Strategist Article Archives - Page 1133 of 1186

ASPI suggests

14 June 2013

Welcome back for another round of new reports, developments in regional and international security and upcoming events.

First for today is a new report by the Center for a New American Security that studies the growing bilateral network of security ties between six Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. In the report, they authors systematically identify increased security cooperation activities and provide policy recommendations for the US.

In other news, the US is now signalling both Iran and Israel that all options are still on the table with the successful testing of missiles capable of destroying Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. For background material on the program, including predecessors going back to WWII’s Grand Slam weapon (video), see here. Read more

Amphibious ANZACs?

14 June 2013

For a while now defence officials and analysts on both sides of the Tasman have been looking for ways to re-energise the Australia-New Zealand relationship. It’s almost as if the two neighbours were becoming too comfortable with where things between them were at. Finding concrete measures hasn’t proven easy so far but some cause for optimism might be on the horizon; cooperation on amphibious operations could breathe new life into ANZAC links. But to do so, some obstacles will need to be cleared out of the way.

The development of an amphibious capability is one of key themes of Australia’s new Defence White Paper (DWP). With the arrival of the LHDs, the ambition is to maintain ‘an enduring joint amphibious presence in the South Pacific’. For its part, New Zealand is prioritising the development of a Joint Amphibious Task Force by 2015. Wellington’s 2011 Defence Capability Plan tells us that the Task Force will be designed primarily for ‘responding to security tasks and defence tasks in New Zealand and its environs, security challenges to New Zealand’s interests in the South Pacific, and challenges to New Zealand and Australia’s common security concerns’. Read more

In his own words: Indonesia and SBY’s speeches

13 June 2013

I’ve recently started looking at the back catalogue of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s public addresses to see what the Indonesian President has chosen to talk about to an international audience. Since January of this year, he’s made 12 major speeches and public remarks in English. As I see it, these speeches are an important part of the national discussion on areas like Indonesia’s role in regional security and relations with neighbouring countries, and it’s worth examining how the President shapes his key messages. They’re also a useful snapshot of current thinking at the highest level of Indonesia’s leadership. Whether they’re written by close advisors or under close direction of the President himself, they set and project Indonesia’s image abroad.

First, and not surprisingly given the choice of language, many of SBY’s speeches talk about Indonesia and the country’s endeavours in terms of regional and international settings (here and here). It’s also in line with the perception of SBY as an internationally-focussed president. Notably, except for the special case of ASEAN, there’s no mention in these speeches of ‘middle power’ solidarity, BRICS, MIST and other kinds of exclusive groupings. Rather, SBY highlights Indonesia’s place as part of a larger international communities including the G20, in particular, and the UN (noting, of course, there were four UN-related speeches in the sample). Read more

Graph of the week: safety in numbers

13 June 2013

I liked Phil Radford’s piece on cyber security and the cloud this morning. In particular, I liked the parallel between cyber security and anti-submarine warfare (ASW), having spent a fair chunk of time in Russell Offices doing operations analysis calculations and modelling on the topic.

Phil’s point is that, given a limited amount of defensive resources, there’s a higher degree of safety to be had if targets congregate together behind the defences available than if they take their chances individually. That’s certainly true in ASW, and the effort of researchers to quantify the advantages of convoys is one of the great success stories of operations analysis.

It’s easy enough to describe the potential pros and cons of a convoy system in qualitative terms. Working in favour of grouping ships together to escort them through submarine infested waters is some straightforward geometry: the area of a circle grows like the square of the radius, while the perimeter is simply proportional to the radius. To see why that matters, have a look at the photograph below. Given the same spacing of ships, by doubling the radius of the group, you can get four times as many ships within the defensive perimeter. But the perimeter itself has only doubled—meaning that a defensive escort of warships need only be twice as large to remain equally effective. That’s the good news. Read more

Nuclear disarmament: be careful what you wish for

13 June 2013

Because I’m not prone to ‘all or nothing’ thinking, I’ve never subscribed to the view that Australia can’t advance a sensible agenda for arms control because of our alliance relationship with the United States. But that appears to be the position of Tim Wright, who rather admires the disarmament credentials of Mexico and Chile at the same time dismissing Australia’s approach because of our hosting of the Joint Facilities and other bomb-snuggling behaviour. In this reasoning, nothing short of a nuclear-weapon free defence posture is acceptable, along with a total ban on nuclear weapons, thus making it possible for us to join progressive Latin Americans and New Zealand.

