Southeast Asia: Patterns of security cooperation

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report which explores the changing patterns of security cooperation in Southeast Asia. Strategically, Southeast Asia sits at the intersection of the wider world and Australia’s local neighbourhood; what happens there matters to Australia. But the broader Asian security environment is in flux, and an era of strategic quiescence in Southeast Asia may be drawing to a close.  Security trends there are increasingly being shaped by a set of global and broader Asian concerns as well as local ones. In consequence, traditional patterns of strategic influence and cooperation are shifting in Southeast Asia.

In this paper, Professor Carl Thayer from the Australian Defence Force Academy ‘unpacks’ four patterns of strategic influence in the region, assessing the interactions between them and what they mean for Australian strategic interests. Those patterns increasingly overlay in new and complex ways, ways that might undermine the stable, consultative Southeast Asia with which we have become so familiar.

What can Australia do?  Over the next five to ten years, we are likely to become much more involved with strategic developments in Southeast Asia, working where we can to reinforce patterns that best serve our interests.  That would include working to enhance practical multilateral security cooperation where we can, encouraging and supporting a larger US role in the region where we can, and building hard-power strategic links of our own to regional partners to bolster Southeast Asia’s own strategic weight.  We should be exploring opportunities for closer strategic partnerships with key Southeast Asian states, and be willing to invest the time, attention and resources that it will take to turn those partnerships into genuine strategic assets.

Carl Thayer is widely acknowledged as one of Australia’s experts on Southeast Asia, and the author of over 400 publications.

Australia’s National Security Institutions: reform and renewal

This Special Report, authored by Carl Ungerer, examines the recent evolution of Australia’s national security institutions.  
The report highlights the major changes to Australia’s national security institutions since 2008 including the shifting conceptual foundations for policy making, new power structures and changes to the way in which our national security institutions are funded and organised. The paper argues that despite several years of reform, the institutional design for national security policy-making as a whole remains dominated by centralisation and limited coordination.  
In the paper Carl Ungerer argues that, ‘a more appropriate model for Australia’s national security would better align strategy, resources and administrative functions.’
‘Over the next decade, Australia will confront an international security environment that will be more competitive and less amendable to a ‘business as usual’ approach’, he said.
The paper identifies three broad recommendations for building a more integrated policy framework: (1) making networks the main institutional design feature, not departments; (2) placing the functions of the National Security Advisor on a statutory basis; and (3) appointing a special minister of state for national security. 
These reforms are neither complicated, technically difficult or resource intensive, he said.

A natural power: Challenges for Australia’s resources diplomacy in Asia

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report, A natural power: Challenges for Australia’s resources diplomacy in Asia.

This report, authored by Richard Leaver and Carl Ungerer argues that Australia’s role as a stable, low-cost supplier of key commodities to the emerging great powers of Asia, China and India, gives Canberra a greater diplomatic bargaining tool than previous governments have been willing to acknowledge.

The report makes four key recommendations:

• Australia should reassess the idea that commodity marketing is a purely commercial issue that should be removed from state intervention

• Australia should immediately raise the current bilateral discussions with China on a free trade agreement into a ‘strategic economic dialogue’ that would aim to produce acceptable principles for foreign direct investment as well as greater stability in iron ore trade

• Australia should then seek to broaden that bilateral dialogue into a global campaign directed against speculation in commodity markets

• Australia should move to deepen our strategic partnership with India through the direct sale of uranium. 

Australian Defence Policy Assessment 2010

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new Special Report providing an overall assessment of Australian defence policy.  In three separate essays, the report analyses Australian declaratory policy, the force structure that emerges from the paper, and defence finances.

The report argues that Australia’s latest Defence White Paper is at least as much a political document as a strategic one, intent on rebuilding defence bipartisanship after an era of controversy in strategic policy. Its picture of the strategic environment points to major uncertainties in coming decades and, consequently, to a need for Australia to enhance its own strategic weight.  At the core of the assessment lies an especially worrying uncertainty—about the United States’ role in the region.

The military strategy articulated in the White Paper comes down on the side of an Australian Defence Force constructed for the defence of Australia and operations in the ‘immediate neighbourhood’—Timor, PNG, Pacific Islands and New Zealand. But in analysing the associated equipment acquisition and force structure decisions, this report finds that the extra naval weight injected into the White Paper’s ‘Force 2030’ will also strengthen the ability of future governments to contribute to operations with the US in the wider Asia–Pacific arena.

The final essay looks at defence funding over the lifetime of the White Paper and the outlook for Defence’s $20 billion Strategic Reform Program. The conclusions are sobering—current plans for a significant ramp up of defence spending between 2012 and 2017 will present the department with an enormous challenge, and the long-term funding on Force 2030 is likely to prove inadequate for the expansion that is envisaged.

