Grand Strategy? Developing resources…

Choosing which grand strategy to use depends on how others can be influenced—however, this is only half of the matter. There is also an internal dimension where the power is developed that the external dimension of the grand strategy needs; this involves developing the necessary people, money, and materiel. While often overlooked, such resources are fundamental to turning grand plans into grand outcomes. In this ‘strategic synthesis’ the external and internal dimensions are not just opposite sides of the same coin but also influence each other.

There are two key aspects. Firstly, grand strategies operate through time. The resources needed to support and implement a grand strategy need to be available when required, but not before, or indeed after. Given enough time, considerable resources can be developed and turned into the instruments of the national power needed. This needs to be taken into account in the grand strategy.

Secondly, in developing resources the state can choose between a managerial approach—becoming deeply involved itself in developing the necessary resources and actively directing society—or manipulating global market forces and using incentives and regulations to develop the resources the grand strategy needs. The first was used by Australia (and others) in World War II and in the Vietnam War, but the second is more common in today’s wars of choice. Read more

How much is too little? Learning to live with a smaller force

Ever since the government slashed defence spending back in May, they’ve copped a shellacking in the press. In case you haven’t caught up, here’s a selection of what’s being said:

And Greg Sheridan has railed against the government’s decision, not once, not twice, but three times, and has gone so far as to say that the cuts are ‘the most radical, irresponsible and dangerous action Labor has taken in government’.

These are serious professionals—undoubted experts in their fields—talking about a serious topic. Their views warrant close and careful attention. So the question must be asked: is the government making a colossal mistake that seriously threatens our security in the years ahead? Read more

Table of the week: Ship shape – naval force structures

The structure of a country’s naval fleet should reflect the thinking of governments (and navy) about their use of the sea. To a large extent it’s possible to ‘reverse engineer’ naval aspirations from the force structure. For example, true blue water capability requires long endurance, which in turn means larger vessels and/or the ability to replenish them at sea. As well, blue water forces often operate with the support of long-range maritime patrol aircraft. Conversely, navies intended to predominantly operate closer to home have a preponderance of smaller (and hence shorter-ranged) vessels for littoral operations, and there is less emphasis on replenishment vessels and long-range air support.

No surprises there. But we can quantify some of these observations, and when we do, some interesting results pop out. During his time at ASPI a while back, then intern Tonmoy Dutta-Roy (who’s now doing his bit to alleviate navy’s shortage of engineers) came up with a simple but interesting method of measuring the shape of a navy. His insight was to note that priorities are obvious when you look at the ratio of various parts of the fleet—the number of major combatants divided by the number of minor combatants, being one example. Or the number of maritime patrol aircraft divided by the number of major combatants etc. Of course, anything worthwhile in the defence world needs a three letter acronym, so these ratios are called Force Structure Indices (FSIs).

Let’s see how this works by looking at various nations’ blue water aspirations. Here the USN is supreme—there’s no other navy capable with its power projection capabilities (or that’s even close). So we’ll use the USN as a benchmark against which we measure the capabilities of other navies. The results are in the table below. Read more

Australian Defence Planners: welcome to New Zealand’s world

NZ Defence Force

New Zealanders have always discounted claims that Canberra’s defence purse-strings are being tightened—until now. The days when the proportion of Australian GDP devoted to defence was twice the New Zealand level of roughly 1% appear to be over. Gone too is that long era in which a succession of governments (Liberal-National and Labor alike) never once saw a capability proposal they didn’t like. The Defence Capability Plan, replete with its 180 items, is about to have a Jenny Craig moment—or at least that is what should happen as a result of the funding changes being administered by the Gillard government. If elected, an incoming Abbott government would be unlikely to quickly reverse the very significant reductions that Stephen Smith has demanded in an era of depleting federal coffers. The piñata party which characterised Australian defence decision-making for nearly a generation has ended.

There are some ironic twists in all of this. One is that Australia’s strategic weight might be slimming down just as its alliance relationship with Washington is intensifying. But the United States is also reining in its defence expenditure (with more changes to come if sequestration kicks in). One can therefore think, pivot notwithstanding, that future American administrations will expect even more burden sharing from close allies. Yet meeting this expectation will be harder for Australia in an extended period of defence economising.

