Strategist Article Archives - Page 1158 of 1182

A strategy as a statement

24 January 2013

Having nearly a five year gap between ‘annual’ national security statements does offer one benefit—the chance to compare and contrast successive documents to assess directions and decisions. PM Gillard quietly disposed of the ‘annual’ burden in two ways. First, she trumped the National Security Statement Kevin Rudd issued in 2008 (PDF), with a grander sounding National Security Strategy. Second, she announced that the strategy will be renewed on a five-year cycle.

There is an element of Spinal Tap message management in going from a mere statement to the grand plains of strategy. But the shift makes sense at several levels beyond the political. The new five-year schedule for national security updates comes into line with the five-year cycle of Defence White Papers. Certainly, this strategy document settles some of the conceptual parameters for the White Paper that Defence is expected to issue by mid-year. And in a parallel with the Defence Capability Plan, there’s to be a National Security Capability Plan.

The National Security Strategy is the bridge that links the optimistic liberal internationalism of the Asia Century White Paper (we are all going to trade our way to happiness) to the state-based realism of the Defence White Paper (as Gillard expressed it, ‘the most basic expression of our sovereignty’). Read more

India and the Indo-Pacific: three approaches

24 January 2013

The rapid expansion of trade, investment and production linkages in the area spanning the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions, coupled with the shift of economic power from the trans-Atlantic to Asia, has given rise to a push to have the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region recognised as a single geo-strategic arc. But while the concept has gained currency, there has been insufficient attention paid to the geopolitical and geoeconomic drivers behind its emergence in particular national contexts.

In India, for instance, there are three distinct ways of approaching the Indo-Pacific concept. The first accepts the notion of the Indo-Pacific and sees it as a way to bring about a change in the direction of Indian foreign policy. Analysts like Bramha Chellaney, who want India to abandon its traditional non-aligned stance or who see China as a strategic threat, promote a vision of the Indo-Pacific in which India, together with the democracies of the region—the United States, Australia and Japan—take the lead in shaping the economic and security architecture of the region.

The second approach, however, rejects the Indo-Pacific idea on the basis that it’s potentially detrimental to India’s foreign policy goals. Commentators like D. Gnanagurunathan express scepticism about Indo-Pacific regionalism. They argue that adopting the ‘Indo-Pacific’ terminology is unnecessary and could mean that India would be aligned too closely with American interests. In their view, the maintenance of India’s autonomy to decide which countries to engage with is integral to its foreign policy interests. They argue that India’s strategic objectives are best met through engagement with countries in the region through forums such as the East Asia Summit and ASEAN, rather than new military partnerships. Read more

Failure in Afghanistan? Not so fast …

23 January 2013

The Afghanistan mission has largely dropped off the political radar screen, but the public verdict seems clear: we’ll fail in our overall objective of leaving behind a stable country after 2014. Worse, Australian soldiers may have died in vain. However, I think there’s a case to be made that we still have a good chance to succeed, provided we get the next phase in the transition period right.

Our key objective isn’t to turn Afghanistan into a ‘Switzerland of west Asia’. Instead, it’s to prevent the country from ever again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism and a source of instability in South Asia. That means keeping the Taliban at arm’s length once the bulk of Western forces leave, to prevent them from regaining control over large parts of the country.

To do that, we first have to acknowledge some ‘Afghan realities’. The first is that our efforts at Western-style governance in Kabul have failed. The Karzai government has not only failed to develop into a viable political institution but has even actively opposed greater accountability and empowerment of other branches of government. As well, a heavily centralised government in Kabul will have minimal influence in the provinces in the coming years. Instead, the political structure of Afghanistan will be more than that of a loose Federation, so there’ll be local Afghan solutions for both governance and security, especially across the Pashtun area, the Taliban’s traditional stronghold. The Taliban will be a central political force in the southern parts and there will be a re-emergence of traditional forms of law and order that the west wouldn’t necessarily endorse. Read more

Australian emergency services in need of a lift

23 January 2013

As we’re reminded every bushfire season, Australians are more vulnerable during emergencies that can arise with little warning. We do a fair job of dealing with them, and thankfully we’ve been very lucky to avoid facing a catastrophic event that would produce extensive casualties: a significant terrorist attack, a large-scale industrial accident, a collapse of a city skyscraper, an air disaster, or a tsunami hitting a big population centre. Even an ongoing heat wave that occurred across the country would challenge our healthcare services. The truth is that we’re unprepared to respond to a major disaster.

