Tag Archive for: Asia–Pacific

Oz voice in the Asia–Pacific (part 1): speak for ourselves

Launching Australia’s international radio service in December 1939, Prime Minister Robert Menzies declared: ‘The time has come to speak for ourselves.’

World War II woke Australia to the need for its own, distinctive international voice. Our journalism would matter for our regional role as much as our diplomacy. Today Canberra needs to be convinced anew of the value of our journalistic voice in the region, with an inquiry underway on Australia’s media reach in the Asia–Pacific.

Quoting Menzies at a Liberal government is always a good tactic, so here’s another bit of the founding father, from April 1939:

I have become convinced that, in the Pacific, Australia must regard herself as a principal, providing herself with her own information and maintaining her own diplomatic contacts with foreign powers … It is true that we are not a numerous people, but we have our vigour, intelligence and resource, and I see no reason why we should not play not only an adult, but an effective part in the affairs of the Pacific.

At one level, Menzies is offering what’s still a statement of the bleeding obvious.

Yet, when it comes to an Oz voice in the Asia–Pacific, Australia has largely ceased using media power to play an intelligent and effective part in the affairs of our region. In the words of one of the smartest journos I know, Australian programming for regional audiences is simply ‘risible’.

As this column has been arguing, the inquiry is a chance to reverse a strange and silly desertion of a vital arena. It’s time for Australia to speak for itself and get back into the journalism game, to revive a proud international history that stretches back to 1939.

We don’t face war, but trying times certainly demand a distinct Oz voice. Menzies would raise one of his famous eyebrows that we even need to have this argument.

The terms of reference for the inquiry have a useful fuzziness in defining the media arena. The heading of the document refers to a ‘Review of Australian Broadcasting Services in the Asia Pacific’. But broadcasting is being investigated in the widest sense: the terms of reference mention shortwave, analogue, digital and satellite radio and television services and online services.

Such fuzziness/broadness is proper, because all media technologies are converging. Broadcasting is publishing. TV and radio are vision and audio online. The digital revolution both unites and atomises. For media and journalism, the distinction between domestic and international coverage is fading.

When Australia draws the proper Menzian conclusion about the requirement to speak for itself and contribute to the region, the voice Menzies launched in 1939 still offers much. That shortwave service, Australia Calling, became Radio Australia after the war, and since 1950 RA has been part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Australian government rethink on Asia–Pacific journalism must be matched by a revived and renewed ABC focus on international broadcasting, using ‘broadcasting’ in its broadest, converging-media sense.

The rundown of our international journalism—by both government and the ABC—is tragic evidence of the truth that there’s no big domestic constituency for good foreign policy. But the whole nation pays for bad foreign policy. And Australia has to reverse bad policy to get back into speaking for ourselves. The commitment must be both big and permanent.

When the Coalition government killed off funding for international TV in 2014, a communications minister named Malcolm Turnbull argued that there was no need for the Oz voice in a crowded regional arena. If people wanted international stuff, Turnbull said, they could go to the BBC or CNN.

The ghost of Menzies would have raised both eyebrows, because Menzies said the purpose of getting close to great and powerful friends was to bolster our interests, not hand ’em over—insurance policy, not giving away the store.

As prime minister, the same Malcolm Turnbull has increasingly come round to the ‘speak for ourselves’ understanding.

In one of his key foreign policy speeches, at the Shangri-La Dialogue last year, Turnbull reflected on how the digital revolution breaks down national boundaries and distance:

Technology has connected local aspirations and grievances with global movements. Hyper-connectivity has amplified the reach and power of non-state actors, forcing us to reassess how we, as nation states, assert and defend our sovereign interests. Last month’s ransomware cyberattacks confirmed that the world is still coming to terms with the new threats and vulnerabilities.

Now, in this brave new world we cannot rely on great powers to safeguard our interests. We have to take responsibility for our own security and prosperity while recognising we are stronger when sharing the burden of collective leadership with trusted partners and friends.

The gathering clouds of uncertainty and instability are signals for all of us to play more active roles in protecting and shaping the future of this region.