Nuclear weapons: arms control, proliferation and nuclear security

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new Special Report on the issue of nuclear arms control, proliferation and nuclear security.   The nuclear arms control agenda currently enjoys a prominence that it has not had since the first half of the 1990s.  This report, authored by Rod Lyon, explores a range of issues, including President Obama’s Prague commitments, the looming Global Nuclear Security Summit, and the scheduled Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. 

The report argues that nuclear weapons still pose a dilemma for the world—they are immensely destructive and dangerous, but they are also an important guarantor of international security.  Because we honestly don’t know what global security would look like without nuclear weapons, there is scant hope of achieving nuclear disarmament in the near term.  The report says Australia benefits most from arms control agreements that enhance strategic stability and improve crisis management.  ‘Good arms control is about more than weapons numbers, doctrinal declarations, and signatures on treaties—it fits and complements strategic needs.’

Further, there are distinct gains to be made from clarifying the agreements that exist now (like the NPT) and making them more relevant to the evolving nuclear landscape. More and more countries are acquiring nuclear skills, and that will make the problem of proliferation a more pressing one in the years ahead.  The global community has to wean itself off its current behaviour in regard to proliferators, whereby it habitually slides from opposition to acquiescence as each new program develops. 

Finally, the report recommends a concerted effort to improve the security of nuclear materials, arguing that ‘enhanced nuclear security arrangements probably offer the biggest gains in global and regional security for the lowest investments.’  It sees Obama’s call to strengthen security over existing nuclear materials, and use the next four years the better to lock down vulnerable nuclear materials, as ‘especially timely.’

Our western front: Australia and the Indian Ocean

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report, Our western front: Australia and the Indian Ocean.

This report, authored by Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin argues that Australia should develop a comprehensive policy approach to our Indian Ocean neighbourhood.

Australia is a three ocean country with the largest area of marine jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean, yet we have neglected the Indian Ocean, compared to the Pacific and Southern oceans. 
 
A new maritime great game is emerging in the Indian Ocean, as strategic competition between India and China becomes evident. It’s the major energy and international trade maritime highway, particularly for the booming economies of Asia.

Among the report’s 27 recommendations are that:

• Australia should focus on the East Indian Ocean to build cooperation between the countries of that sub region, which share a range of clear and pressing common interests.
 
• Australia should make more headway in marine research in the Indian Ocean, particularly in terms of understanding the drivers of weather and climate change. 
 
• Australia should make a greater effort to ensure that fisheries arrangements in the Indian Ocean are effective.
 
• Defence should establish a naval operating base in the northwest, because of the growing importance and value of infrastructure developments in that area. 
• More regular air and surface patrols should be undertaken around the Cocos Islands.

• The Western Australian Government might consider creating a portfolio for Indian Ocean region affairs.
  
• The Australian Government could sponsor an Indian Ocean conference in Perth as a building block for Australian initiatives and for actions by the region as a whole. 

Here to help: Strengthening the Defence role in Australian disaster management

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a Special Report that argues that it’s time for Defence to more fully incorporate domestic disaster assistance tasks as part of its core business.

Defence is likely to be used more frequently in the future to assist in domestic disaster management. There will be larger and more frequent extreme weather events due to climate change; increased vulnerability of the growing populations in coastal developments and in bushfire-prone areas; continual reduction per capita in the number of volunteers and emergency services personnel; and growing community and political expectations to use military resources to support whole-of-government counter-disaster efforts.

To prepare for the increased demand on, and expectations for the use of, Defence in disaster management, three actions are required.

• the Australian Government should clarify that Australian disaster assistance is an ADF priority task. Elevating domestic disaster assistance into a core Defence activity will ensure that this priority flows through the Australian Defence organisation. 
 
• Defence should undertake a fundamental review of its domestic disaster assistance role with the goal of maximising its contribution to Australian disaster management. This is likely to involve modifying existing organisations, policies and procedures, logistics and training.

• Defence and civil counter-disaster organisations should work together to facilitate the transfer of capability development, research and development and other skills to accelerate the development of the states and territories next-generation disaster management systems.

The authors are Athol Yates, Executive Director, Australian Security Research Centre and Anthony Bergin, Director of Research Programs, Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Release of ASPI Strategy Report ‘A delicate issue: Asia’s nuclear future’

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report which explores the issue of nuclear weapons in Asia.

This Strategy, titled ‘A delicate issue: Asia’s nuclear future’, says the world stands on the cusp of a new era in nuclear relations—one in which Asia is likely to become the dominant influence on global nuclear arrangements. The old, bilateral nuclear symmetry of the Cold War is giving way to new multiplayer, asymmetric nuclear relationships.

