses don’t boost the JI missive that Jakarta’s secular order is inherently biased against the country’s Muslim interests.
  • Third, assistance could be provided to support reform of the national penal system, which in many respects continues to act as an important incubator for terrorist indoctrination and recruitment.
  • Fourth, best practices for restricting online vectors for disseminating extremist propaganda could be shared. Assisting with the development of the nascent Bandan Siber dan Sandi Negara (National Cyber and Encryption Agency) would be useful in this regard.
  • Finally, Australia could serve as an intermediary between Jakarta and Manila for determining whether there are any concrete indications that JI is seeking to reconsolidate its logistical presence in Mindanao. One potential mechanism that could be leveraged to promote this dialogue is the existing trilateral commission supporting Malaysia–Philippines–Indonesia (MALPHINDO) naval patrols in the Sulu and Celebes seas.

Preparing for the Era of Disasters

Preparing for the Era of Disasters, a new ASPI Special Report by Dr Robert Glasser, warns that we are entering a new era in the security of Australia, not because of terrorism, the rise of China or even the cybersecurity threat, but because of climate change.

As the world warms beyond 2°C, as now seems increasingly likely, an era of disasters will be upon us with profound implications for how we organise ourselves to protect Australian lives, property and economic interests and our way of life.

The Report surveys the features of this emerging era of disasters including an increase in concurrent extreme weather events and in events that follow in closer succession. Communities may manage the first few but, in their weakened state, be overwhelmed by those following. Large parts of the country that are currently marginally viable for agriculture are increasingly likely to be in chronic crisis from the compounding impacts of the steady rise of temperature, floods, drought and bushfires. Dr Glasser contends that the scale of those impacts will be unprecedented, and the patterns that the hazards take will change in ways that will be difficult to anticipate.

He notes that this emerging Era of Disasters will not only increasingly stretch emergency services, undermine community resilience and escalate economic costs and losses of life, but also have profound implications for food security in our immediate region, with cascading impacts that will undermine Australia’s national security.

Dr Glasser outlines a number of steps the Australian Government and the state and local governments should begin taking now to prepare for the unprecedented scale of these emerging challenges, including:

  1. scale-up Australia’s efforts to prevent the effects from natural hazards, such as from extreme weather, from becoming disasters through greater investment in disaster risk reduction.
  2. increased planning for financial support to States for economic recovery following disasters and “fodder banks” and “land banks” to address the needs of communities in chronic crisis and the permanently displaced.
  3. strengthening disaster response capacity and planning at all levels, including in the military which will play an increasingly important role in transporting firefighters and equipment, fodder drops from helicopters and the provision of shelters, etc.  Joint task forces to coordinate the defence contribution, like the one established during the Black Saturday Victorian bushfires, will become increasingly necessary.
  4. ensure that flood and bushfire risk maps, building codes, planning schemes, infrastructure delivery and the supporting legislation fully embed consideration of climate change effects.

Counterterrorism Yearbook 2019

The Counterterrorism Yearbook is ASPI’s annual flagship publication curated by the Counter-terrorism Policy Centre, now in its third year of publication.

It is a comprehensive resource for academics and policymakers to build on their knowledge of counterterrorism developments in countries and regions around the world.

Each chapter in the yearbook is written by an internationally renowned subject-matter and regional expert who provides their insight and commentary on counterterrorism policy, legislation, operations and strategy for a specific country or region, looking at both the year in review and the challenges for the year ahead.

Publication launch

Agenda for change – 2019

In 2018, many commentators pronounced the rules-based global order to be out for the count. This presents serious challenges for a country such as Australia, which has been an active contributor and clear beneficiary of that order. The government that we elect in 2019’s federal election will be faced with difficult strategic policy choices unlike any we’ve confronted in the past 50 years.

This volume contains 30 short essays that cover a vast range of subjects, from the big geostrategic challenges of our times, through to defence strategy; border, cyber and human security; and key emergent technologies.

The essays provide busy policymakers with policy recommendations to navigate this new world, including proposals that ‘break the rules’ of traditional policy settings. Each of the essays is easily readable in one sitting—but their insightful and ambitious policy recommendations may take a little longer to digest.

Previous Agenda for change publications are also available here: 2016 and 2013.

Launch Event

Safety in numbers

The private security guarding sector is a vital piece of the national security puzzle that has not been drawn into Australia’s counterterrorism planning.

There are more than 120,000 licenced security guards in Australia.  The security industry has more than double the personnel of Australia’s combined police agencies and permanent Australian Defence Force. Private security staff provide the ‘eyes, ears and hands’ before any terrorist attack and an ability to be first responders after any security-related incident.

This report outlines the problems that are holding the guarding sector back from being an active participant in national counterterrorist plans and presents recommendations to enable the private security industry to become an effective part of our counterterrorist capability. 

Huawei and Australia’s 5G Network

Over the course of 2018, ASPI staff and writers for The Strategist participated in a dynamic public debate about the participation of Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei in Australia’s 5G network.

Australia’s 5G network is critical national infrastructure and this was one of the most important policy decisions the government had to make this year.

ASPI felt it was vital to stimulate and lead a frank and robust public discussion, in Australia and throughout the wider region, which analysed and debated the national security, cybersecurity and international implications of Huawei’s involvement in this infrastructure.

In this report, in chronological order, you’ll read a range of views written up in The Strategist, The Australian and The Financial Times.

These articles tackle a variety of issues surrounding the decision, including the cybersecurity dimension, the broader Australia–China relationship, other states’ experiences with Huawei, the Chinese Government’s approach to cyber espionage and intellectual property theft and, importantly, the Chinese party-state’s view of state security and intelligence work.

When it comes to important national security, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure decisions, ASPI will continue to stimulate Australian public discourse and fill gaps in global debates.

We also encourage the Australian Government to take a more forward-leaning approach to its participation in public discourse so that the public and key stakeholders are as informed as possible when hard and complicated policy decisions like this need to be made.

Weapons of mass economic disruption

While Australia no longer rides upon the sheep’s back, strong economic and cultural links with agriculture remain and our economy is still intrinsically linked to agricultural production.

As the so-called ‘strawberry sabotage’ clearly demonstrates, accidental or deliberate biosecurity breaches present very real existential and economic threats to Australia that can harm agricultural exports as well as impact food security and trigger concerns about its safety.

ASPI’s latest research report ‘Weapons of Mass (economic) Disruption: Rethinking Biosecurity in Australia’ highlights the importance Australia’s effective and successful plant and animal biosecurity systems and border protection services to our wellbeing and economy and adds a further perspective on new and emerging threats that need to be addressed.