Take responsibility. Don’t expect the great powers to safeguard our interests. Act to shape the future of the region. Menzies would nod at this description of the value of a powerful Australian broadcasting voice.

Hard news as the sharp edge of Oz soft power

The old joke that it’s easy to have an open mind if you’ve got an empty mind has a Canberra version.

The rejigged jibe judges that it’s simpler to run an inquiry if the policy cupboard is bare—there’s not much existing policy in place and new stuff has plenty of space to land.

The tough truth about the review of Australia’s media reach and role in the Asia–Pacific is that it can have an open mind because so much of the policy space is empty. The policy cupboard is a repository of husks and wasting assets: much lost heritage must be reclaimed and a lot of muscle rebuilt.

Australia has largely vacated the news and journalism contest in the Asia–Pacific.

Canberra stopped thinking about what good journalism could do for the region, and for Australia’s vital interests.

The fashionable chatter became new technology and Oz soft power, losing sight of deep truths about the role of journalism. Soft power trumped hard news.

The national broadcaster with a core international responsibility—the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—followed Canberra’s dismissive lead.

The Coalition government decided it didn’t need to pay for international television. The ABC, in turn, cut people and money from Radio Australia, shedding much that had been built over eight decades.

Australia turned its back on its journalistic heritage in our region as so last century, discarded as old-fashioned stuff using old technology.

Mark all that as poor history, lousy policy and appalling judgement.

Suddenly lots of old media agendas are fresh headaches for Australia. The problems of propaganda and polluted facts are back, rebadged as fake news.

The policy contest ranges from news to belief systems, zooming through dimensions: it’s about good journalism, technology changing at warp speed, and defining the national interest as the international system morphs and melts.

Canberra cries about challenges to the rules-based system, in a worried tone tinged with bewilderment, a sense that it shouldn’t be going like this.

The bewildered tremor—the ‘What’s happening?’ sentiment—is there in the terms of reference for the review of Australian broadcasting services in the Asia–Pacific.

The purpose/objective of the review ‘is to assess the reach of Australia’s media in the Asia Pacific region, including examining whether shortwave radio technology should be used’. The review is instructed to analyse:

  • the coverage and access of existing Australian media services in the Asia Pacific region
  • the use and value of Australian shortwave technology in the Asia Pacific region.

And the review will cover:

  • all media distribution platforms (television, radio and online)
  • commercial, community and publicly funded services
  • different types of technologies such as analogue, digital and satellite radio and television services and online services.

As terms of reference go, this is open-minded. No tightly worded instruction to get a pre-determined outcome. These are the broad orders to an orphan inquiry—one the government didn’t want—that confronts questions both urgent and important.

As an aside, a hint of the inquiry’s orphan nature is that it doesn’t employ the Turnbull government’s preferred regional label, Indo-Pacific, as used in the defence and foreign white papers. The Asia–Pacific moniker reflects the language of the original political deal to hold the inquiry.

No matter. Indo-Pacific or Asia–Pacific, the inquiry being run by Foreign Affairs and Communications is a chance for a rethink and a reset for the government and the ABC.

The rethink can start with putting in the journalistic muscle and vision so lacking in the Turnbull government’s foreign policy white paper.

The white paper was happy to talk about ‘media’ (14 instances) but didn’t once mention ‘journalism’ or ‘broadcasting’. This was passing strange, given that the final of the eight chapters was devoted to ‘Partnerships and soft power’, stressing the ‘vital’ foreign-policy need for persuasive Oz soft power to influence the behaviour or thinking of others.

The closest reference to journos was a tick for Australia’s ‘robust independent media’ as an element of ‘our democracy’.

The bewilderment, though, was all through the white paper, lamenting that ‘global governance is becoming harder’ and the international order is being contested by ‘measures short of war’, including ‘economic coercion, cyber attacks, misinformation and media manipulation’.

The white paper fretted that Australia must be ready to ‘dispel misconceptions and ensure our voice is heard when new and traditional media are used to sow misinformation or misrepresent Australian policies’.

