Australia still might face the China choice

Time to make a choice?Peter Jennings’ recent op-ed in The Australian (PDF) recognises some of the pressing issues confronting Australian strategists, but fails to identify an underlying cause. Two of the issues­­­­­­ he addresses discretely—divergent Australian and American views of Asia and a current lack of Australian Government enthusiasm for the alliance—are actually underpinned by an issue he dismisses.

Peter dismisses the prospect that Australia might have to choose between the US and China, but it’s this possibility which is driving, in part, our determination to see developments in Asia with a ‘relentlessly glass half full perspective’. It’s also probably responsible for a ‘perceived cooling of Australian support for enhanced co-operation’ with the US. Read more

Going to war: Australia’s traditions and conventions (part II)

President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard perform a military pass and review at the Washington Navy Yard Sept. 10, 2001.The Australian public service has two modes for offering its famed frank and fearless advice to ministers. One method is ‘stand ready’. The much rarer, high risk approach is ‘cop this’.

In stand ready mode, senior mandarins wait to be asked to offer advice on dangerous or controversial topics. Thus, it is a matter of standing, being ready, but not necessarily doing anything. For public servants, the stand ready position leans heavily towards the servant side of the job title.

When a public servant goes ‘cop this, Minister, ready or not’, he or she is emphasising the public dimension of the role rather than the servant side. The risk in offering an unpalatable and unwelcome message is that the messenger ends in quite a mess. Even so, the Australian public service at its highest levels has a proud tradition of being able to get ministers to cop it at key moments. Read more

A strategy-free vantage point

The March 2013 edition of Quadrant magazine features an essay I wrote examining defence policy during the Rudd and Gillard governments.

The essay will form a chapter in a book to be published this month by Connor Court, entitled State of the Nation: Aspects of Australian Public Policy.

The headline chosen by Quadrant was ‘The Terminal Decline of Australia’s Defence’. It is a catchy headline and I use those words in the article. I explain that we should consider that a defence force is in terminal decline ‘… where its capabilities are at, or will soon be at, a state from which they will not be able to be revived in any reasonable period of time’.

The title that I suggested was ‘A Strategy Free Vantage Point’, implying that those that are determining what passes for defence policy in Australia are overseeing that policy from a position devoid of anything that passes for strategy.

Day after day in the media and in blogs, we debate the merits of 6, 12 or 24 subs, 59, 70, 100 or even 200 joint strike fighters and a fourth air warfare destroyer, and we wrap ourselves around our various axles as we define and redefine what a maritime strategy really is. It was almost with joy that I welcomed the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion! Read more

Drones and the kill-decision-making loop

MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle

Globally, state use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV aka ‘drone’) technology has gone ahead in leaps and bounds in recent years as they have provided significant advantages in counter-terrorism and warfare. The US, for example, has clearly established itself as the most prolific user of drone technology with such success against al Qaeda that the group recently developed a manual on how to avoid drone strikes. At the 2013 Australian International Airshow, Minister for Defence Stephen Smith indicated that armed UAVs might have a role in the ADF in the future and has called for a debate. He’s right in identifying the need for this conversation to take place, especially given that it is such a rapidly evolving and highly utilised global technology. An important part of any debate should be about what comes next: autonomous killer drones.

By some estimates, fully autonomous systems might be as close as five years from now. This will depend upon the pace of innovation, societal acceptance and the security requirements of states, but also on how quickly we progress toward what computer scientists call singularity— the point when the power of computers exceeds the power of human brains.

When it comes to more complex autonomous systems such as drones, a key question becomes, how ‘autonomous’ do we want them, especially when it concerns targeting with lethal force? The United States has already begun a debate about autonomous lethal systems. Having the Australian debate now will enable us to shape the future development of drone technology and avoid some of the potential mistakes that could be made. Read more

Of Australian strategy and submarine design

Chinese People's Liberation Army-Navy sailors stand watch on the submarine Yuan at the Zhoushan Naval Base in China on July 13, 2011. The decision to acquire 12 new submarines was one of the main outcomes from the 2009 White Paper. Other than to build the new vessels in South Australia, few aspects of the Future Submarine program have been decided. Three main options remain under consideration: a completely new, bespoke design, an ‘evolved’ Collins class, and a MOTS (modified off the shelf) European boat that is cheaper, but also less capable in terms of range, endurance, sensors and combat system than the other alternatives.

What these new boats are supposed to do has received far less attention in the debate. Andrew Davies, Ben Schreer and Peter Briggs are to be commended for drawing attention to the link between the submarine options under consideration, and the role, if any, that Australia intends to play in the emerging US posture in Asia. Andrew and Ben imply that Australia’s strategic focus on northeast versus Southeast Asia will have direct implications for the choice of design. That seems intuitive if the distance between Australian ports and those two areas is the main criterion. The question, however, is whether this intuition is correct. A definitive answer to this question is beyond what can be achieved in a blog post (and beyond my expertise), but it’s nonetheless useful to examine this assumption in greater detail. Read more

Security challenges in the Asia-Pacific: a US perspective

President Barack Obama talks with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, center, and her partner Tim Mathieson, during a cultural performance at the East Asia Summit dinner held at the Diamond Island Convention Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 19, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)This is a shortened version of a longer paper presented to the Alliance 21 meeting in Washington. Abridgment courtesy of Natalie Sambhi.

