Strategist Article Archives - Page 1162 of 1186

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

The 2012 Madeleine Award: to strut, signal and stumble

20 January 2013

It’s time to announce the winner of the fourth Madeleine Award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs. This annual prize began life at The Lowy Interpreter in 2009, and is named after Madeleine Albright, in honour of her penchant for sending diplomatic messages via the brooches on her lapel.

The former US Secretary of State and Ambassador to the UN wore a golden brooch of a coiled snake to talk to the Iraqis, crabs and turtle brooches to symbolise the slow pace of Middle East talks, a huge wasp to needle Yasser Arafat, and a sun pin to support South Korea’s sunshine policy. Her favourite mistake was wearing a monkey brooch to a meeting with Vladimir Putin that caused the then Russian President to go ape.

The Madeleines are guided by the truth offered by the American grand strategist George Kennan: much that happens between nations is actually a form of theatre. On the international stage, states strut, signal and stumble, seeking to win through bluster and brio rather than bribery and bashing. All that effort needs to be both appreciated and graded.

On The Interpreter, the first three annual awards went to a seaworthy climate change stunt (an island nation holding a cabinet meeting beneath the waves), a brilliant bluff by a US diplomat that helped clinch a peace deal, and to the extraordinary Franco-German double act at the heart of the Euro crisis.

For the fourth annual Madeleines, The Strategist picks up this proud silly-season tradition and the quality of the contenders shows the enduring value of the award. Read more

Google in North Korea: Pyongyang kowtow or smart diplomacy?

18 January 2013

When Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson headed to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) last week, they certainly turned some heads. Many viewed their trip as undercutting Western efforts to secure even stronger sanctions following the North’s ballistic missile launch last month. They also have been chided for providing Kim Jong-un an opportunity to ‘convey a sense of legitimacy and international recognition and acceptance’ to his people. With a nuclear test apparently looming not far over the horizon, then why did Schmidt and Richardson journey to the Hermit Kingdom?

Well, it’s difficult to imagine that Schmidt was there to seize on the unrealised market potential of the North. Although some might speculate that DPRK may be ready to shift its Internet approach, there’s scant evidence to back that up that claim. North Korea is far more intent on developing cyber weapons than it is on building a digital economy and providing its people with a better standard of living. Even in the absence of a strong digital backbone, DPRK has emerged as one of the top cyber warfare states (and proliferators) in the world. The simple fact is that the DPRK doesn’t need Google to continue to advance its space, cyber, missile, nuclear, and conventional weapons programs. Until the regime prioritises its general economy alongside its military industrial complex, an open Internet policy is more of a liability than an asset.

While there have been glimmers of hope that Kim Jong-un might depart from his father’s isolationist tendencies, ‘experience tells us to be skeptical’, as Evans J.R. Revere so eloquently puts it. The problem is that the DPRK seems very comfortable serving as a case study for the more things change, the more they stay the same. Even though new power dynamics appear to be at play within the Kim Jong-un regime, the ways in which his government leverages international insecurity to achieve political objectives—through missile launches, arms proliferation, and nuclear tests—continue to fit the status quo pattern of behaviour set by his father, Kim Jong-Il. So far, we’ve witnessed only minor modifications. Read more

Indonesia: a small arms supplier for Australia?

18 January 2013

In a recent Centre of Gravity paper for the ANU (PDF), Tim Huxley rightly calls for closer Australian defence cooperation with Indonesia, and for Australia to enhance defence relations with Malaysia and Singapore. His observation that any relationship between Australia and Indonesia has to be a ‘two-way street’ also recognises the necessity of the relationship to being more mature than it currently is.

However Huxley’s comment that such a relationship might mean that Indonesia begins supplying Australia with ‘small arms and ammunition’ is (possibly deliberately) extremely provocative.

Like a number of advanced developing countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia has its own evolving defence-industrial base, and currently produces a range of small arms and ammunition, as well as larger systems. Like other arms producing countries, Indonesia will have political and economic reasons for exporting its military products; they enhance a country’s prestige and bring economies of scale for its own acquisitions (at least in theory). And Indonesia is clearly looking to position itself as an arms exporter. Read more

Pivot 2.0

17 January 2013

As we enter US President Barack Obama’s second term, one of the key strategic questions for Australia is what happens to America’s ‘pivot’ towards the Asia–Pacific. Announced in late 2011, it signalled a renewed US commitment to the region by strengthening and diversifying US military presence in the region. Later rebranded ‘rebalancing’, it was largely a reaction to allies and partners worrying about a more assertive China and about the possibility of Washington becoming more isolationist in the face its looming economic crisis.

Over the course of 2012, the US moved from rhetoric to incremental implementation. Apart from the announcement of plans to rotate US Marines through Darwin, Washington initiated similar discussions about greater rotational access with the Philippines. The Obama administration agreed to increase the number of forward deployed US Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) by basing four in Singapore. It called for a US–Vietnamese strategic partnership and conducted joint naval training with its former enemy. It even strengthened defence cooperation with Cambodia, which was thought to be in the ‘China camp’. Moreover, the US strengthened its posture in Japan and South Korea. Finally, the Pentagon pushed a new ‘AirSea Battle’ doctrine designed to counter a growing ‘anti-access/area-denial challenge’ in the Western Pacific, for which read: Chinese military systems. Read more