The paper’s answer to all this was lots of soft power and digital engagement.

Foreign Affairs now joins Communications to give these big questions another go. This time there will have to be a lot said about the future of Australian journalism in our relations with the Asia–Pacific: the power of hard news as the sharp edge of our soft power.

ASPI suggests

The world

Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas inevitably spawned an overflow of opinion pieces and analysis profiling the gunman. Was he a terrorist? And what was the rationale behind Islamic State’s unusual claim of the attack? The massacre also further reignited disputes about US gun control laws. The Daily Wire published a vociferous defence of the Second Amendment; for a digest of legislative and practical considerations involved with gun ownership, read this. But to put things into perspective with numbers, the BBC and Pew offer excellent quantitative analysis on Americans’ complex relationship with guns.

Two pieces came out this week illustrating different aspects of civic activism confronting power. Carnegie Europe offers an insightful analysis of the ‘current surge in global protest’, evaluating issues, grievances and concerns of organisations and communities. Ta-Nahesi Coates argues in the Atlantic that generational wisdom is required to reify the goals of contemporary black activism—which was similarly the case during the civil-rights movement in the 1950s.

For murder mystery junkies, espionage and deception in Asia and the Pacific are on the cards this week. First up, two great reads on North Korea and secret agents. An article on GQ.com explains how North Korean agents arranged the murder of Kim Jong-nam by duping two women—one from Vietnam and one from Indonesia—into poisoning the brother of the incumbent North Korea dictator. And a compelling read from Politico about one of America’s most effective and brutal spymasters, Donald Nichols, provides excellent context on the origins of the current US – North Korea crisis and ‘shines a light on the role of the United States in the creation of a divided Korea’. Lastly, an important read demonstrating the disturbing long-term effects of Myanmar’s army generals’ intentional invention and inflation of a connection between Rohingya insurgents and international jihadist organisations.

There’s an understandable focus on spiralling events on the Korea peninsula. After all, there is nothing quite like the prospect of nuclear conflict to focus one’s mind. But it’s important to not lose sight of other potential risks. Ian Easton’s new book, The Chinese invasion threat: Taiwan’s defense and American strategy, is an important contribution to understanding the risk of a conflict between China and Taiwan, and how that might spiral into a major US–China war. The book places you in the minds of the planner on both sides of the Taiwan straits, and considers how China is building towards a ‘2020 Plan’ for use of force against Taiwan. It has just been published, and you can read the author’s summary of the topic here.

Tech geek of the week, by Malcolm Davis

One scene in the third episode of Star Trek: Discovery has caught the attention of computer geeks. The lead character, Michael Burnham (female), runs code on a 23rd-century computer, except it’s actually 21st-century Microsoft Windows code. The really interesting thing is that the code on screen is decompiled code for the Stuxnet virus, which was originally used to undermine Iran’s nuclear weapons program during the Obama administration in 2010. The National Security Agency can clearly reach anywhere through both time and space!

There’s been a flurry of excitement about hypersonics with the sighting of a flight research vehicle precursor to the proposed Mach 6 SR-72, a successor to the now retired Mach 3.5 SR-71 Blackbird. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works is aiming for a first flight of the subscale FRV around 2020. It’s unmanned, similar in size to the F-22, and powered by a combined cycle engine that can redesign itself in mid-flight to cruise at speeds faster than a speeding bullet.

The space scene was understandably dominated by Elon Musk and his vision for making humanity a multi-planet species. However, Lockheed Martin has also promoted an orbital ‘Mars Base Camp’ concept, and a reusable lander to get humans to the surface in the 2030s.

Finally, The Matrix is all wrong. Theoretical physicists at Oxford University have proven we don’t live in a massive computer simulation because storing information about just a couple of hundred electrons—let alone an entire universe—requires more atoms than exist in the universe.

Podcasts

In the latest Defence Connect podcast, Saber Astronautics chief executive Jason Held talks defence, space and beer.

