Changing our perspective on ADF recruitment and retention

A cultural shift is required around how we think about careers in the Australian Defence Force and metrics of capability and retention. Counterintuitively, we should consider not only how to recruit and retain ADF members, but also how to support them to leave, thereby retaining extended service.

The core function of the ADF is deployment and operation of a tri-service fighting force. To maintain this capability, we must consider that the arc of national service can be life-long and take many forms. Metrics of recruitment and retention can look beyond short-term service obligations to how ADF capability can be retained following full-time service. This requires a shift in perspective from recruitment to post-discharge retention.

Australia needs to consider innovative approaches to generate the same commitment through schemes and marketing the benefits of service. Redeveloping financial supports for members to enter the housing market has been suggested, as well as flexible career paths, improved compensation and opportunities to upskill in new technologies.

None of these ideas are new. Nations such as Denmark and Finland have long-term service commitments with their citizens. In Sweden, military service marks conscripts for excellence to potential employers due to high standards in selection. These countries also use varying approaches to conscription. Their decisions are also supported by centuries of history and by having a nearby nuclear-armed great power prosecuting war in Ukraine.

Similar connections between Australian military service and employable skillsets would provide similar effect. This could be facilitated through strengthened ADF-industry partnerships in critical technologies, which would not only build skills and establish the calibre of ADF training and education but also capitalise on recruiting from existing capacities in the civilian workforce. ADF-delivered microcredentials could also support member transition.

Further supports and incentives could be targeted towards issues facing modern Australians. Options could include subsidising past and ongoing government education loans in non-military disciplines, retailer benefits for service members similar to those provided to community volunteers and other methods of reducing cost of living and housing pressures.

Any potential benefit schemes can be tailored so maximum benefit for the individual is gained incrementally over the longer term. This contrasts with service benefits that scale over time and increase over years of service.

This benefits schemes would also require consideration of how ADF careers can continue following initial service obligations. Potential transitions out of the ADF and exit pathways should be considered and advertised as a normalised component of military service.

It has become a common approach in the modern civilian work environment to shift careers several times. For the ADF, this could take the form of supported transitions with partners in defence industry, the public service or alternative service options such as emergency services. This service pathway can then be advertised during recruitment and as a means of retention. Using existing service category and service option systems to allow for maximum flexibility in ongoing service opportunities into ADF reserves would further help in retention over the long term.

The attraction of a career beginning with ADF service followed by supported transition into a second profession, alongside supports such as housing and education, would allow the military to advertise a unique, flexible and varied opportunity in a competitive employment market.

The aim is to cultivate a transformation in how the public views military service: not as an outlier for only those with a military interest or family history, but as a career-starter and life-starter.

Other initiatives could involve following the lead of the British reserves in decentralising responsibility for recruitment to local units, many of which already cultivate their own social media presence through savvy videos displaying a relatability that official Defence communication often lacks. Local parliamentarians or celebrities could act as unit patrons and support ADF recruitment in their areas, an approach taken by Canada. Further, adapting basic and ongoing ADF training into tertiary electives could support university-level recruitment.

Reserve compensation likely needs to be revisited also. Analysis has shown a fully trained private earns more working a weekend at Woolworths than at a reserves weekend. There are also arguments for adopting variable tax and superannuation systems, as well as pro-rata remuneration, to further improve the attractiveness of ongoing reserve service for civilian applicants or full-time members transitioning out of the ADF. This could entail an opt-in system, whereby members choose the most appropriate tax arrangement for their needs; university students might prefer the tax-free salary, while older members could choose taxed payments alongside superannuation.

We need to acknowledge that recruitment into the military is unlike that of any other employer. Any attempts to raise recruitment and retention levels must reflect this difference. To improve the current retention and recruitment problems, the ADF must create a culture that supports members during their service and beyond.

UK-Mauritius Chagos deal removes risk from Diego Garcia base

Mauritius is getting sovereignty over the remote Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, but Britain will continue to administer the strategically crucial island of Diego Garcia for another century, preserving the Anglo-American joint base on it.

That’s the gist of the deal between Britain and Mauritius announced on 3 October. It prompts two questions. First, do the outcomes constitute a net benefit for regional security? Second, what are the general implications for Britain’s foreign policy and regional role?

The answer to the first question is a cautious ‘yes’. The deal, still unsigned, promises to end legal uncertainty over the base caused by Mauritius’s mounting sovereignty challenge to the British Indian Ocean Territory, Britain’s official name for the Chagos Archipelago. With a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia to Britain, it also charts a clear pathway for the US military to continue unhindered operations from the island into the long term. That contributes to maintaining the balance of power in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

Washington will have to live with additional risk into the bargain, as fundamentally, unlike the UK, Mauritius is not a US ally. But the US military has bases in other non-allied jurisdictions and Mauritius will also receive significant income from the base as an incentive to maintain the agreement.

India, Mauritius’s de facto security guarantor, has given its tacit blessing to the sovereignty swap, which from its perspective is an optimal outcome. India has always been ambivalent about the residual British presence but would like the US to stay at Diego Garcia as a check on China’s strategic ambitions. India will probably seek access to the base for itself in future.

Implications for British foreign policy and its role in the Indo-Pacific will take longer to evaluate. On one hand, relinquishing sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory has ended a longstanding dispute with Mauritius. The dispute exposed Britain to risk of diplomatic isolation and accusations that its stance exposed a double standard on compliance with international law. Conversely, giving up territory potentially sends a mixed signal about Britain’s commitment to the region and to its other overseas territories. Not everyone has been convinced of the validity of the Mauritian claim, despite its gathering momentum through international courts and the United Nations.

