Strategist Article Archives - Page 1142 of 1186

DWP 2013—what will the Americans think?

6 May 2013

The Defence White Paper 2013, like most of its recent predecessors, emphasises the United States Alliance, even to the extent of capitalising ‘Alliance’ whenever used in relation to the US. The document counts no other countries as Australian allies, characterising different friends instead as ‘partners’—even New Zealand. Once it becomes aware of this (as I write this, 18 hours after the document’s release, it hasn’t broken on any of the sites I track here in the USA, despite it still being Friday) I have no doubt the US will be gratified by the relationship’s pre-eminence in Australia’s Defence policy. Those American policymakers who look particularly in Australia’s direction might have more nuanced reactions.

Americans will notice the attention paid to the American rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. Those closest to Pacific Command (the military Proconsulate responsible for that region) will probably welcome the White Paper’s use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ in contrast to ‘Asia-Pacific’. This is an example of Australia providing a regional perspective to common issues which many informed Americans appreciate, but are constrained from adding themselves for various institutional reasons. By raising the idea of an emerging Indian Ocean economic zone (distinct from the North Atlantic or Pacific Rim zones), the White Paper contributes usefully to discussion in the US, where geo-political orthodoxies can be hard for insiders to overturn. Read more

The tacit consensus for the White Paper

5 May 2013

The electric storm that rages around the Defence White Paper has big elements of ritual politics and tacit consensus, despite the intense arguments over plans, priorities and projections.

This is standard Oz politics played as a contact sport. As Churchill observed to Menzies: ‘My goodness, you Australians do seem to play your politics with a fine 18th Century flair’. The senior President George Bush made the same comment on the vigour of our pollies when he arrived in Canberra to visit his mate, Bob Hawke, only to be greeted by the new leader, Paul Keating, still wiping the blood from his toga.

The stakes are high and they play for keeps, but not all the noise is genuine. The White Paper has generated a tempest of tough tackles and verbal roundarms among the political class, but not too far beneath the uproar resides a broad measure of tacit agreement. Read more

A first look at the Defence White Paper 2013

3 May 2013

As a first look analysis of the Defence White Paper 2013 (PDF), ASPI will be progressively releasing blog posts over the next couple of hours analysing the paper’s key concepts and capability decisions.

12 new Super Hornets, Andrew Davies
Just being a ‘good local cop’ isn’t easy, Karl Claxton
Future submarines, Andrew Davies
What’s in a name change? Cyber in the Defence White Paper, Tobias Feakin
Australia’s 2013 Defence White Paper: shrinking the nuclear genie?, Tanya Ogilvie-White
Where’s the beef?, Mark Thomson
Defence White Paper 2013: the strategic setting, Rod Lyon
Introducing nuance: the White Paper and great power competition, Benjamin Schreer
Australia’s Defence Positioning, Peter Jennings
Shipbuilding and maritime projects, Andrew Davies

Image courtesy of @JuliaGillard.

Shipbuilding and maritime projects

3 May 2013

The new White Paper was accompanied by the release of the DMO’s Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan—a substantial piece of work in its own right that deserves (and will get) a much deeper analysis on The Strategist than is possible today. But it’s a very welcome development. At least at first glance, this discussion paper puts into the public domain far more information about the problems of managing the nation’s shipbuilding workforce than has previously been the case.

ASPI has a long-standing interest in shipbuilding, and previous Strategist posts have looked at the difficulties faced by the government and shipbuilders in managing the shipyard workforce through the ‘valley of death’ that will occur when work on the air warfare destroyers winds down and before the future submarine and/or future frigates come along. A much rumoured possibility was the announcement of a fourth air warfare destroyer to help bridge the gap. I thought it unlikely that there was a cost-benefit case for that, so I give the government a tick for resisting the lobbying that went on for such an announcement.

But the workforce problem is real enough. Or, more accurately, if we insist on building ships in Australia so we can keep on building ships in Australia, we’ll need the people to do it. At the moment there’s about 3,000 people employed in shipyards on government contracts. On current plans for building naval ships, we’ll need twice that number in 2027. The trouble is that we’ll need next to no one in 2017. The figure below, taken from the new DMO report, shows the problem.

Australia’s Defence Positioning

3 May 2013

Defence White Paper 2013 articulates what we’ve known for some time is an intent to pivot the ADF back to closer engagement in our region. The document makes a strong statement of intent to deepen relations with Indonesia and reinvest in defence cooperation with Papua New Guinea. It also points to a rapidly growing strategic relationship with Japan and to the potential for closer cooperation with Tokyo on industry matters. In terms of regional engagement, these three relationships have shown, in different ways, the fastest growth in defence cooperation.

It’s very welcome that the White Paper takes a broad approach to thinking about Australia’s strategic interests. Don’t be fooled by the language stressing continuity between this document on the one hand and the Asian Century White Paper and National Security Strategy on the other. Of these three, the Defence White Paper reflects by far the most sophisticated approach. More needs to be done to think through the idea of an ‘Indo-Pacific strategic arc’, but that’s a far more realistic way to think about our interests than the Asian Century White Paper’s approach, which is to emphasise a narrow set of relationships with a limited number of countries. By contrast, the Defence White Paper has sensible things to say about Australia’s strategic interests in Africa and the Middle East, and on the importance of strategic engagement with countries in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. Read more

Introducing nuance: the White Paper and great power competition

3 May 2013

The future relationship between the United States and China will significantly define Asia’s strategic future. For Australia, there’s no more important question than how Washington and Beijing will manage their relationship. So it’s great to see that the government’s new Defence White Paper (DWP) introduces a much more nuanced assessment of the emerging US–China strategic balance and its implications for Australian defence policy.

