Strategist Article Archives - Page 1144 of 1186

Thinking about China’s nuclear weapons

30 April 2013

At a recent ‘track 2’ meeting between Americans and Australians, China’s nuclear arsenal was the subject of considerable debate. In the view of one participant, Beijing’s actual number of strategic nuclear weapons is much higher than the official US intelligence estimate of 300 and could be as much as 1,300. He based his claim on the much-reported 2011 Georgetown University project led by Professor Philipp Karber which concluded that China could have as many 3,000 nuclear weapons hidden in its vast ‘underground great wall’.

When Beijing recently released a new Defence White Paper (DWP), the New York Times ran an op-ed which argued that China had abandoned its long-standing nuclear ‘no first-use’ (NFU) policy because it didn’t get a mentioning in the document. If correct, such assessments would signal a major shift in China’s nuclear strategy. A Chinese arsenal of over 1,000 strategic warheads would basically lead to a Cold War-type situation of mutual assured destruction (MAD) in China’s nuclear relationship with the US and also in its dealings with Russia. A change in its nuclear doctrine would signal to the US and the rest of the region that Beijing now assigns nuclear weapons a major priority in its foreign, security and defence policy. It would also display Chinese anxieties about the heightened possibility of a preemptive strike by the US, with either conventional or nuclear weapons, against its nuclear forces. Read more

The Syrian crisis is testing international leadership, including Australia’s

30 April 2013

The two year conflict in Syria has been shining a very bright light on divided great power attitudes to international leadership. It’s not a flattering picture. Despite appalling suffering, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the internal displacement of millions, and the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees, the Security Council has been unable to agree on what action to take in response to the Syrian civil war. There are many reasons for this deadlock, but the roots lie in a fundamental clash among the Security Council’s permanent five members on the nature of responsible international leadership. On one side, France, the UK and the US favour a proactive role, believing that intervening in the domestic affairs of another state is justified in cases of gross human rights abuses; on the other, China and Russia believe that state sovereignty is sacrosanct and resist the imposition of sanctions and the use of force in response to internal conflicts.

This year, Australia has a front row seat to witness these deep divisions at close quarters, and has tried to steer a middle path in Security Council negotiations. Gary Quinlan, Ambassador and permanent representative of Australia to the United Nations, has spoken out against the human rights abuses by Syria’s security forces, which he’s described as ‘unacceptable to the international community’. At the same time, he’s promoted a peaceful Syrian-led political resolution to the crisis, apparently eschewing other options. In addition to declaring support for the Arab League’s diplomatic efforts, and for the Lakhdar Brahimi’s attempts at mediation, Australia’s also provided medical and food aid to the Syrian people through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and just last week pledged to boost this support by $24 million. Read more

Antarctic sovereignty: are we serious?

30 April 2013

Guest editor Anthony Bergin

Eighty years ago Australia received from Great Britain its largest ever gift: six million square kilometres of Antarctica. Three years later it became the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT). 42% of the Antarctic continent is Australia’s. If it were a country in its own right the AAT would be the world’s seventh largest. It is next door to us. We discovered, explored, mapped, studied and occupied significant parts of it. We still do.

The AAT has considerable value to Australia. Its scientific values are diverse and have long-lasting national benefit. Its environmental values embrace superlative natural features. Its resource values include fishing and tourism; minerals are undoubtedly present, even if not exploited; and other resource potential we can’t yet imagine will emerge. Its diplomatic values allow Australia influence in Antarctic governance with flow-on effects in other international forums. Its cultural values inspire Australians in the arts. Its proximity gives us ready access. Read more

The National Security Strategy didn’t go to Parliament – part II

29 April 2013

Yesterday I described how a series of important security-related public policy documents had been effectively ‘tabled’ in public before the Parliament had seen them. In the case of the National Security Statement, it never made the table in Parliament at all. Now the dogs are barking and the Canberra system is whispering that the trick is about to be repeated with the public release of the new Defence White Paper in the next fortnight, before Parliament assembles on May 14 for the Budget sessions. The whispers have it that the Government wants to announce the White Paper ahead of the Budget, instead of late June as previously stated by the Defence Minister, ‘so it doesn’t clutter post-budget discussion of more electorally saleable issues’. The Navy would be well advised to have a ship on standby so it can do picture duty as with the previous White Paper.