Communications around the initial announcement by the four-month-old government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer were poor. A joint statement released on 3 October 2024 left basic questions about the deal unanswered, fanning anxieties that the Labour government had rushed to reach an agreement with Mauritius for unclear reasons. Former Conservative cabinet ministers quickly criticised the deal for selling out British sovereignty and for making unspecified financial commitments to Mauritius without consulting Parliament. But it was also revealed that those former ministers had opened negotiations with Mauritius two years previously.

In a subsequent statement to Parliament, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said a comprehensive deal to transfer sovereignty over the archipelago represented ‘the sole way to maintain full and effective operations’ for the base into the long term, through the lease from Mauritius.

It appears clear that the new Labour government, using internal legal advice, quickly decided that Britain was in a losing legal position and that an ‘inevitable’ binding judgement would force it either to abandon the base or break international law. Believing that its negotiating leverage with Mauritius was in terminal decline, the government apparently believed it had to strike a deal on the best possible terms as soon as possible.

Lammy has stressed that the deal includes a number of ‘robust security arrangements’ governing the base. Chief among these are:

—A carve-out for Diego Garcia that will preserve the administrative status quo for the base’s operations on the island, with Britain effectively taking a caretaker role and exercising ‘sovereign rights and authorities in respect of Diego Garcia’ on behalf of Mauritius; and

—Mauritius preventing ‘foreign armed forces from accessing or establishing themselves on the outer islands’ of the Chagos Archipelago.

The latter commitment could still conceivably leave the door open for grey zone activity by a hostile power, such as China, in surrounding waters. How Mauritius plans to provide maritime security for the Chagos Archipelago at large is therefore an important missing detail. There may be a role for India in this regard.

Lammy’s observation that the United States had ‘strongly encouraged us to strike a deal’ is telling, as is his observation that legal uncertainty was already weighing on operations at the base at Diego Garcia, delaying ‘critical investment decisions’.

The Biden administration did not simply endorse the deal after the fact. It has been central to the process. Senior White House officials have consistently lobbied their British counterparts about Diego Garcia. US pressure behind the scenes was apparently instrumental in kick-starting negotiations with Mauritius under the previous British government, despite its initial reluctance. All aspects of the deal have seemingly been thoroughly washed through an interagency process in the US.

Legal risk was perceived to be the primary factor. Since Mauritius obtained a favourable opinion from the International Court of Justice in 2019, parts of the UN machinery have been operating on the basis that Mauritius has sovereignty over Diego Garcia. British and US officials were concerned that further legal action by Mauritius could hamper base operations. For example, by jeopardising access for commercial aircraft, making it harder to bring in civilian contractors to undertake repairs, Mauritius could disrupt operations at the base. This threat was not seen as notional but as a real risk in the short to medium term.

Political risk was a significant compounding factor, as both Mauritius and the United States face elections in November. This helps to explain the compressed timing of the negotiations.

Compliance with international law dovetails with Lammy’s ‘progressive realism’. But he and the government have emphasised that the overriding factor driving the decision to retreat from sovereignty was not soft power but hard power and the determination to avoid disrupting operations at the base.

The public narrative around the dispute with Mauritius has largely been dominated by its framing as a decolonisation issue. The plight of the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed from the archipelago to make way for the construction of the base in the late 1960s, has received keen focus. However, British officials have also had to weigh the uncomfortable prospect that the US military, as the nominal lessee, could ultimately decide to vacate the base in favour of an alternative location. That would leave Britain as the sovereign landlord with costly liabilities associated with the base and an escalating legal dispute with Mauritius to deal with. Although the ‘footprint of freedom’ may be a joint British-US facility in name, in reality it is overwhelmingly used by the US military.

Right from the start, the British Indian Ocean Territory’s expedient existence has owed more to bargaining within the Anglo-American alliance than considerations of British sovereignty for its own sake. Because of this, there is a prevailing sentiment within the British foreign policy establishment that the Chagos Archipelago is not a real overseas territory, or that it is, at least, unique. It should not be surprising, therefore, that British negotiators might feel relieved to bid goodbye to the issue.

Lead negotiator Jonathan Powell’s dismissive description of the archipelago as ‘tiny islands … where no-one actually goes’, though ill-advised, is probably widely shared within government. The problem with this sentiment, however, is that sovereignty is an irreducible concept. How the Indian Ocean territory is ceded also matters for the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, which are claimed by Argentina and Spain, respectively. Britain’s Indo-Pacific partners will also be gauging the deal in the light of the Labour government’s willingness to remain regionally engaged.

On balance, consigning the legal distractions and bad publicity associated with the British Indian Ocean Territory to the past is a net plus for Britain’s Indo-Pacific policy. Assuming the deal is signed and ultimately ratified by Parliament, Britain’s only remaining possession in the Indo-Pacific will be the even more remote and much less strategically located Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. Hopefully, a final and amicable settlement with Mauritius will enable Britain to concentrate on the real prize—deepening its partnerships across the Indo-Pacific at large—while the base at Diego Garcia goes about its important business much as it did before.

A complex balancing act: Australia’s response to wrongful detention

The often tireless efforts of officials in Australia and around the world to secure the release of their citizens detained arbitrarily have yielded mixed results. This malign practice by autocratic regimes continues.

The patchy outcomes show the need for Australia to review and improve its approach. The current Senate inquiry into the wrongful detention of Australian citizens abroad, due to report around the end of November, provides a crucial opportunity to better understand and tackle this pressing issue that brings together human rights, diplomacy and national security.