Those judgments are based on the findings of the December report by the National Health Performance Authority on our emergency departments. As I’ve argued in the context of our preparedness for a mass casualty terrorist attack, surge capacity—the ability of the medical system to care for a massive influx of patients—remains one of the most serious challenges for national emergency preparedness.

The NHPA report shows that no major metropolitan hospital in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania or Queensland had met state emergency department benchmarks in the first six months of last year. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine noted that, across the nation, the sick patients—those who needed to be admitted—are more likely to have inappropriately long stays in emergency (Word doc). Research overseas (PDF) has found that patients admitted to hospitals via crowded emergency departments might be more likely to die in the hospital than similar patients admitted during slow periods. Read more

What is the strategic environment telling us about what the ADF needs to be able to do?

22 January 2013

Andrew Davies has taken me to task on one part of my reply to Nic Stuart’s post on the use of reserve forces in the ADF. How do I plead? Not guilty, your Honour.

Apart from the discussion on the efficacy of Reserves, I made one simple point and I stand by that point. There is no point in coming up with single solutions such as a greater use of the Reserves, a sub or JSF or amphib-heavy force until there has been an assessment of the strategic environment. Rule No 1 for Force Structuring: It does not matter what you put in your force structure if you don’t know why you are force structuring.

An assessment of the strategic environment should and can produce an answer to the question that defence bureaucrats (in and out of uniform) have failed to address since I started looking at strategic guidance in 1976: What is it that you want the ADF to do? The consistent failure to answer this question effectively has produced decades of dysfunctional ADF force structure and inter-Service fighting. The failure by bureaucrats and politicians to link policy and strategy through some form of operational statement (ie what is it that the ADF is supposed to do) to tactics and materiel has meant that the ADF has never been able to operationally achieve the strategy (often implied) that emanates from policy. The only reason that this is not blindingly obvious is that Australia has not been tested. When the US was dominant and most world strategic problems occurred far, far away, perhaps this mattered less. Now it does matter. Read more

Australia–UK defence arrangements

22 January 2013

Editor’s note: we at ASPI value contestability and independence of thought so we’re sometimes surprised when people think that there’s a single ‘official’ ASPI position on a topic. That isn’t the case—we practice contestability inside ASPI as well and have no ‘house line’. Today’s posts are an example of that: Ben Schreer and I take a ‘glass half empty’ look at the recent announcement of enhanced Australia–UK defence arrangements, while Peter Jennings sees the positives of the new developments. AD

Strategy or industry?

By: Andrew Davies & Benjamin Schreer

There’s been a lot said in the last week or so about the enduring interests of the United Kingdom in our part of the world. The reason for that, of course, is the fifth Australia UK Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) held in Perth last week. Lots was made of the common strategic and economic interests, values and history of the two participants. And both parties are members of the Five Power Defence Arrangement—a regional security institution that looks at first glance like a legacy of another age, but still has a significant role in life.

Like all good high-level meetings, it produced a formal communiqué that reflected all of the positives of the joint relationship. And perhaps surprisingly to those who don’t follow these matters closely, it announced the signing of the Australia–United Kingdom Defence and Security Cooperation Treaty. The signing of a new treaty often flags part of a grand strategy. The signing of ANZUS, for example heralded a very significant turn in Australia’s thinking on its security—away, as it happens, from the United Kingdom after it was unable to provide for the security of its antipodean former colony in 1942 and towards the United States. It was a big deal. Read more

Much ado about airport security

22 January 2013

If you were lucky enough to be flying internationally from Australia these holidays, you might have sampled the new body scanners that are supplementing the already considerable array of security measures surrounding our aviation industry. You now are confronted with metal detectors, police, explosives detection, restrictions on liquids and pointy objects, sniffer dogs, posters, and security barriers, among myriad others—as well as the behind the scenes intelligence work going on. The new machines are intended to spot items underneath clothing, providing the operator with an indication of where the item is located.