The Presidential Pretensions that have long afflicted Australian Prime Ministers feed a desire to rise above the clutches of the Parliament. The way caucus cut down ‘President’ Rudd in 2010 and Labor’s constant vigilance on the floor of the House of Reps to sustain a minority government this term don’t seem to have had much effect on the hankering for the Oval Office. Canberra has cherry-picked some excellent elements from Washington, such as the formation of the National Security Committee of Cabinet and in the creation of the post of a National Security Adviser. The US President issues a National Security Strategy (PDF); what could be more natural than for the Australian President to do the same? Read more

Economists and strategists

29 April 2013

A couple of weeks back, ASPI hosted a half-day meeting between economists and strategists. The goal was to explore how the two groups can cooperate in a public policy sense. It turned out to be a lively and interesting afternoon. As a scene setter, I spoke on what I saw as the similarities and difference between the two disciplines and also on the opportunities for collaboration. This post is a summary of what I said.

The core goal of public policy is very simple; we desire more good things and less bad things. Economists and strategists largely sit on opposite sides of this dichotomy. Economists seek to arrange society so that we can have more good things than would otherwise be the case. In contrast, strategists try to mitigate the risk of a particularly nasty class of bad things by reducing their likelihood and consequence.

The demarcation isn’t absolute. Economists worry a lot about economic stability (which is about avoiding bad things) and strategists take regard of the advantageous spin-offs from defence investment (which is about having more good things). Notwithstanding such exceptions, economists are mostly concerned with making the world a better place while strategists want to stop it from becoming a worse place.

Economics and strategy (in the form of strategic studies and the like) are both well established in our universities. But, while both fields produce credentialed experts at a rapid pace, it’s only in economics that formal training really counts for something. While it would be extraordinary for a non-economist to head the Reserve Bank or Federal Treasury, it’s routine for strategy to be practised by people with little or no formal academic background in the field. When was the last time a Secretary of the Department of Defence (or a Chief of the Defence Force) had an academic qualification in strategy? Read more

The ANZAC spirit can prevent war

29 April 2013

“We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.”
– Wilfred Owen, The Next War

Australia and New Zealand celebrated ANZAC Day this week. This was a solemn occasion for families and friends to remember lives scarred and stolen by war. Some argue that ANZAC Day has become a ‘nationalistic fix’ and a jingoistic day of hero-worship, with school children taught to deify patriotic sacrifice and war heroes. But whatever one thinks of the cultural significance and historical veracity of the ANZAC spirit, this national holiday should also become a day on which to reflect on potential wars, and how to prevent them.

A hypothetical ANZAC Centre for the Study of Peace, Conflict and War, which had been proposed by a report of the National Commission on the Commemoration of the ANZAC Centenary, now appears to have been rejected by a high-level advisory board. The price tag of $20 million appears to have been a deciding factor in dropping this option.

This is a shame – and not only because I’m an academic with a specialisation in the prevention of war and, therefore, a bread-and-butter interest in such a centre. It is a shame because the questions that informed this recommendation are as important as ever: Read more

The National Security Strategy didn’t go to Parliament

28 April 2013

The Prime Minister has failed to put her National Security Strategy to Parliament. The document hasn’t even been tabled in the House. The Strategy is a public statement of policy, certainly, but the complete bypassing of the Parliament shows how far Presidential Pretensions and the Minder Mentality in the ministerial wing have skewed the workings of the Canberra system.

To be clear, the Gillard Government didn’t just fail to bring on any Parliamentary debate about what’s proclaimed as a central definition and driver of its international policy; the government didn’t even give the Strategy to Parliament. I’ll return to that larger failure to debate in a moment: the initial surprise this column is emphasising is the ignorance and arrogance of ignoring Parliament. Whether by blunder or design, the Gillard Government didn’t perform the simplest of actions, the formal presentation of the National Security Strategy by tabling it in the House of Representatives. This is the omission of a government that has problems with process.