The first weakness is that there is not enough public messaging that arbitrary detention and hostage diplomacy are used by authoritarian regimes to achieve their strategic objectives.

Of course, some Australians overseas do the wrong thing and face local justice accordingly. Arbitrary detention and hostage diplomacy, by contrast, are used to gain political or economic concessions from the detained citizen’s government, in violation of their human rights and without legal justification. This latter practice must be identified and called out for what it is. The resulting attention should galvanise rule-abiding nations to hold hostage-taking countries collectively to account and to deter the practice.

The exquisite dilemma that governments face is that they must at once prioritise the welfare of their citizen while maintaining a resolute conviction not to give concessions that might provide temporary relief but incentivise further use of the malign practice over the longer term.

Recognising the wicked nature of this challenge forms the basis of the submission we recently made to the Senate inquiry, arguing that Australia needs a well-defined policy framework that covers diplomatic engagement, legal action, international partnerships and public communication.

First, a consistent and transparent application of the term ‘arbitrary detention’ is needed. Cases have often been marked by significant inconsistencies, adding to our own public’s confusion and potentially letting authoritarian regimes off the hook.

Australian citizen Yang Hengjun has been detained in China since January 2019. After two years of unsuccessful diplomatic engagement and worsening treatment, the Australian government labelled his detention as arbitrary, marking the first use of the term in relation to a citizen held by China. This label has rarely been used in relation to others held by China, including Cheng Lei. And more recently, particularly around the June 2023 visit to Australia of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, the Australian government seemingly dropped the word ‘arbitrary’ in relation to Yang.

Any argument that silence or mutedness is a necessary diplomatic compromise does not cut it. The unjustified, punitive and coercive detention of an Australian citizen cannot simply be accepted and absorbed into a relationship in pursuit of stability. It must be regarded rather as an ongoing source of destabilisation.

Second, a principle should be maintained that the welfare of the individual is paramount and that Australia’s upholding of international rules and deterrence of future cases are higher priorities than economic and diplomatic relationships. Preventing future exploitation of detainees means the policy should prohibit making policy concessions or payments to regimes involved in hostage diplomacy.

Third, we need clarity on when to use quiet diplomacy versus public advocacy. This will depend on the circumstances of each case. In the immediate period after a citizen is detained, quiet diplomacy can offer the best chance of an early release, while premature public attention might make it harder for the detaining regime to relent.

The mistake that governments have sometimes made is in failing to recognise when that stage has ended and when greater public pressure is required.

Fourth, it is essential that like-minded nations and international organisations strengthen their co-operation. By working closely with the United States, Canada, European nations and others, Australia can exert collective diplomatic, reputational and economic pressure on regimes that engage in hostage diplomacy.

In February 2021, the Canadian government led a landmark international declaration against arbitrary detention, signed by about 60 countries. But more than three years later, democracies like Australia must go beyond declarations and ensure there are adequate enforcement mechanisms such as targeted sanctions—the fifth measure Australia should utilise. Once a case becomes formally recognised as state-backed arbitrary detention, mechanisms such as sanctions should be used to hold regimes to account and deter them from further breaches.

This could be done through the potent tool of Magnitsky-style legislation passed in 2021, which enables Australia to impose financial and travel restrictions on individuals and entities in regimes that practice arbitrary detention. Successive Australian governments have shrunk from using them in response to Yang’s arbitrary detention (and in relation to human rights abuses in Xinjiang) but, with no end in sight for Yang after almost six years, using Magnitsky to target those responsible is now long overdue.

Sixth, public engagement is essential for the purpose of transparency and enabling Australians to make more informed decisions while travelling or living abroad. Keeping the public and affected families aware of Australia’s actions will help build trust and ensure accountability. Proactive public campaigns can educate Australians about travel risks.

Finally, we need support mechanisms such as the establishment of a deterrence fund. This fund would support diplomatic efforts, legal actions and public awareness campaigns, ensuring Australia has the resources to respond swiftly and effectively.

Addressing the issue of wrongful detention demands a dynamic and comprehensive response. Proactive reforms and strategic partnerships will enable Australia to safeguard its citizens effectively and ensure responses are principled, transparent and impactful.

Stepping up military support to humanitarian assistance in the Pacific—recommendations for the Pacific Response Group

The newly agreed Pacific defence response group to help with disaster relief will help to solidify Australia’s role as a primary provider of security assistance. It also gives the region a vital tool to promote narratives of Pacific-led security, reducing the need for military assistance from outside countries such as China.

But the Pacific Response Group, from a modest start, will need to be ready to expand in its size, role and membership. Australia needs to be prepared to dedicate a larger component of its own military forces to a future PRG expansion, or to training and funding of additional components from Pacific island countries. These are among the contentions we put forward in our ASPI report released today, Stepping up military support to humanitarian assistance in the Pacific: Recommendations for the Pacific Response Group.

The ninth South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting (SPDMM) formally endorsed the establishment of the PRG last week in Auckland. It is a novel multinational military initiative aimed at deepening cooperation between Pacific militaries to deliver military support to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).

Pacific leaders have declared that climate change is their most pressing security concern—and the region remains highly susceptible to natural disasters and severe weather events. Pacific island nations are also experiencing an unprecedented level of competition for influence that is reshaping the security environment of the region. Since 2018, many partnering countries have sought to step up their engagement and presence in the region, leading to a contest of narratives and values across diplomatic, economic, strategic and military domains.