A second paradox is that just as its defence resources are being slimmed down, Canberra is paying increased attention to its western and northern periphery and to the Indian Ocean, with the latter meaning an effective expansion of its area of strategic concern. A growing gap between ends and means is becoming a distinct reality. That disconnect won’t be so obvious in an era of reducing operational tempo as the troops come home from Afghanistan, the Solomons and Timor Leste. But it will find a way to show up one day when a real test comes. Read more

Amidst rising turbulence in eastern waters, India sharpens maritime posture

Rising tensions in the South China Sea over the past few weeks have served to highlight the rancorous nature of strategic competition in Asia. Following its stand-off with Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal and a spat with Vietnam over ownership of the Spratly and Paracel islands, Beijing recently announced the setting up of a new military district to assert greater administrative control over the two islands. In a bid to intimidate its adversaries, Beijing sought to populate the contested regions in the South China Sea with its surveillance vessels and fishing boats. Unfazed by the Chinese presence, the Philippines reiterated its resolve to press its claims, announcing the procurement of new attack helicopters and surface ships. Meanwhile, Vietnam declared that it is seeking closer naval collaboration with the United States, with which it held its first naval exercises earlier this year.

The unease over China’s show of strength is not confined to Southeast Asia. Maritime experts in India now worry about Chinese forays into the Indian Ocean. As Chinese anti-piracy maritime contingents deployed off Somalia grow in size, there is concern in India that China may soon establish itself as an Indian Ocean power. India’s fear of being swamped by China in its own backyard is only compounded by the assertive stance adopted by China’s vocal and outspoken strategic community.

China’s maritime policies in the Indian Ocean Region are considerably influenced by its perception of the Indian Navy—the only resident force with the capacity to resist a Chinese naval ‘thrust’ in the Indian Ocean. India’s naval force structure is undergoing a rapid evolution, and the Navy is acquiring a range of ‘top end’ platforms, including power projection assets such as aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines (see notes below). Read more

(Another) graph of the week: War is becoming more dangerous

I recently had the pleasure of talking about military capability to the Australian Command and Staff College. One of the topics I wanted to cover was the impact of technology on warfare. The first thing that came to mind was Winston Churchill’s musings on the Bronze Age from his History of the English-Speaking Peoples:

While what is now our island was still joined to the continent another great improvement was made in human methods of destruction. Copper and tin were discovered and worried out of the earth; the one too soft the other too brittle for the main purpose, but, blended by human genius, they opened the age of bronze. Other things being equal, the men with bronze could beat the mean with flints. The discovery was hailed, and the Bronze Age began.

Putting Churchill’s dodgy timelines to one side in favour of literary merit (Britain was disconnected from the continent by the English Channel long before the Bronze Age), this prose neatly captures the sometimes revolutionary impact on warfare of developments in technology. Reinforcing the point, two pages later Churchill summarises another technological revolution in military affairs—and another sweep of history—with a chillingly efficient sentence: ‘Men armed with iron entered Britain from the Continent and killed the men of bronze’. Read more

Force expansion and warning time (part II)

As I pointed out in my previous post, there’s a much-neglected policy principle embedded in the conceptual framework that guides Australian defence planning: in the event of major deterioration in Australia’s strategic circumstances, the Government would undertake a major expansion of the defence force. Are such times upon us now? With the new age of Asia, Australia is now less remote from the global locus of economic and military growth than in previous decades. But it is also true that the tensions of the North Pacific remain a considerable distance from Australia, and the South China Sea can hardly be said to be proximate. So military operations in those areas would hardly represent a major and direct threat to Australia—although they wouldn’t do much for relationships between nations in the region and beyond.

On the other hand, we can expect that as China’s economy continues to develop, so too will its military capacity. This will start to undermine one of the central pillars of Australia’s security: while motive and intent might well remain absent, China’s ability to conduct military operations against us will, over time, increase. And conventional wisdom tells us that motive and intent can change much more quickly than defence capability can be developed. Nevertheless, the difficulty of major attack on Australia would be formidable, as has been convincingly argued in previous decades.

