Australia helping to facilitate Africa’s ‘third liberation’

Life in Kigali, capital of Rwanda.

In my previous post, I reviewed the progressive book, Africa’s Third Liberation. Today I’ll discuss how Australia can help to bring about that liberation in partnership with African professionals.

The time for relations based purely on the aid donor—aid recipient paradigm has passed, and Australia and African countries must now work on building relations of cooperation and mutual benefit. The argument in Africa’s Third Liberation is that African populations are now involved in the struggle to be liberated from poverty and unemployment, and that success depends on the policies of African governments. The authors argue that governments need to create environments that support economic growth and enable business, investment and the growth of the private sector. Most importantly, there’s a need to end political systems based on patronage networks so that resources can be used to promote growth and development for entire nations. Read more

Geek of the week: Frederick Lanchester and why quantity has a quality all of its own

FE2b_aircraft_1916In 1916, English mathematician (and poet, singer, pioneer aerodynamicist and designer of combustion engines) Frederick Lanchester turned his mind to the subject of aerial warfare. In particular, he realised that the nature of war in the air—a novelty at the time—was fundamentally different to that of the slaughter underway on the ground below.

When two massed armies clash on the ground along a wide front, to a good approximation the losses on each side depend on how large both armies are. Crudely put, the size of an army dictates how much fire it can throw the other way, but also how many targets it presents to the other guys. In (almost) mathematical terms, the losses to such ‘unaimed fire’ go like this:

Army A losses = constant x (size of Army A) x (size of Army B)     (1)

where the constant depends on the effectiveness of Army B’s weapons against Army A. There’s a similar expression for B’s losses. (For calculus loving Strategist readers, there’s an appendix below. Normal people should just read on.) Read more

Coming soon: AUSMIN on the big screen

A 1908 postcard welcoming the Americans to Australia.At some point towards the end of the year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott will face one of the biggest diplomatic tests of his new administration: his government’s first Australia—United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting. These annual gatherings of foreign and defence ministers have been the political high point of the alliance relationship since the mid-1980s when New Zealand exiled itself from trilateral ANZUS Council meetings. A very small number of AUSMINs were cancelled or delayed in the early 1990s, but none since then and new Australian ministers will presumably be eager to strengthen their alliance credentials.

This year’s AUSMIN should be in the United States, following the odd theatre of the 2012 ‘nothing to see here’ meeting in Perth. Readers will recall this was the meeting when Australian ministers Bob Carr and Stephen Smith went to great lengths beforehand to deny that the US was worried about Australian defence spending cuts and wouldn’t raise this in talks. (The US was worried, and did raise the cuts.) This was also the meeting when an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta were effusive at the post-Ministerial media conference about big steps taken in defence and space cooperation, only to find Carr and Smith—perhaps unused to delivering such policy substance—deadpanning a ‘nothing much is going on here’ routine. Read more

Cybersecurity for Australia’s critical infrastructure

The fear of attacks on critical infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, dams and electricity substations is not new – there has been a decade of commentary about threats to public services emanating from cyberspace. But governments have only recently begun to look to legal measures to mitigate these risks.

In February Barack Obama released an executive order entitled Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, calling it ‘one of the most serious security challenges we must face.’ Australia faces the same kinds of risks, and we could look to similar measures to help protect ourselves.

Assigning responsibility for critical infrastructure protection is complex. Whilst the government has a role in ensuring the supply of essential services, up to 85% of critical infrastructure in the United States and 90% in Australia is owned or operated by private industry. Some industries have strong regulatory frameworks and well-established cybersecurity practices, but some sectors struggle to maintain basic levels of cyber resilience. Read more

Asia Essentials: designed for and by Asians

President Suharto signing an emergency loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund, and then IMF head Michel CamdessusAsia’s hearing a great sucking sound as lots of hot money flees the region as the US Fed signals an end to the great monetary easing. India is getting jittery and Indonesia feeling some currency wobbles. East Asia faces the uneasy prospect of revisiting a series of ‘never again’ vows made during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98, when the hot cash fleeing turned into a financial firestorm.

The ‘never again’ vows reflected the deep scars of the experience. But they were also part of a much broader determination that the Asian system of the 21st century will be designed for and by Asia. This is the Asia Essential which states the success or failure of Asia’s security system in the 21st century will be vital for the global system. Europe’s age recedes. Asia is rich and strong and no longer as subject to the Washington economic consensus. Read more

Collaborating for a stronger region – cybersecurity capacity building within the ARF

In my previous post, I looked at the polarised geopolitical, technological and economic situation that provides the backdrop to ASEAN states’ deliberations on cyberspace. During the course of the ARF meeting there was a focus on practical ways in which states in the region can begin to create a more even playing field, and begin to create a common understanding of the language, vulnerabilities and responses to cyber threats. My talk focused on what measures the ARF could take to assist in capacity building in the region to bolster the capabilities of those states capabilities that are severely lagging behind.