The United States is prioritising a comprehensive engagement of the Asia-Pacific region. Whether this is called ‘rebalancing’ or not, the US requires growing trade, active but effective diplomacy, and sufficient military investment and presence to promote and preserve a peaceful and prosperous region. However, as I see it, the Asia-Pacific region is beset with at least three somewhat intertwined and hard security challenges: avoiding conflict with an authoritarian North Korea, growing tensions in the East and South China Seas, and managing a more assertive and rising China. While governments have to be concerned with far more than these security challenges, they pose some of the starkest threats to the dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region.

Focusing on China as the starkest long-term geostrategic challenge, many analysts in the US, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region might be quick to dismiss the threat posed by North Korea. But to do so would be a mistake. While conflict on the Korean Peninsula is still likely to be deterred, war is possible. Especially in the wake of recent provocations including the successful Unha-3 rocket and third nuclear tests, there’s no substitute for further strengthening deterrence and defence. Counter-provocation strategies need further attention and must be exercised to ensure better readiness. Read more

Culture matters for the ADF

Against the backdrop of the recent culture debates within the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the Australian Army Journal recently sought submissions for an upcoming ‘special culture edition’. The decision to focus an entire edition of the journal on cultural issues is not only timely; it is welcome for a variety of reasons.

The culture edition should take a significant step towards addressing the dearth of research on a number of military and culture related topics in the Australian context. In terms of my own area of interest—cross cultural awareness training—the comparatively large volume of material being produced by American academics and military personnel on this topic carries with it a raft of useful lessons for Australia. But as previously recognised (PDF) within the Australian Army Journal, Australia must develop approaches to cross cultural awareness that are appropriate to our own circumstances and are based on deep reflection on our own experiences. Apart from the works of David Kilcullen and a handful of others, few Australian produced reports devote more than a few paragraphs to the discussion of cross cultural awareness. Nevertheless, most recognise its value as a capability that is integral to Australia’s conflict and HADR operations overseas. Read more

Using Australia’s Security Council Seat to focus on the broken heart of Africa

In 2012, 2 million people became displaced across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) due to violence and fighting between different armed groups in the East of the country; this was the highest figure the country had seen since 2009.Australia is now well into its third month on the United Nations Security Council. Nothing is more fundamental to the wellbeing of societies than security, and the Security Council carries the greatest responsibility for human wellbeing of all international bodies. It is the Security Council that holds the legitimate authority to act when populations are threatened with genocide, mass killings and widespread violations of human rights. Australia’s two-year term on the Security Council is an opportunity for it to make a real contribution to significant security issues affecting populations all over the world. Australia now holds a position of huge moral responsibility, so what does Australia hope to achieve during its time on the Security Council?

The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, argues that ‘middle powers’ have been able to achieve great advances for human wellbeing when they have focused on specific issues. In the limited time that it has on the Security Council, Australia should choose specific security issues on which to focus and champion. But, how does Australia choose from among the many global security woes? Read more

On the eve of Iraq

9/11The recent exchange between Graeme Dobell and Peter Jennings over Australia’s commitment to Iraq highlighted the critical roles to be played by Parliament and the Public Service when war is being considered. I have but a small postscript to add. I believe that the onus to provide frank and fearless advice extends to everyone who earns a crust as an analyst or commentator in the public defence and foreign policy space. And just as it’s always easier to hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes inside the system, the same is often true in the public domain.

So for what it’s worth, here’s what I was thinking on the eve of the Iraq war but didn’t have the guts to publish at the time. The only changes I’ve made are to correct spelling errors and typos. If nothing else, it might provide a counterbalance to the great many column inches that have been written in recent weeks with the benefit of hindsight.

Read more

Again? More about submarines? Is it (are they) really necessary?

It was meant to be merely a rhetorical question. Why, I wondered, do we need a submarine fleet? Before that, like most Australians, I’d just assumed that our government would replace like-for-like. This meant we’d be getting some sort of replacement Collins class type vessel. It would be big, built here, and there’d be plenty of opportunities for journalists (like myself) to write stories about how difficult it was to crew the boats until the Navy finally gave us a trip underwater. At this point we’d become converted to the need for submarines and sing their praises. After all, that’s what good PR is all about.

But, as the government has commissioned a White Paper to investigate exactly what our real defence needs are (and I haven’t been offered a trip beneath the waves) and finally, as the new vessels could eventually swallow up almost two years of our total defence budget, I began to think that perhaps the submarine purchase actually deserved a bit of scrutiny.

An article for The Strategist provoked a vehement response. The backlash was immediate and intense; so passionate, in fact, that I realised I needed to do a lot more research before I ventured to write about submarines again. Further investigations have left me absolutely convinced of the honesty and integrity of those who are pushing for a replacement submarine. This, however, is very different from endorsing their thinking or the strategic case they’re advancing. Read more