For the most part, the force structure plans of the 2009 White Paper amount more to modernisation than to expansion—least of all major expansion. The outstanding exception is the decision to double the size of the submarine fleet to twelve. But it’s quite possible that the fleet won’t reach this size until the early 2040s (if then), and there’s no discussion of comparable expansion of other ADF elements. So, in the absence of arguments about strategic deterioration, the official position with respect to warning and expansion is at best ambiguous. Read more

Inflated ambitions and DWP 2013

Before turning its attention to the future force structure of the ADF, the team writing the 2013 Defence White Paper will have to grapple with the rising cost of even maintaining the existing force. This will be a particular issue in the coming decade with the delivery of some substantial new capabilities—two amphibious ships that will be the Navy’s largest ever vessels, three air warfare destroyers, the completion of the enhanced land force initiative, and replacement of almost every aircraft in the RAAF’s frontline inventory.

There will be a ‘double whammy’ from all of this new kit. Firstly, there’s the immediate cost of personnel and sustainment overheads. New platforms are almost always more expensive to acquire in real terms than their predecessors by virtue of their added complexity, which also results in higher through-life costs as well. Aircraft, for example, cost about twice their purchase price in the first twenty years of their lives. And service personnel are usually fairly keen to be paid and are, on average, more costly than the civilian workforce.

The second impact is the effect sometimes called ‘defence inflation’. My colleague Mark Thomson pointed out in his 2008–09 Cost of Defence brief (and earlier here) that the cost of sustaining the activities of the Department of Defence increases at a rate somewhat above the CPI. This is due to a number of factors, some of which are relatively easy to estimate, while others are more subtle. In the former category are things like wages. The same growth in real weekly earnings that has seen Australians become more prosperous in the past few decades means that maintaining numbers in the ADF costs more every year. Similarly, health costs for defence personnel easily outstrip the CPI—just as they do for the rest of us. It’s harder to calculate the magnitude of defence inflation for things like sustainment, but specialised skills, equipment and components are all increasing in cost faster than inflation. Read more

ADF: more than just warfighters?

An Australian Defence Force (ADF) engineering and health team conducted assessments of some of the current healthcare facilities and infrastructure in Padang in order to determine and develop engineering and healthcare support options for the post-disaster recovery operation that faces Indonesia and its people.In the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Government expected the ADF to carry out a number of tasks. In addition to its core war fighting roles, there were a number of secondary tasks, including missions that involve an overlap of responsibility with other government agencies. In this category were a range of activities; protecting our offshore estate; contributing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for border protection; assisting civil authorities protect major events and deal with counterproliferation; supporting emergency response efforts for natural disasters within Australia and our neighbourhood; and providing marine search and rescue.

The rationale was that the ADF possesses a range of specialised capabilities on a scale and of a kind available from no other Australian agency and that humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations need to be closely integrated with efforts by civilian agencies.

Sometimes the ADF would be expected to be the lead agency—in circumstances where there might be a need to demonstrate a willingness and capacity to employ military force, or where its substantial level of capacity is required in circumstances that are beyond that of other agencies. In other cases, the ADF will take a more secondary role. The evacuation of Australian nationals from foreign trouble spots might be one such case. Read more

Graph of the week: Comparative defence spending revisited

Andrew’s recent chart demonstrated how Australia’s defence spending equals the combined budgets of the five biggest spending ASEAN countries. Charts like this do a great job of communicating the magnitudes of spending involved, and put the budget cuts in perspective. There is a danger, however, that our appetite for budget comparisons can lead us astray.

When analysing countries of different sizes with different economies, comparing budgets in absolute dollar terms is misleading. Where labour rates are lower, that component of the budget is reduced. Where a nation has a large population and a conscription policy or retains a large military reserve, the nation can devote resources to a defence capability that isn’t captured accurately by the defence budget.

One attempt to broaden the measure of resources dedicated to defence is the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) Global Militarization Index (GMI). The GMI aims to objectively depict worldwide militarisation, and is calculated on the basis of quantifiable aspects such as the availability of heavy weapons, and the size of the military budget in comparison to the healthcare budget.

The GMI is especially effective at illustrating regional military power balances. For example, it can capture the effect where one nation may ratchet up their militarisation through increased conscription (at low cost) and a neighbouring nation (where that solution is not politically acceptable) responds with increased spending on defence capital.

For comparison with last week’s charts, I’ve charted the GMIs over the same period (click to enlarge). Read more