Australia is looking to provide genuine support and capability to the region, as it has done for decades. Equally, it can’t shy away from the strategic contest. The Australian government would be well aware that by supporting regional military cooperation on this level, it will be better positioned to prevent China from achieving a greater foothold with Pacific island militaries. Even if blocking out China is not the primary intent of the PRG, it is likely to be portrayed as such by China in its digital diplomacy and state media communications in the same way as the recently endorsed Pacific Policing Initiative.

In fact, the PRG provides a welcome chance to build regional resilience, capability and interoperability in responding to natural disasters and addressing environmental security. By pooling Pacific military resources and personnel in a more coordinated fashion, the member countries will be able to respond to disasters in the region with greater effectiveness and efficiency.

Australia wants to minimise the Chinese security presence in the Pacific without impinging on Pacific sovereignty. Done right, a regional security initiative like the PRG should mean less need for external support from outside the region, including China. Being Pacific-owned and led, the PRG won’t intrude on the sovereignty of its members.

PRG members should publicly push back against any narratives that suggest this initiative is competition-driven and remind other states that successful security initiatives inevitably lead to a reduced need for outside support. At the same time, Australia should be more transparent about its concerns with a greater Chinese security presence in the region. This would ideally lead to understood and agreed ground rules about members states’ security engagement with China.

Despite the promise this initiative offers, questions still loom over how much it will improve the region’s capacity to respond to disasters as environmental and climate threats intensify, requiring more resources to be spent more often on humanitarian disasters. This will come at the expense of training and preparing for, and responding to, other defence and security incidents that need military attention. As a co-ordination mechanism, the PRG won’t yet meet many of the Pacific’s larger security needs in this space, including more capabilities and greater integration across whole-of-government support in a crisis.

Given the scale of the climate threat, member states will need to consider an expansion as soon as the 2025-26 high-risk weather season. In the coming years, the PRG will have to look at potential expansions of its mission into areas such as stability operations. Australia will need to commit greater resources to ensuring that it successfully adapts to the region’s needs. The thinking, consultation and some planning for such expansions should start now.

There might also be a role for SPDMM observers such as Japan, the United Kingdom and United States, which could provide financing and support transport and the maintenance of warehouses, stockpiles and security infrastructure.

What would victory in Ukraine look like?

Victory in war is sometimes easy to define. World War II ended with Allied troops in control of Berlin and Tokyo, and with the German and Japanese leadership removed. The Vietnam War, on the other hand, ended in a clear defeat for the United States: North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam despite the futile expenditure of 58,000 American lives. The Korean War is sometimes called a stalemate because it never formally ended.

But such definitions can be deceiving. In Iraq, the US removed Saddam Hussein but neither found weapons of mass destruction (the justification for their deployment) nor turned that country into a functioning democracy. Worse, some cynics would argue that the true victor was Iran, which became the most influential political force in Iraq.

On the other hand, though the demilitarised zone remains in place in Korea, the southern half of the peninsula has evolved into a vibrant, prosperous democracy with an annual per capita income of US$35,000, whereas North Korea is a dangerous dictatorship with an estimated annual per capita income of US$1,200 and recurrent food crises. Who won the stalemated war?

This brings us to Ukraine, where the definition of victory depends on the participants’ war aims and time horizons. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine on the pretext of protecting Russian speakers in Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region. Eight years later, Russia tried to complete the process by destroying Ukraine as an independent state. As Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote in 2021, he did not regard Ukraine as an independent nation but as part of the larger Russian world. He massed troops on the border with the intent of capturing Kyiv in a few days and replacing the Ukrainian government, much as the Soviet Union had done in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968.

He failed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected advice to flee the country and create a government in exile, and instead rallied his troops, saved the capital, and derailed Putin’s plan. Zelensky subsequently used the soft power of attraction to win foreign support and increase Ukraine’s hard power of military might. The result of Putin’s invasion was to strengthen Ukraine’s national identity and NATO, which has added two new members, Finland and Sweden, that previously had a long-standing policy of neutrality. Judging by Putin’s original war objectives, Ukraine has already won.

The problem, of course, is that Russian troops still control approximately one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, and Putin has revised his war goals to demand that Ukraine recognise his annexation of four eastern provinces (including some that Russian troops do not fully control). The war seems to be stalemated, but Putin has turned it into a war of attrition. While Russian casualties are enormous, he may be betting that time is on his side, given Russia’s larger population and economy. Eventually, Ukraine’s will to fight may erode, as will Western support.

According to one recent poll, 26 percent of Ukrainians are open to a diplomatic solution, but they are not willing to engage in sham negotiations with an unrepentant Putin. Some 86 percent of Ukrainians believe that Russia is likely to attack again even if a peace treaty is signed. Though both Russia and Ukraine have expressed a willingness to negotiate, they remain far apart. This past summer, Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly prime minister, Viktor Orbán, went to Moscow to try to mediate, but failed to change Putin’s position. Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to claim that he could settle the war in a day; but it is hard to see how that could be accomplished by anything short of a Ukrainian surrender.

Recently, Czech President Petr Pavel, a former NATO general who has been a strong backer of Ukraine, stated that ‘to talk about a defeat of Ukraine or a defeat of Russia, it will simply not happen. So the end will be somewhere in between.’ Pavel warned that part of Ukrainian territory will remain under Russian occupation temporarily, and that ‘temporarily’ could mean years. If Ukraine defines victory as the return of all land that Russia has occupied since 2014, victory is not in sight. But if it aims to maintain its independence as a democracy linked to Europe, while reserving its right to the ultimate return of its territory, victory remains possible.