Capacity building can take place at both the policy and the technical levels; it’s a fact that having the technical cyber capabilities to respond to a crisis is of no use if policy mechanisms aren’t in place to enable them. And it’s important to recognise that the private sector and civil society are key parts of the equation for the most comprehensive and constructive capacity building.

Bearing that in mind, I proposed five key areas for capacity building for the ARF to consider. None of this is rocket science, but failure to act could lead to a regional cyber domain that’s akin to the Wild West. Read more

Reflections on Egypt: de-Brotherhoodisation, feloul and the Deep State

Cairo street scene, photo by Kim WilkinsonI refer to my time in Cairo during July and August as my ‘summer of enchantment and disenchantment’. I fell in love with Cairo, and then watched it fall apart. I was in Cairo to conduct my fieldwork on ‘revolutionary humour’ for my Masters degree. When I arrived, I’d hear fireworks, routinely set off during Ramadan and at protests, but they became increasingly hard to distinguish from gunshots. The soundtrack of Cairo—of incessant honking cars, of merriment as people celebrated the Muslim holy month—became replaced by the rumbling of tanks and APVs and screeching ambulances. State TV and international media began to sing different songs.

To most of the world, Egypt seemed to be one of the ‘success stories’ of the Arab Spring. While not everyone was enthused by the election of Mohammed Morsi, people generally conceded that Egypt was on a democratic road—if a bumpy one—while elsewhere, like in Syria’s ongoing and worsening civil conflict, the Arab Spring became a prolonged and grim winter. This perception has been profoundly thrown into doubt since Morsi was deposed. Read more

France in the Pacific: ambiguity and ambition

Nouméa, the capital city of the French special collectivity of New CaledoniaAustralia’s approach to France in the South Pacific oscillates between fear and forgetfulness.

The fear moments have marked some notable points in Australian history. The fear of what the French were up to in the region was one of the external factors that produced a highly unusual moment—when the six Australian states managed to agree on something big, the creation of the Commonwealth. Another notable fear moment was the frenzy of Francophobia which surged through Australia in the 1970s during the French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

The wrangle with France caused a boycott of all things French—and produced one of the great Gough Whitlam stories, as recounted by Geoff Barker. The editor of The Age, Graham Perkin, with Geoff in tow, travelled to Kirribilli House for lunch with the Prime Minister. As the meal began, several bottles of French wine were presented to Whitlam. ‘Jesus, Gough,’ expostulated Perkin, ‘you can’t drink French wine’. ‘Never fear, comrade’, replied Gough, ‘as it passes my lips it becomes Australian’. Read more

Indonesia’s push for peacekeeping operations

30 May 2010. El Fasher: Members of the Indonesia's Formed Police Unit (FPU) during the celebrations for the International Day of UN Peacekeepers in El Fasher UNAMID Arc Compound. Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran / Unam

Last week, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono jumped at the opportunity to offer his country’s finest troops for any UN-backed peacekeeping mission in Syria. It’s part of a growing trend of increased Indonesian involvement in missions under the UN flag. Last month, the Indonesian military’s Major General Imam Edy Mulyono, former commander of the Indonesian Defence Forces Peacekeeping Centre, was appointed Force Commander of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Leading a multinational peacekeeping mission is a triumphant moment for a country that’s been involved in peacekeeping operations since 1957.

Indonesian military and police forces are currently deployed on six UN operations and is the world’s 16th largest contributor (PDF), with 1,815 personnel deployed in total. Indonesia also contributes to one non-UN mission with 15 personnel deployed to the International Monitoring Team in Mindanao. And Indonesia’s contributions to UN peacekeeping operations, known as Garuda Contingents, are set to grow. Last year, President Yudhoyono declared he wanted up to 10,000 troops to be deployed. But why the big push for peacekeeping operations? Read more

China’s new map: just another dash?

China’s new national map re-affirms its historical South China Sea claims and incorporates a tenth ‘dash line’ off Taiwan. It has created a few ripples in Southeast Asia and beyond. Since the tenth dash itself isn’t new, there’s less novelty to this development than first meets the eye. But it raises important questions about China’s intentions, due to the basic ambiguity of its position.

The latest national map of China was published earlier this year by SinoMaps Press, under the jurisdiction of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. In other words, it’s officially approved. As with past maps, Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea are represented by the familiar nine-dash line, which is duplicated on both sides of the map. Whereas the nine-dash line was previously included as an inset and without the tenth dash line off Taiwan, it’s now fully integrated into the new national map. The 10-dash line map also features as a background in China’s latest passports, which have drawn protests from Vietnam and the Philippines.

combined map 10 dashClose-ups of the front and back of the new SinoMaps Press map showing China’s ten-dash line in the South China Sea. Courtesy of SinoMaps Press. Read more