We should be clear what this approach would actually mean in terms of alliance relations with the United States. Preventing access to US ships and aircraft because they might be carrying nuclear weapons would bring us to an immediate crisis in alliance relations, probably serious enough to break the relationship. New Zealand’s ban on port access led to an almost 30 year freeze in defence relations. That rift is only just being repaired now and the port access question (of US ships visiting New Zealand, but not the other way around) remains unfinished business. New Zealand might have been independent and nuclear free during the freeze, but it was also mostly inconsequential in global security terms, including on disarmament and had only a limited effect on regional security matters. Australia would not get off so lightly, not least because we’ve worked hard to make the alliance closer in recent years. Read more

Australia’s new Cyber Centre and Australia Ltd

12 June 2013

When Mr Obama sat down with China’s President Xi Jinping in California this week, it’s a fair bet that the prickliest subject was cyber. American companies being are being ripped off by almost certainly state-backed cyber pirates but the asymmetry of the commercial battlefield makes like-for-like retaliation pointless. Meanwhile, the spoils of cyber theft keep growing—and Australia is far from immune, as last week’s exposé of IP theft from Adelaide-based Codan Limited, among other Australian targets, made clear.

In the absence of credible deterrence, Western governments have so far relied on defence. Cyber strategy for corporates is essentially bi-focal, according to the nature of the threat. On the near side is government agencies and ‘essential infrastructure’; the power generation companies and (retail) banks, without whom daily life would become swiftly awkward. For these guys, governments take a proprietorial cyber stance, mandating security processes. Read more

Australia and Canada: the kangamoose wakes

12 June 2013

Canada played an unexpectedly large role at this year’s Shangri La dialogue, and in a way that shows the challenges of building closer defence ties in the region. Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay has attended the last three dialogues, each time bringing with him impressively senior teams of officials. MacKay’s message on this occasion was unambiguous: Canada wants to be regarded as a player in Asia-Pacific security.

In his speech MacKay twice pitched the case for Ottawa to join the ASEAN Defence Minister Meeting Plus (ADMM+), the current eight ‘plus countries being the US, China, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, India and Japan:

The ADMM+, for instance, is becoming a locus for consultation – a gathering that fosters real trust and cooperation and one that Canada would very much like to join.

In answering a question MacKay elaborated his thinking on Canada’s interest:

What I do see is the ADMM to a large degree replicating in this region the role that NATO plays for the Atlantic and bringing countries together around the table to have very detailed and dynamic discussions about the security of this region. That is why, as clearly stated, Canada wants to be a part, wants to be at that table, wants to be able to contribute. Read more

Asian gazing (7): the China choice

12 June 2013

If Australia’s 2009 Defence White Paper was a red rag to China, then the 2013 White Paper looks more like the white flag of surrender. Trust a journalist to thrust that wonderful juxtaposition of colour and contrasting choice at the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith. Take a bow William Choong, formerly hacking for The Straits Times, now wonking for IISS.

The only other question at Shangri La that came close was the Reuters hack who asked the US Defense Secretary, ‘Does North Korea have a right to exist’? If only Asia’s leaders could come up with answers as sharp as the best questions.

The red-rag-versus-white-flag image expresses in sharp terms the tensions and choices tearing at Australia and the rest of Asia in trying to answer the big questions posed by China. On that red rag claim, see John Garnaut’s view that the 2009 White Paper ‘exploded like a bomb beneath the China relationship’and his judgement that after Canberra’s frank assessment of Chinese military growth, ‘bilateral relations plunged to the lowest point since the Tiananmen massacres of 1989’. Read more

Obama in Africa: resources, China and Islamist militants

12 June 2013

President Obama and the First Lady will travel to Africa later this month, with visits to Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa planned. According to the White House, the trip is intended to

… reinforce the importance that the United States places on… deep and growing ties with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including through expanding economic growth, investment and trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of African leaders’. .

This will be Obama’s first extensive trip to sub-Saharan Africa as President; his previous trip included only a one-day stay in Ghana. He’s scheduled to meet with a broad range of government, civil society and business leaders. This trip is close on the heels of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Africa last month. The statements made by John Kerry and others during his time in Ethiopia suggests the issues that President Obama might seek to address on his upcoming tour. Read more

Giant landing ships and warfighting: Convergence or Divergence?

11 June 2013

There has been quite a spirited debate (here and here) about the meaning behind the largest ships ever built for the Royal Australian Navy. In thinking about this further, maybe we should return to more operationally focused thinking. Basically these ships simply provide a sea transport capability, but with the special feature of being able to get the stuff on them off them using organic means.

The LHDs aren’t capital ships, a primary type of ship in a naval fleet able to engage and sink other vessels. They’re not warships in that sense at all, being very vulnerable to almost any form of attack. Sailing in an area where attacks were possible they’d need to be defended by numerous other vessels—which themselves would need support from accompanying naval tankers and land based aircraft of varying kinds. Jim Molan has a point when he says that the ADF can ‘use these (LHD) ships to create around them a truly joint ADF that can actually fight and win in sophisticated joint warfighting operations’. Keeping the LHDs afloat in the face of a sophisticated enemy would indeed be a very demanding joint warfare task.

But LHDs (surely) exist for more than just to attract enemy naval and air commanders keen on sinking a large gray transport ship. What is it that’s so important? Read more