But this possible victory also means that Putin must not be able to declare his own victory. Ukraine must be given the support it needs to strengthen its bargaining position. Even if Ukraine cannot achieve its maximalist goals in the short run, the legitimacy of its position would be preserved in the long term as long as Russian gains are not recognised.

This is sometimes referred to as a Korean solution. An armistice and demilitarised zone along the line of control would be monitored by international peacekeepers, so that Russia would draw in many other countries were it to resume its attack. While it may not be possible to get 32 NATO members to agree to Ukraine’s formal membership in the alliance at this time, a group of NATO members calling themselves ‘friends of Ukraine’ could monitor the zone and vow to respond to any new act of Russian aggression.

Finally, Ukraine would also need assistance to rebuild its economy and access to EU markets. While a Korean solution would not satisfy Ukraine’s maximalist goals in the short term, it would certainly deserve to be called a Ukrainian victory.

Norway’s defence minister tells ASPI why the security of our two regions is linked

For two countries so geographically far apart, Australia and Norway have surprisingly aligned strategic perspectives. This has underpinned a burgeoning defence industry partnership and unprecedented reciprocal visits by defence ministers last month. ASPI hosted Norway’s defence minister, Bjorn Gram, during his time in Canberra to exchange views on the security outlook and the development of an integrated defence industrial base.

Gram shares the view once espoused by Arthur Tange, the public servant who transformed Australia’s security settings during the Cold War, that ‘a map of one’s own country is the most fundamental of all defence documentation’.

For Norway, geography dictates a perennial focus on what Gram called the ‘high north’, around the Arctic, Barents and North Atlantic regions. This has long meant maintaining a watchful but, where possible, nonconfrontational relationship with Russia, with which Norway shares a border and agreements over fisheries and access to the Norwegian island of Svalbard.

But the geopolitical map of the high north is transforming at the same time as climate change reshapes its topography. As sea ice recedes, Chinese and Russian fleets could start moving more easily between the Pacific and Atlantic. Gram expressed concern that China might try to exploit the whip hand it holds over Russia in their ‘no limits’ partnership to acquire military technologies and access that Moscow has withheld. This raises particular concerns in the Arctic, given its vital role in undersea warfare and nuclear stability—topics that Canberra has a direct interest in, too.

Gram’s time in Australia coincided with his prime minister’s visit to China to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations. In words familiar to Australian ears, Gram also stressed the importance of maintaining cooperation with China on global issues, such as trade and climate change, while remaining vigilant to security threats and always putting the national interest first.

Detailing some of those threats, Gram criticised China’s economic and technological support for Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as North Korea’s direct transfer of arms. He also noted the public warning by Norway’s intelligence and security services that China was among the countries targeting Norway with cyber-attacks and other malign activities.

The rhyming tones of Oslo’s and Canberra’s statecraft include recent defence reviews in both countries that reached remarkedly similar conclusions and enjoy similarly broad-based political and public support. Like Australia, Norway is increasing defence spending, which will reach 2 percent of GDP this year and more than double in the next decade. And, like Australia, Norway will skew spending, at least initially towards growing the navy as part of a wider program of force expansion and integration. In the same vein, Norway is increasing its commitments to NATO, just as Australia is strengthening its core alliances and wider security and technology partnerships.

This alignment in strategic perspectives underpins an uptick in bilateral defence cooperation, which is presently focused on expanding the manufacturing of precision munitions. Norwegian company Kongsberg is establishing maintenance and production facilities in New South Wales for the Joint Strike Missile, which will be used by the Royal Australian Air Force, and the Naval Strike Missile for surface warships. Both are vital components of Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) program. Kongsberg has already opened a facility in South Australia for maintaining missiles and NASAMS air defence systems. Gram said the door was now open for other areas of potential collaboration under GWEO, perhaps including production of rocket motors.

Gram stressed that Norway–Australia defence industry cooperation ‘is not one way only’. Kongsberg has many Australian subcontractors in its supply chain, and he foresaw more such opportunities. Another example is the contract of South Australian company PMB Defence regarding supply of batteries for Norway’s diesel submarines.

Raising horizons, Gram hoped Norway and Australia could explore cooperation in space capabilities. Kongsberg Satellite Services is establishing ground facilities in South Australia as part of a global satellite telemetry, tracking and control network. Over time, this could help the ADF in operating sovereign intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites.

Looking ahead, the Nordic model of total defence, which Norway shares with Denmark, Sweden and Finland, could be a helpful guide for Australia to accelerate preparedness, build resilience and mobilise industry and the population behind the concept of national defence. There are parallels worth exploring in the transformation of the Australian Army to support littoral manoeuvre and the expansion of the Norwegian Army from one mechanised brigade to three flexible brigades.

Both Gram and his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, have emphasised that bilateral defence industry cooperation is underpinned by growing strategic linkages between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions.

As a tangible demonstration of these links, a Norwegian frigate will join a British-led carrier strike group on deployment to the Indo-Pacific next year. Moreover, like Australia, Norway is deepening defence partnerships with Japan and South Korea, both of which Gram visited on his way to Australia. Gram also supports NATO playing a greater role in this region in such areas as strategic communication and countering hybrid threats.

Tange’s map reminds us that the tyranny of distance will always circumscribe the bonds between two distant friends, but the defence interests of Australia and Norway have arguably never been closer.

The Middle East’s deadly dream palaces

Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is an event of historic proportions in the Middle East. As can be seen from Iran’s response to Israel’s attacks on its Lebanese-based proxy, the shockwaves are spreading throughout the region and are likely to reverberate around the world.