The use of these machines raises a variety of concerns; effectiveness, safety, and privacy amongst them. But before we begin to consider these concerns we should be asking ourselves, are these machines really necessary? And what are they actually for?

To the Australian Government’s credit, it has reportedly implemented better privacy controls than its American counterpart, including limiting the image provided to a stick figure, rather than the detailed images that have been controversial in the US. Such images have proven so contentious that TSA announced last Friday they would begin phasing out the scanners used to produce them. The government has also assured us all that no information will be stored, though such promises have fallen through in other countries before. Read more

The unmentionable question: do we really need a submarine?

21 January 2013

Early in the New Year, this government will take what will come to be seen as its single most significant Defence decision. More than anything else, the choice of new submarine will become the issue that defines Labor’s strategic legacy.

That’s why so much political capital has been invested in the vessel. The prospect of the government scuppering it is inconceivable. However, this means that there’s a risk that the project will become removed from its original requirement—that the sub will be built simply because the government has already staked so much on the project. But it’s worth asking, urgently, if a submarine is really the best way of meeting our strategic requirements.

Think back to the very beginning. It was the 2009 Defence White Paper, commissioned by Kevin Rudd, which originally identified the requirement for a new submarine. Normally, such documents offer governments a unique opportunity to start afresh. Because they supposedly represent a distillation of untainted and impartial expert advice, they’re less likely to face political attacks from the opposition; because they pretend to peer well into the future, they effectively establish the parameters of the debate for years to come. Unfortunately, however, there can be little confidence about the purity of the decision making process that entrenched the submarine as a cornerstone of our future force or, indeed, its technical wisdom. Read more

No need for a Need

21 January 2013

Being an editor of this blog, I try to avoid jumping into a stoush with our much valued contributors because it looks a bit uneven. But Jim Molan is big enough and tough enough for me to make an exception. I won’t dwell on the Reserves aspect of his response to Nic Stuart’s piece—Kath Zeising is taking that flank. And, as it happens, my thoughts on making better use of the Reserve are already on the record.

Instead, I’m going to take Jim to task on the notion of Australia’s strategic ‘Need’. The way it’s presented, it sounds like there’s some kind of Platonic Ideal strategy out there in the ether waiting to be summoned, if only we can think hard enough about it for long enough—of course with government, bureaucrats, think tanks and commentators keeping quiet for long enough. Once we have the ‘one true strategy’, then government either has to fund it, or explain to the Australian people why it is going to eschew such a noble pursuit.

Of course, the world doesn’t work that way. Even if there was some kind of Ideal Strategy from which we could deduce our Need, the resulting investment required to implement it necessarily comes with an opportunity cost. Ignoring that cost makes no sense in a planning framework. Like every other area of public policy and budgeting, the funding of defence is an exercise in balancing costs and benefits.

What we really need to accept is that there is no one true path to security. For a given level of expenditure we can provide ourselves with certain options. If we spend more then, generally speaking, we’ll be able to do more and be more flexible in our responses. If we spend less, then we’ll be able to do less. No level of spending will be ideal—ask our American friends if their $700 billion a year has bought them the perfect force structure for all of their problems. The world is such an unpredictable place that there is no level of spending that will cover every contingency. So there’s an inherent degree of arbitrariness in where you decide to draw the line. One planner’s Need could be a woefully inadequate capability in the eyes of someone less sanguine about the future. Read more

Reader response: Reserves – Needs and Wants

21 January 2013

Both Nic Stuart and Jim Molan have made their points clear on how they see Reserves: it’s a capability that’s either Needed by the wider Australian Defence Force or Wanted by those who think that it might come in handy.

While Molan has a point in stating that a Need must identified, the government has so many Needs on its plate that Reserves is a long way down the list.

And the government seems to have a different view of its Needs to Jim’s, with a lot of defence capability being Wants instead, judging from the policy documents that it releases publically.

The government spells out its defence aspirations in its periodic Defence White Papers, between which it worries about other Needs/Wants like health, education, the NBN and so on. Having delivered the white paper, the government expects the military to get on with implementing the solutions it has identified for the regional and global issues faced by the nation. Read more