And it is doing so at a time when power balances are shifting across Asia, when pressures for proliferation are returning to the regional agenda, and when non-state actors are an increasingly worrying part of the Asian nuclear equation.

Report author Rod Lyon judges that, ‘we are headed into a nuclear order of which we have little previous experience.’

The paper argues that Australia’s own policy options will be profoundly shaped by how Asia’s nuclear future unfolds. We can assist with redesigning nuclear order in a cooperative Asia, including by drawing regional countries into a discussion about how stable deterrent relationships can be built across deep power asymmetries. But a darker, more competitive Asian nuclear future—a future characterised by proliferation, growing credibility problems for US extended nuclear deterrence arrangements, or the return of a revisionist great power—would confront Australian policymakers with difficult choices, of hedging rather than ordering.

‘Nuclear latency’—the set of nuclear-related skills, materials and possible weapons systems—will grow in both Asian futures, Dr Lyon said.  But it would obviously be more worrying in the darker future: there ‘the gaps between mere latency, actual nuclear hedging, and covert proliferation might well become less distinct.’

The report concludes that Australian strategic policy should retain the flexibility to accommodate a range of possible Asian nuclear futures, striking a balance between its ordering and hedging strategies during a possible turbulent era in regional security.

Rod Lyon is Program Director for the Strategy and International Program.

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Release of ASPI Special Report ‘Cyber security: Threats and responses in the information age’

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new Special Report on cyber security policy in Australia.

This Special Report, authored by Alastair MacGibbon, explores the issue of cyber security from a risk management perspective.

Noting the release of Australia’s new Cyber Security Strategy in November 2009, this paper argues that the development of Australian cyber security policy has been outstripped by the uptake and use of information and communications technologies by the public, industry and government—and concomitant abuse by criminals and foreign powers.  In no small part this has been because of government over-reliance on industry self regulation in which there was a failed belief that the ‘light touch’ telecommunications regulatory regime would see safety and security solutions rising from the private sector at a rate greater than, or equal to, the threat.  The problem has been further compounded by a narrow policy focus addressing the legal definition of cybercrime, rather than the broader problems stemming from information and communications technologies.

This report argues that there is a widening gap between the cyber security problem and our national ability to deal with it and offers a range of policy suggestions targeting various opportunities for government and the private sector, including establishing an internet crime reporting and analysis centre to assist the public, who are increasingly important from a cyber security perspective. The paper concludes that it is time for decisive national leadership, and a step-change in the policy process.

Alastair MacGibbon notes that current policy measures are, ‘directionally correct, but lacking in scale,’ and says there is a, ‘need to broaden definition and better embrace the public.’

‘In short, cyber security is a growing national security concern for three main reasons: the threat posed to Australia’s economic interests; the integrity of Australian Government information and systems; and the wellbeing of the Australian public,’ said Mr MacGibbon.

Alastair MacGibbon is Managing Partner of Surete Group and founder of the Internet Safety Institute.

Release of ASPI Special Report Australian naval combat helicopters-the future

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a report which reviews the current Royal Australian Navy helicopter fleet, including the annual flying hours and costs.

Naval helicopters provide a critical element of the warfighting capability of modern surface ships. The RAN’s current helicopter fleet comes up short in a number of important capabilities. Although the current Seahawk is a capable aircraft, it doesn’t have a dipping sonar for the detection of submarines, an anti-shipping missile or an effective anti-submarine weapon. The situation has been exacerbated by the demise of the billion dollar Super Seasprite helicopter project and the suspension of efforts to provide the Seahawk helicopters with a modern anti-submarine torpedo.

The report finds that Navy is doing a fair job at keeping the existing fleet in the air, although the flying hours don’t come cheaply. The loss of the eleven Seasprites means that the Seahawk fleet will have to continue to shoulder the combat tasks until a replacement can be procured.

The choice for a future helicopter seems to come down to a choice between two types. The new generation ‘Romeo’ variant of the Sikorsky Seahawk is already in service with the US Navy. It has anti-ship and anti-submarine systems and is less expensive than its main rival, the NATO Helicopter Industries NFH (NATO frigate helicopter). The NFH is a larger and structurally more advanced helicopter, and has more capacity in some of the roles it would be called on to perform. It has airframe commonality with helicopters already being bought for Army and Navy that should result in savings over time through economies of scale. But it is also a few years away from full service capability.

The government has to decide whether it needs an immediate decision on the future naval helicopters, and how much risk it wants to bear by choosing between an aircraft already in service and one in the later stages of its development. The best course is probably to wait until hard operator-validated data is available on both of the competitors.

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