Taking the Prime Minister’s own ambitions for the Strategy as a guide, the oversight is strange. Here is how the PM’s Department website describes the importance of ‘Australia’s first National Security National Security Strategy’, launched by Julia Gillard in a speech at the Australian National University on 23 January: Read more

Bioprospecting in the frozen continent

26 April 2013

Guest editor Anthony Bergin

If I were an Australian scientist excited by the prospect of novelty in Antarctic-derived organic material or processes, I might have a tough time getting there, collecting my samples and bringing them back into Australia for processing. But the restrictions wouldn’t be insurmountable. Antarctic biota and processes aren’t especially protected from the science of biological prospecting. Scientists are virtually given ‘free’ access to prospect for the purposes of scientific research, provided they play by the rules.

The rules are few and relatively simple. The government runs an Australian Antarctic Science Program that I can apply to for support. I don’t need to be a government scientist; I can work in a university, for example, which may or may not have an affiliation with an end user such as a pharmaceutical company. If I were clever enough to win a grant, I’d have access to a berth on a ship or a seat on a plane going south. I’d have a bunk at a station and be able to roam the environs in search of my soil/water/organism sample. Then I’d bring my sample material back to my laboratory in Australia, in compliance with the quarantine rules, and start the gruelling process of looking for something novel that might have a commercial application. Read more

Cutting our cloth – part II

25 April 2013

In my previous post, I found myself agreeing with Jim Molan that the ADF was in danger of entering a period of serious decline in its ability to maintain capability. The combination of tight budgets and the need to replace assets across the board at the ‘pointy end’ in the next ten to twenty years is a recipe for bad outcomes.

The Defence White Paper that will be released in the next few weeks probably won’t help. If, as expected, it maintains the fiction that all of the ‘core capabilities’ can be retained without a funding boost at least as generous as the levels promised in its predecessor, it will only make a future train wreck more likely.

We know that to be the case, because we’ve done the experiment before. As Mark Thomson has documented over the years in his budget briefs, the 1990s were tough times for the ADF. Funding was constrained as successive governments worked their way back from the recession we had to have, causing the ADF’s readiness and capability levels to fall away. Submarine capabilities declined alarmingly and the Anzac frigates were ‘fitted for but not with’ the systems needed to make them combat ready. Our air combat platforms weren’t able to participate in even moderately challenging environments due to inadequate electronic warfare fits and long-delayed weapons upgrades. At the same time, the Army spent a demoralising decade preparing to hunt for small groups of insurgents who had decided—for reasons nobody could ever adequately explain—to penetrate the vast expanse of Australia’s north to do who knows what. Read more

Why Malaysia isn’t afraid of China (for now)

24 April 2013

On 26 March 2013, the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted a major naval exercise in the South China Sea, close to what China calls Zhengmu Reef. News of the exercise would have been lost amid the constant stream of reports on the disputed waters had it not been for the fact that Zhengmu Reef, which is known as Beting Serupai in Malay and James Shoal in English, lies at the southernmost tip of China’s expansive maritime and island claims in the South China Sea. More specifically, it’s some 80 kilometres away from Malaysia and 1,800 kilometres from the Chinese mainland. Rarely have the Chinese made their presence felt at the extremities of their maritime claims in the region. And never have they brought such firepower with them—four vessels led by the PLA Navy’s latest amphibious landing ship, the Jinggangshan.

While serving as a sign of China’s rising assertiveness, the exercise was also notable for the distinct lack of a visible public reaction from Malaysia. Neither the Malaysian Prime Minister nor the Foreign Ministry has made even the most perfunctory statement on the matter. Never mind that a Malaysian naval offshore patrol vessel, the KD Perak, monitored the exercise and issued orders for the PLA Navy to leave the area. And never mind that a standard protest may have been quietly expressed through diplomatic channels. In contrast to how such exercises are greeted in Hanoi and Manila, the Malaysian public response has been a deafening silence. So what explains Malaysia’s muted reaction to this overt demonstration of China’s growing power? Read more