Nasrallah was on a mission to destroy Israel. It was a mantle he had taken up from countless other Arab leaders, from Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who met with Adolf Hitler in 1941 to discuss the destruction of the Jews, to Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League who described the Arab invasion of the then-nascent Israel in 1948 as a ‘war of annihilation’. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser—an icon of pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 1960s—pledged more than once to ‘destroy Israel’. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah, nurtured their own dreams of liquidating the Jewish state.

There was always a touch of hubris in such dreams. Hussein harkened back to the Iraqi caliph al-Mansur—meaning ‘the victorious’—who founded the kingdom of Iraq in the eighth century, even naming his superyacht after him. Nasser and Arafat competed to be the modern reincarnation of Saladin, the ‘redeeming ruler’ who defeated the Crusaders and liberated Jerusalem in the twelfth century.

All four leaders—Al-Husseini, Nasser, Hussein, Arafat—failed to achieve their grand pan-Arab dream. But Arab intellectuals—many seemingly blighted by a perverse attraction to failure—sustained their delusions. As the late Lebanese-born scholar Fouad Ajami lamented in his 1999 book, The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A generation’s odyssey, this cohort largely put hollow pan-Arab nationalism above modernity, secularism and socioeconomic renewal.

Israel was the measure of the Arabs’ failure, pointed out the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said. To many intellectuals, its survival was unbearable. Ajami described the case of Khalil Hawi, a Lebanese poet and academic who supported Anton Saadah’s fascistic Greater Syria movement and subsequently imbibed the elixir of Nasser’s pan-Arabism. But there would eventually be no Greater Syria, no Arabdom, and not even a Lebanon Hawi could be proud of. Embittered and humiliated, he killed himself on the day of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Arab intellectuals created a moral universe in which any attempt by rulers to change lacked legitimacy. I recall being astonished when Arafat, who negotiated the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, believed Said to be his main opposition, though of course I understood why: Said was one of the many Arab intellectuals who rejected the Oslo Accords as an attempt by Israel to assert economic and cultural supremacy. As the Egyptian scholar Mohamed Sid-Ahmed—author of the visionary 1976 book After the Guns Fall Silent: Peace or Armageddon in the Middle-East—cynically put it, the accords amounted to ‘an exchange of land for a Middle East market’.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution was supposed to be the Shia answer to the failure of Sunni-Arab nationalism. Whereas pan-Arabism was often associated with the propertied Sunni classes, Iran’s revolution was portrayed as an uprising of the Shia underclasses. But Shia messianism found its own way to fail, proving unable to liberate the Arab masses abroad, despite massive support for proxy militias, while producing an oppressive, unpopular regime that offered no antidote to inequality.

Shi‘ism soon fell into the same trap that had doomed Sunni pan-Arabism: in an attempt to divert attention from its failures, Iran’s leaders poured all available energy and resources into a war of annihilation against Israel. Nasrallah became the embodiment of a new Arab ‘dream palace’, in which the Shia underclasses would reign supreme in Lebanon and beyond, and the regional designs of ‘Little Satan’ and ‘Great Satan’—that is, Israel and its American patron—are permanently thwarted.

If Nasser was a new Saladin, and Hussein was ‘the victorious’, then Nasrallah was the lord of the resistance (muqawama). He was the pan-Arab hero who fought in Syria’s civil war for more than a decade to save Bashar al-Assad’s tyrannical regime and haughtily declared war on Israel immediately after Hamas carried out its massacre last October. And his legend survived even the devastating blows of recent weeks, not least the Israeli military’s ‘device attack’, in which it targeted Hezbollah members by detonating explosives that it had concealed inside pagers and walkie-talkies.

The assumption was that Nasrallah still had surprises in the pipeline. But he turned out to be just another delusional Arab ruler who was destroyed by the violence that he had so eagerly courted in the service of a fantasy.

Until his last moments, Nasrallah did not understand the extent to which the Israeli military had penetrated Hezbollah’s capabilities. Perhaps he was intoxicated by all the resources and power that his Iranian patrons had lavished upon him for so many years; perhaps he had lost touch with reality entirely. In any case, Iran’s dream palace is now in tatters. In fact, this new showdown between Israel and Iran has exposed what should have been obvious long ago: the vision of an Iran-led Shia empire is hollow.

Alas, Israelis have built their own dangerous dream palace of ‘total victory’, erected on a foundation of nationalist fervour, religious messianism, and political intransigence. There is a scenario in which Israel’s military exploits change the region for the better. Unfortunately, far from being the standard-bearer for some enlightened political vision, Israel’s current government is committed to fighting a war on all fronts, with no view toward any political future that Israel’s neighbours could possibly accept.

Following Nasrallah’s killing and Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, one Lebanese professor warned that an ‘entire generation’ of Lebanese is ‘waking up to politics’ and that ‘Israel is planting the seeds of future wars’. And so the cycle of violence continues.

An office of national research: a new instrument of national power

Australia needs an office of national research, to make the greatest use of our intellectual resources in building our defences, strengthening our economy and supporting our society.

The 2024 National Defence Strategy urgently calls upon us to use all arms of national power to defend Australia and advance our interests. But Australia has overlooked the national intellect.

By national intellect, we mean the knowledge, skills and rational facilities of the nation to inspire our collective imagination, inquiry and invention. The purpose of an office of national research would be to foster and focus public and private research, including from overseas, towards our national priorities.