This week’s Intelligence Matters podcast from The Cipher Brief is a conversation between former US national security advisor Tom Donilon and former acting CIA director Michael Morrell. A veteran expert in national security, Donilon traverses his career in politics, beginning in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter, and digs deep into his experiences of geopolitics, cybersecurity and foreign policy.

Videos

Three videos that caught our eye this week: the trailer for First They Killed My Father, Angelina Jolie’s powerful Netflix film about Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; Changaiz Khan, the story of a girl from Taliban Waziristan who became a successful athlete by living disguised as a boy and now uses sports to advocate for women’s rights in Pakistan; and a pro-separatist video celebrating the Catalonian independence vote.

Events

Canberra, 10 October, at 1800: PricewaterhouseCoopers, in partnership with ANU Centre for European Studies, is presenting a public lecture on ‘Global politics in an era of national populism’. The speaker is Lord Jack McConnell, former first minister of Scotland. To register, see the event page.

Canberra, 11 October, at 1800: The ANU ADSS Women in Security Panel will feature three women working in the strategic and defence community. The event is free for ADSS members, but for further information see the Facebook page.

Canberra, 12 October, at 1630: Book launch, Ethics under fire, by Professor Tom Frame and Dr Albert Palazzo, at Russell Offices. Lieutenant General Angus Campbell AO DSC, Chief of Army, will launch the book, which offers an insight into the key issues facing the modern army arising from technology, tactics and terrorism. Register here.

Brisbane, 10 October, at 1800: Investigative journalist Graham Readfearn will lead a discussion on ‘Climate policy in the Trump era’, hosted by AIIA in Queensland. Register for tickets here.

Oz foreign policy temperature

The snow on the Brindabella Range was icing Canberra’s wind as I slipped into Old Parliament House to take the temperature of Oz international policy and check the strategic weather forecasts.

The prophets of the ANU’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs were holding their annual ‘Australia 360’ (PDF) foreign affairs stocktaking. The academic gurus had to give the last 12 months of Oz policy a temperature grade—hot, cold, lukewarm …

The consensus tended towards tepid. This column loves a metaphor, so there’s our theme.

The shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong, kicked off with a prediction of sunny days ahead under a future Shorten Labor government. If her forecast arrives, everyone in Canberra better find a copy of Julia Gillard’s white paper on Australia in the Asian century. If you tossed it into the recycling bin when Abbott arrived, fear not. While the PM’s department was Orwellian and deleted the paper from its site, Defence still has a sense of history and has the Gillard white paper here (PDF).

Wong said a Labor government will take tone and temperature from Australia in the Asian century, adding these four items:

  1. Climate change: renewed energy and vigour in negotiating international agreements.
  2. China: a policy that begins with what China actually is, rather than peering at it through the lens of risk management. No ‘reflexive negativity’ about the Belt and Road Initiative—embrace it case by case according to Oz interests.
  3. US alliance: ‘the US is of paramount importance to us’. The alliance needs to be built around shared interests in global stability, peace and security. ‘We need to ensure that it is both sensitive to the changes underway in the Asia Pacific region and conducive to creating a more confident, vibrant and robust regional security dialogue.’
  4. Foreign aid: re-establish aid programs that give real benefits to struggling nations, ‘especially in our own region—Timor-Leste, PNG and the South Pacific’. My aside: While Tony Abbott went at aid with an axe, Julia Gillard started the cuts. If Labor goes big/bigger/biggish on aid, it’s ditching Gillard’s heritage in favour of Kevin Rudd (and John Howard), who delivered aid’s golden age.

Now to the ANU temperature reports.

Meeting on the 50th anniversary of the day ASEAN was founded, Matthew Davies said Oz–ASEAN relations are lukewarm, trending upwards towards the ASEAN summit in Sydney in March.

Dr Amy King worried that things have got chilly with China: ‘Australia has gone very negative on China.’

