Strategist Article Archives - Page 1102 of 1187

What’s the best kind of Navy for us?

13 November 2013

Once again battle has been joined on the shape of Australia’s next Navy. While this may appear as merely differing opinions on our future navy’s role, lurking barely submerged are the omnipresent (sea) battles over budgets and spending. In struggles over funding real ships, there are no shades of gray.

Hugh White has re-energised the debate with recent forays (here and here) about the push in Australia of having a small navy of big ships. He holds that the Navy seems to be building a fleet focused on protecting an amphibious force so it can deliver the Army on defended, foreign shores. Hugh bases his criticism on a belief that Australia would be best served by building a sea denial navy able to prevent hostile naval vessels from projecting power themselves. His preferred sea denial force structure comprises smaller less-capable ships, more numerous and better submarines and maritime strike aircraft.

Amphibious capability: the medium and the message

13 November 2013

I’m a journalist. This means, self-evidently, that I bring precious little expertise to any discussion of strategic policy. Apart from, perhaps, some experience (I’m not quite as young as I look) and an interest in the stories we tell and the way we tell them.

One of the first things a cadet journalist learns is that words need to be tailored to the specific medium they’re working in. Television has immediacy, radio (at best) works on the emotions, and print allows the development of an argument. The Internet, however, is another medium altogether.

When I’m writing my column for the Canberra Times I’ve got to be careful to appeal to a broad audience: writing for The Strategist is an altogether more intimate experience. And of course, when we’re among friends (people we know, or think we know, anyway) we use words differently, more intimately. Occasionally we succumb to the temptation to use language we mightn’t if we were face to face with somebody. That’s why the Internet is described as an echo chamber. We express ourselves directly. If we don’t like what someone else says we can dismiss it. One click and it’s gone.

Which brings me into the debate about Australia’s amphibious capability. Read more

Cyber wrap

13 November 2013

Western intelligence agencies are finding themselves under increasing public scrutiny from lawmakers as the fallout of the Snowden leaks continues. In the UK, the heads of the three national intelligence agencies appeared at an open hearing of the Intelligence and Security Committee, usually conducted in-camera. Their testimony, which The Guardian panned as ‘choreographed’, revealed the deep concerns about the loss of capability caused by the Snowden leaks in the UK intelligence community, with GCHQ chief Sir Iain Lobban revealing that GCHQ had monitored conversations between intelligence targets discussing alternate communications methods to avoid electronic surveillance. Lobban defended GCHQ’s activities and the ‘proportionate’ nature of the surveillance, rejecting any inference that the agency’s operations broke the law.

The US intelligence community is also facing increasing calls for major structural reform, specifically splitting up US Cyber Command and the NSA to slow the ‘militarisation’ of cyberspace by the combined intelligence and cyber warfare behemoth.

Thinking beyond the ADF in preparing an amphibious capability

13 November 2013

The ADF has done a lot to harmonise its capability to fulfil military objectives. But government must think beyond the ADF when looking at how we will prepare an amphibious capability that will fulfil national objectives. There’s a gap here: other government agencies and the humanitarian sector need to be brought into ADF planning. That’s because HADR is growing in importance as a national priority in our disaster-exposed region.

The latest super typhoon to hit the Philippines again reminds us of the human toll caused by nature’s fury. Already the US, UK and Canadian militaries are assisting in relief efforts and an Australian medical team transported by a C17 departs today. The scale of these natural disasters is likely to increase due to a combination of population growth, coastal development, higher population densities and climate change.

Spying beyond the façade

12 November 2013

The almost-eternal profession of covert intelligence collection and analysis (a.k.a. spying) has been much in the news of late, with the US National Security Agency and Australia’s own Signals Directorate sharing headlines across the region and indeed the globe. But it’s not just Australia and the United States that have had their covert activities brought to public attention. China’s covert operatives (in this case HUMINT rather than SIGINT) have also been the subject of some unsought attention through the publication of a recent detailed study (PDF) of the General Political Department (GPD) of the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by the Project 2049 Institute in Virginia.