This new office cannot be expected to solve all problems, however. But as a nation with limited resources relative to our risks and responsibilities, indeed to our remoteness, we need a central body to focus on finding ways to maximise the uses of our resources in national defence and to respond to our other national priorities. We need that body to draw upon the intellectual capabilities of the nation, to draw in expertise wherever found, to grow that ‘stock of useful knowledge’ as Wolfgang Kasper described it.

This office is necessary because no part of the Australian government has oversight and responsibility for ensuring national research resources are directed towards defending the nation and responding to national challenges.

According to the Australian Academy of Science, the 2024–25 Federal Budget contains about $14.93 billion in expenditure of all types for science and research this financial year. The expenditure in the defence portfolio is about $0.7 billion on science and research. As the Academy of Science points out, that $14 billion is spread across 227 science and research programs and 15 federal portfolios, under the responsibility of multiple ministers and departments. Because funded programs are tied to portfolios, they are not necessarily tied to national defence priorities.

The Albanese government recently announced the Australian Research Council’s National Science and Research Priorities for the next decade. The list contained five priorities, yet national defence is not one of them. This is in contrast with the Defence Department’s Integrated Investment Program, which declared that ‘delivering on National Defence includes ensuring that Australia’s research and innovation sector supports the most pressing defence and security priorities to accelerate the delivery of next-generation capabilities’ to the defence forces.

Initially, such a body should gather, catalogue and review all research already conducted or being conducted, to make it accessible to government and researchers. After that, it should focus on research against a unified list of national priorities. For example, two early projects could be:

—Assessment of national advantages, constraints, vulnerabilities, and risks; and

—Developing whole-of-nation preparedness plans against identified threats and contingencies to protect the nation, maintain the economy and normal life and substitute for critical defence capabilities.

There is a need to restore national defence as a motivating theme in Australia’s national life. Although there is an enduring affection for the ordinary soldier, there is an otherness towards our defence institutions. New polls suggest that fewer young Australians are willing to fight if Australia faced a war like in Ukraine. Far more are instead prepared to flee the country. In both cases, these poll numbers have risen since 2022.

The National Defence Strategy has apparently done nothing to strengthen our commitment to defend ourselves.

Our proposed office should not be thought of only as a defence endeavour. We imagine this as a big idea for the nation. The coordination and concentration of the intellectual resources of the nation on our national priorities offers the best means of achieving our objectives.

Core functions for an office of national research would be advising the government on research priorities, implementing the research strategy approved by cabinet, and undertaking a governance role to broaden knowledge and maximise its practical application to national priorities.

Operational functions would include:

—Facilitating and managing research requests from across the government;

—Acting as an in-house research service for the government;

—Acting as a national research agent across Australia;

—Acting as a two-way agent to obtain research held in allied countries and to handle their requests for our research;

—Providing means of obtaining and handling classified, sensitive, export-controlled research;

—Cataloguing existing and developing new research methodologies and sharing information about them to accelerate research, foster innovation and ensure rigour;

—Ensuring the integrity, objectivity, rigour and sharing of research information; and

—Fostering the tradition of research and fellowship of researchers, within and especially outside of universities, so that there is a large pool of suitably educated and experienced independent-thinking researchers to meet national needs.

The national intellect is an element of national power, based on diverse and independent thinking that is driven by curiosity and the competition of liberal democracy. It must be wielded like other instruments of national power.

US Congress takes aim at China: an update on progress of legislation

The US Congress continues to grapple with legislation aimed at empowering US competition with China. Little time remains in the 118th Congress to finalise most of the bills that congressional committees have worked on for months. Many are likely to be back on the agenda next year, in the 119th Congress, offering Australia key opportunities for deeper collaboration, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and on economic security.

When Congress returned from its summer recess on 9 September, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson introduced a 28-bill package to bolster the US’s China policy.

Of the 25 bills that the House passed in what was dubbed ‘China Week’, 20 advanced with broad Democratic support, including legislation to refine US export controls, safeguard critical technology, ensure continued US focus on the Pacific islands, promote secure technology use and reduce US reliance on resources from China.

House Republicans also passed bills pursuing an America First agenda, overcoming strong Democratic opposition. These included the bill for the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act, which seeks to reinstate the controversial China Initiative, abandoned by the Biden administration in 2022 due to concerns of racial profiling. Democrats also opposed measures targeting Chinese electric vehicles and foreign acquisition of US farmland, arguing the legislation would harm the US economy.

During China Week, the Speaker chose not to introduce several other bills with bipartisan support, notably those developed by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Senior Democrats complained that Republicans, by focusing on partisan politics ahead of a tight November election, had missed an opportunity to confront the threat from China. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the lead Democrat on the committee, said only the Chinese Communist Party would benefit from this discord.

The Senate has also been working on a collection of bills relating to China, first announced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the lead Democrat in the Senate, in May 2023. Recent legislation passed by the Senate includes the bill for the Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act, which seeks to diversify US critical minerals supply chains away from China in favour of the US and its allies, and a bill forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the social media platform to a US-approved firm. After intense cooperation in the House and Senate, President Biden signed the TikTok bill into law in April this year.

Improving US economic security levers through a more holistic legislative package has been at the forefront of the Senate’s policy agenda. However, partisan differences over how best to address the China threat have made reaching a compromise difficult.

Unwilling to wait and emboldened by their expectation of being in the majority next Congress, Senate Republicans in September introduced the bill for the STRATEGIC Act, a 378-page package of cross-jurisdictional proposals to tackle competition with China. The bill seeks to strengthen the US’s ability to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, prevent Chinese malign influence and interference domestically, and deepen security alliances in the Indo-Pacific.