By contrast, James Batley felt balmy South Pacific breezes (‘warmish, going even warmer’). At last year’s Pacific Islands Forum, Malcolm Turnbull promised a new Oz strategy for the islands, a weather system that’s yet to arrive. More, please, in the foreign affairs white paper and, presumably, at the Pacific Islands Forum summit, if the prime minister gets to it. Ministers have been out and about in the South Pacific, and the Governor-General, Peter Cosgrove, is a useful deployable asset. Batley’s list of significant events in the previous 12 months:

  1. The French territories—New Caledonia and French Polynesia—gained full membership of the Pacific Islands Forum. The regional diplomatic system is in flux, and the new French role will have unpredictable consequences for the forum.
  2. RAMSI was wrapped up after 14 years, a huge event for Australia in the region, for Pacific cooperation and for Solomon Islands as a nation.
  3. PNG’s election returned Peter O’Neill to power, a prime minister who has ‘changed the way PNG is governed, centralising and reducing accountability in the system’.

Looking at climate change and the South Pacific, George Carter said the islands are using climate issues to reinvent their diplomacy and get fresh streams of finance and aid. The forecast: always tropical.

Surveying the United States, Geoffrey Wiseman was lukewarm. America, he said, has ‘crowned a fool king’ who’ll run a ‘military-centric foreign policy’. Australia has given Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, but he’s like the broken clock—only right twice a day.

On China and the South China Sea, Greg Raymond said Australia has found the Goldilocks position—not too hot, not too cold, continuing air patrols and naval transits as we have for decades ‘but not launching a program aimed at trying to contain China’.

Mixing the metaphor, John Blaxland sees Australia’s glass half full while Hugh White worries about the emptiness of the glass. Blaxland blessed our luck in living next to ASEAN as a ‘proto great power’. Despite the froth and narcissism of Oz politics, he said, Australia is doing ‘remarkably well’ in Asia.

Hugh White’s response is that Australia ‘is in the midst of a huge shift in the way Asia is working and we’re still pretending it’s not happening’. Australia hasn’t confronted a binary choice between China and the US, he said, but rougher weather looms: ‘We haven’t faced that choice yet, but we might have that choice in the future if the strategic rivalry between China and the US continues to escalate as it has over the past few years.’

From the audience, ASPI’s maven, Rod Lyon, commented on the clustering around tepid/lukewarm, showing Oz foreign policy can’t do everything simultaneously: ‘Are we just struggling to prioritise and focus?’ Ever a mighty metaphor man, the Lyon judgement over coffee crammed it into one line: ‘Australia doesn’t have enough butter for all our toast!’ Warmed my day.

Debating ‘rules’, ‘order’ and ‘peace’ in the Asia–Pacific

Image courtesy of Pixabay user lincerta.

Concepts such as ‘rules’, ‘order’ and ‘peace’ are often bandied about in dialogue among Asia–Pacific countries, but the differing interpretations of those words have resulted in countries talking past each other, rather than to each other.

On the Korean peninsula, for instance, North and South Korea clearly have different ideas about peace and stability in their immediate neighbourhood. For South Korea, peace and stability on the peninsula are anchored in its alliance with the US, as well as North Korea’s denuclearisation. On the contrary, North Korea argues that South Korea’s strategy, including its joint military exercises with the US, is responsible for instability on the peninsula. From Pyongyang’s perspective, it’s necessary to have a strong nuclear deterrent and powerful conventional military forces to prevent war from breaking out. Evidently, both sides want the same end-goal but have different ideas on what ‘peace’ and ‘stability’ on the Korean peninsula mean.

The notion of a ‘rules-based regional order’ faces a similar challenge. During his speech at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis highlighted the US’s ‘deep and abiding commitment to reinforcing the rules-based international order’. This order, according to Mattis, is constituted by ‘equal respect for international law’ and ‘freedom of navigation and overflight’, and is rooted in institutions such as the UN, ASEAN and the World Bank. Reaffirming that the prevailing rules-based order is built upon US presence in the region, the Australian and Japanese defence ministers added that regional countries had all reaped the benefits of the existing regional order. In response, the Chinese delegation leader, Lieutenant General He Lei, stated that China is, in fact, ‘a country that abides by, supports and defends international and regional rules’.