Authors Mark Stokes and Russell Hsiao used primarily open-source material to detail the history and current activities of the political wing of the PRC military. ‘Political warfare’ has been an intrinsic part of Chinese military strategy under both the Guomindang and the Communist Party of China. It was long domestically oriented, but of late, with the growing global engagement of China, the activities of the GPD’s Liaison Department (LD) have become increasingly international. Stokes and Hsiao see political warfare as ‘active measures to promote the rise of China within a new international order and defend against perceived threats to state security,’ with these functions augmenting traditional state diplomacy and formal military-to-military relations.

Australia’s alliance addiction after Afghanistan

12 November 2013

As with Vietnam, so with Iraq and Afghanistan; Australia is avoiding any alliance blowback over evident disasters and misjudgements. Here’s one of the advantages of being the small ally—usually only a small part of the blame sticks.

Australia’s alliance habit of going big on rhetoric while sending a small force seems to work well in the blame stakes. When the post-war recriminations arrive, it’s Australia’s small force that governs the size of its responsibility, not the size of the arguments Australia contributed to the initial alliance judgements.

During Vietnam, there were a few American remarks about the vehemence-versus-volume mismatch between the strength of Australia’s rhetoric on this vital war and the actual size of Australia’s military contribution. Post-Vietnam, though, the US post-mortem tended to be an American soliloquy. While allies complain that the US is often a world unto itself—doing international policy discussions as a domestic monologue—American self-absorption can be useful when blame’s being allocated.

Reader response: amphibious capability

12 November 2013

I substantially agree with Hugh White’s analysis of the overall structure of Australia’s surface fleet—or at least the amphibious assault component of it. One of the original justifications for seeking an LHD of more than 25,000 tonnes was that only ships of this size could simultaneously lift an entire infantry company, which we’re assured requires a minimum of six helicopters in the air at the same time. But why all six helicopters need to operate simultaneously from one large ship rather than, say, two slightly smaller ones has never to my knowledge been convincingly explained. And as White argues, this sort of combat capability is in any case irrelevant to the role of the ships for humanitarian and disaster relief. Additionally, it has never been made clear why a company is some sort of indivisible unit when it comes to airborne assault—surely there are some circumstances when a company won’t be enough, just as there’ll be circumstances where smaller units, and therefore smaller numbers of helicopters, are perfectly adequate.

Why a stronger Indonesian military is good for Australia (but is still a long way off)

11 November 2013

ASPI today released my report Moving beyond ambitions? Indonesia’s military modernisation which examines Jakarta’s plans to build a modern defence force over the next decade. It’s an important topic, because the military balance between the ADF and its Indonesian counterpart, the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), has always factored large in Australia’s defence planning.

TNI’s current modernisation efforts take place in the context of a broader debate about Indonesia’s possible emergence as a major regional or even global power. Australia’s 2013 Defence White Paper, for example, expects nothing less. If that happens, Indonesia will not only become more powerful relative to Australia, but a more capable TNI would also be a major geostrategic asset for us. Hugh White, for example, has argued that it’s quite likely that our larger neighbour to the north will become a major regional maritime power, able to protect not only its own maritime approaches but also Australia’s.

Why LHDs and AWDs are a bad investment

11 November 2013

Thomas Lonergan makes an excellent case for the importance of amphibious capability in the ADF. But he doesn’t make a case for the investments now being made in developing that capability.

He says the ADF’s amphibious concepts don’t envisage high-intensity conflict or major war, but focus instead on lower-intensity operations like stabilisation missions and disaster relief. That’s very sensible. But those operations don’t require ships as large as the LHDs. They can be performed perfectly well by smaller ships, as we’ve seen in operations with our existing amphibious capability over recent years.

Hollywood, amphibious warfare, and strategy

11 November 2013

Thomas Lonergan’s piece on amphibious capabilities and Australia’s maritime strategy makes some insightful observations. One of his most poignant points is the effect that Hollywood has had on warping our images and perceptions of amphibious warfare. As he notes, most of these stem from the silver screen’s depictions of climatic battle scenes from the Second World War in big budget blockbusters such as Saving Private Ryan or the HBO mini-series The Pacific.

These are eye capturing and evocative images. In fact, when lecturing on WWII US strategy and operations in the central Pacific at the Australian Command and Staff College, I can’t help opening my lecture with ten minutes of the US Marine Corps assault landing on Peleliu Island (video, graphic content). But it’s important to remember the strategic context in which these operations were undertaken and their almost unique position in the history of amphibious warfare.