House and Senate members have now left Washington DC for campaigning. When they return after the 5 November election, the 118th Congress will have only five weeks left. Congress will need to prioritise must-pass legislation, such as the annual defence and budget bills. This will leave little or no opportunity in the period for further progress on a comprehensive China legislative package.

While movement on a US whole-of-government China package is stalled, both chambers remain focused on developing legislation to help the US compete with China, including in cooperation with US allies and partners. This robust effort reflects the serious thought and time being put into the US’s China policy across government, with strong input from academia, think tanks and business.

Members of Congress will take up the effort again when the 119th Congress is formed in January 2025 and seek to reach consensus on a package of China-focused bills. The bills that have bipartisan support in both chambers have the best chance of being signed into law.

Of particular interest for Australia will be those bills seeking to tighten and make more transparent the export control processes of the US Department of State and Department of Commerce, to streamline cooperation with allies’ defence industries. Efforts to address loopholes in the Foreign Agents Registration Act will also be important as the US seeks to better combat foreign malign influence.

House and Senate bills up for consideration addressing diversification of critical mineral supply chains, including for semiconductors, also present opportunities for Australia to deepen economic partnership with the US. These are in provisions through which the US would prioritise trusted international partnerships for supply chain security. Specifically, Australia could benefit from initiatives proposed by the House to work with allies ‘to develop advanced mining, refining, separation and processing technologies’.

Additionally, the Senate legislation includes provisions to issue awards to eligible entities—specifically allies—to ‘accelerate innovation to advance critical minerals mining, recycling and reclamation strategies and technologies for the purposes of eliminating national reliance on minerals and mineral materials that are subject to supply disruptions’.

Some bills introduced in Congress prioritise US engagement and investment in the Indo-Pacific.

The Pacific Partnership Act would mandate the development of a rolling US Pacific strategy, ongoing consultation with Australia and other Pacific partners, and diplomatic recognition for the Pacific Islands Forum. The TIDES Act would offer new tools to the US government to sanction Chinese business and other entities involved in China’s grey zone harassment of US partners in the South China Sea. The Strengthening the Quad Act would allocate more resources to support US engagement within the Quad, bolstering its partnership with Australia, India, and Japan. These measures are intended to promote economic growth, cooperation on technology and energy innovation, and resilient supply chains.

Subsea communications cables: vital but vulnerable

Most people never think of undersea communications cables.

Well, the people of Tasmania were thinking of them in 2022, when the state’s two main subsea cables were both severed within hours of each other. The disruption caused widespread outages, affecting flight schedules, cash machines and payment systems, even forcing some businesses to close.

Ensuring the resilience of the submarine cable network against disruptions is crucial.

Lying deep on the ocean floor, these fibre-optic cables can transmit massive amounts of data at high speeds with low latency, making them far more efficient than satellites, which handle only a fraction of global data transmission.  Satellites, however, do serve as backups to subsea cables in some cases and are well suited to serving remote areas, islands and mountainous regions where cable connectivity may be too difficult and expensive to install.

For most of their lengths, deep underwater, these cables are about as thick as garden hoses, with thin glass fibres at their cores to transmit data. Closer to shore, they become thicker and are reinforced with metal armour to prevent damage. Contrary to Youtube lore, marine life, such as sharks, pose minimal threat to them, thanks to improved cable designs and burial in shallow waters. The latest analysis by the International Cable Protection Committee registered no cable faults attributed to sharks between 2008 and 2014.

The biggest threats to subsea cables come from human activities. Data from 2007 to 2018 shows that anchors and fishing account for more than three-quarters of known cable faults. The damage occurs as anchors are dragged across the ocean floor or when bottom trawling fishing equipment entangles the cables. Although this is usually accidental, it could be done intentionally. Proving intention can be quite challenging.

Redundancy is a crucial part of subsea cable network resilience. If a cable is severed, redundancy enables the network to reroute the data across other links, such as other submarine cables, terrestrial cables or satellites. This minimises noticeable impact to network connectivity.

Other methods of minimising cable disruptions include preventing damage with protective measures. Physical security measures, such as making cables with armour and burying cables in shallower areas, reduce the risk of damage. Limiting access to cable landing stations, where cables come ashore and are more vulnerable, is another priority, because those points are on land and therefore accessible and because cables are concentrated at them.

Cybersecurity of the software that manages the cable network, and auxiliary systems, such as security camera networks protecting cable landing stations, and network operation centres, is equally essential.

Even with such measures, disruptions do happen, so having a repair capability is vital. Repair ships are crucial for restoring connectivity. But there are only around 70 cable ships worldwide, and only a third are set up repairs. The fleet and workforce are ageing, too. All this presents a significant challenge in maintaining cable system resilience.

In a recent report, Connecting the Indo-Pacific: the future of subsea cables and opportunities for Australia, my co-author and I highlighted the growing influence of hyperscale cloud and content providers on the industry and the broader geostrategic context of subsea communications cables for Australia, shedding light on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Australia’s subsea cable resilience is generally good. This is because of several factors, including that multiple cables land at different geographic locations and offer a degree of redundancy and resilience. Another is that Australia’s enforces legislation to protect cables in the shallow waters as they make landfall, designating certain areas as cable protection zones.

However, challenges persist. The cable repair industry is the most significant gap in resilience.

Subsea cables are the backbone of our global communication system. As the economic and security value of data continues to grow, it’s crucial that we protect this critical infrastructure by enhancing physical and cybersecurity measures and invest in improving repair capabilities.