The 2009 DWP was very strong in pointing to Chinese military assertiveness as a major source of concern for Australian defence policy, but the new document states that the government ‘does not approach China as an adversary’. It also recognises Beijing’s military modernisation as a ‘natural and legitimate outcome of its economic growth’. This reflects the reality that China’s military rise doesn’t automatically mean greater instability in Asia. Read more

Defence White Paper 2013: the strategic setting

3 May 2013

A quick first read of the principal ‘strategic environment’ chapters of the new White Papers (Chapters 2, 3 and 6) gives a broad feel for the document as a whole. The overall tone of the document is consistent with the National Security Strategy, depicting a regional environment that’s simultaneously cooperative and competitive, and an Australian strategic approach that attempts to both shape and hedge.

There’s an occasional jerkiness to the document’s flow, as if more than one hand has been attempting to insert messages—not surprising in any government document that underpins future funding. That jerkiness is most evident at the start of Chapter 3. Para 3.3 contains, oddly, a long and detailed equipment list at the opening of an argument about Australian strategic interests. Paragraph 3.4 abruptly changes tack and argues that Australian strategic policy is really about shaping rather than hedging. It’s followed by two paragraphs on hedging before para 3.7 returns to the theme of shaping.

Along the way some important and astute observations emerge. Para 3.19, for example, identifies one of our key strategic goals—a non-coercive regional order. But those observations sit alongside other paragraphs which seem overly restrictive in how we might pursue that goal: para 3.47, for example, seems an ADF-centric view of how Australia might attempt to influence the unfolding regional transformation. Read more

Where’s the Beef?

3 May 2013

Back in the day, you could get a free Big Mac from McDonalds by reciting ‘…two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun…’ in less than 5 seconds (limit one per customer per day). As a hungry teenager I made it my mission to master the art.

My summer of eating for free was a spin off of the Burger Wars of the late 1970s and 80s between the large hamburger chains in the United States. Over that period, millions of dollars was spent on television advertising by McDonalds, Burger King, Hardee’s and others to entice customers to the drive-through window. The most lasting legacy of the era has been the ‘Where’s the Beef?’ campaign from Wendy’s (which was revived in 2011). Take a moment now to watch the original advertisement and one of its follow-ups. It’s hard not to laugh even today.

I was reminded of the classic Wendy’s campaign today as I was reading the new Defence White Paper. Not because it’s entirely lacking in nourishment for the ADF—twelve Growlers is a substantial addition to the force structure. And there’s even a promise of some additional money over the next four years, not just for the Growler purchase but also to address budget pressures within Defence. My concern is for the longer term, when we’ll have to pay to maintain a mixed fleet of Super Hornets and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter while building twelve new bespoke submarines at great cost and risk, not to mention maintaining today’s troop numbers and enhancing ADF base infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country. None of this will come cheap. Read more

Australia’s 2013 Defence White Paper: shrinking the nuclear genie?

3 May 2013

The role that US nuclear weapons play in Australian strategic policy is given far less emphasis in the new Defence White Paper. While the 2009 document contained five paragraphs that directly addressed the issue of extended nuclear deterrence and extended nuclear reassurance in the Australian context, this White Paper has only one.

It’s an interesting paragraph, though, because it specifically limits Australian reliance on US nuclear weapons to circumstances in which Australia is threatened with a nuclear attack. This is a change from 2009, when US extended deterrence and security assurance was described in much broader terms as ‘the best defence against WMD proliferation’.

This paper’s reference to the ‘continuing viability of extended deterrence under the alliance’ reflects a more subtle but equally significant shift. The 2009 document spoke of the ‘stable and reliable sense of assurance’ that US nuclear weapons have provided Australia over the years, removing ‘the need for Australia to consider more significant and expensive defence options’. It also explained that the viability of extended nuclear deterrence was dependent upon ‘stable’ nuclear deterrence remaining a feature of the international system. These references to ‘stable nuclear deterrence’ in the broader international context have gone, replaced with a much more precisely worded, Australia-specific exposition of the role of nuclear deterrence. Read more

What’s in a name change? Cyber in the Defence White Paper

3 May 2013

The 2013 Defence White Paper marks a distinct progression in how cyber issues are dealt with by the Australian Government. Evident is an attempt to de-militarise the issue through a change in the language used, and the emphasis on a whole-of-government approach. But words are one thing, and the proof will be in the results they deliver. There’ll be a great deal of work ahead to ensure cooperation between departments, create productive mechanisms for the private sector to play their part and provide sufficient finance to produce results.

The 2013 National Security Strategy, which was intended to underpin Australia’s thinking on how it views the strategic outlook for the nation, places cyber at the heart of its security concerns, making ‘integrated cyber policy and operations’ one of its key five year priorities. This has strongly flavoured the 2013 Defence White Paper, most notably by bringing about a change in the titles of the Defence Signals Directorate and the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation. Quite simply, both organisations have had ‘Defence’ removed and replaced with ‘Australian’. DSD always had to wear two hats, one which was as an element of defence capability (including intelligence support to the forces as well as offensive capability), and the other as a national agency that provides technical support to a wide range of government constituents (primarily in a defensive cyber security capability). The name change change seems a small one, but it’s intended to demonstrate a change in organisational mindset, from a defence led approach to a recognition of cyber as a whole-of-government approach. Read more