Yet, given the ongoing debate about which countries are rule-breakers or followers, this raises the question: when leaders and officials speak of a ‘rules-based regional order’, what kind of rules do they view as legitimately constituting the regional order? Do all stakeholders have the same understanding of those rules? Such discrepancy in meaning might appear to be a banal point to highlight; after all, given the different interests and circumstances of different countries, it’s perhaps not surprising that they hold different perspectives on security issues. One could also argue that mere words don’t hold much significance; in the bigger picture, what matters are the actions that are taken. Nevertheless, considering that this region’s central institution—that is, ASEAN and its associated platforms—has placed so much importance on dialogue and discussion, I would suggest that rhetoric is rather important as an initial signal of intent.

ASEAN’s strategy has consistently involved convening and facilitating dialogue among regional countries—from the major powers to the smaller nations. It has initiated and led a host of such platforms, including the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting and its Plus process, and the East Asia Summit. The region is therefore not lacking in the quantity of dialogue mechanisms; the challenge is in the content of the discussions.

Given the recurring disagreements among regional countries on key terms such as ‘peace’, ‘rules’ and ‘order’—which persist despite ongoing exchanges of views—prospects for reaching a consensus on regional security challenges through continuing dialogue might appear bleak. Nevertheless, it’s crucial that dialogue among regional states continues. It’s debatable whether such exchanges feed positively into actual policy, but the alternative of an absence of dialogue isn’t a viable path. In the short to medium term, dialogue might not get individual countries to all be on the same page, particularly when it involves national interests, but allowing channels of communication to remain open is likely to bring more benefits than harm to the region as a whole in the longer term.

Most importantly, dialogue processes should ensure that all regional countries—not just the major powers—get an equal chance to voice their views on matters of concern. Dialogue might also be more productive if the relevant actors and stakeholders focus not only on trying to persuade others to see things from their respective perspectives, but on also attempting to arrive at relatively common understandings of what it means to talk about issues of ‘peace’, ‘rules’ and ‘order’. This could provide an initial step towards getting nations to talk to each other, rather than—as the above examples show—past each other.

Revitalising America’s Asia strategy: implications for Australia

Image courtesy of Flickr user U.S. Pacific Command.

The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) in Singapore this weekend gives the Trump administration a major opportunity to set out, in detail, its Asia–Pacific strategy. If it fails to do that, the perception—particularly in Southeast Asia—that the United States is effectively ceding its regional leadership to China will only become more pervasive and more influential with regard to Asian countries’ policy choices. SLD will also provide Prime Minister Turnbull the chance to use his Keynote Address to signal Australia’s strong support for revitalised US strategic engagement across the region.

As we argue in more detail here (paywall), since January the Trump administration has failed to reassure allies and partners over the credibility and durability of US regional leadership. Indeed, Trump’s erratic leadership, combined with contradictory statements by senior US officials, have created uncertainty, unpredictability and confusion in the region about America’s future role.

But commentators who claim that China will be able almost automatically to step in and fill the vacuum created by the Trump administration’s lack of strategy in Asia are going too far. Ultimately, there’s a fundamental contradiction between the Chinese communist party’s authoritarian rule and the economic growth necessary to maintain its current strategic trajectory. China’s economic future is far from assured.

Moreover, states in the region, including Australia, still have leeway to make policy choices that will help prevent a drift towards Chinese regional dominance. The suggestion that Malcolm Turnbull should use his SLD Keynote to signal Australia’s supposed view that the US and China should share power in a new strategic order in Asia is unconvincing. It would be a form of capitulation to Beijing’s interests that would implicitly recognise, for example, a Chinese sphere of influence in the South China Sea.

Allies and partners of the US don’t want their region dominated by China: Xi Jinping’s increasingly hardline regime would almost certainly not behave as a benign hegemon. In reality, the US and its friends still have the means to shape the strategic future of the Asia–Pacific.

Governments and defence establishments across the Asia–Pacific will look for clear indications in US Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ plenary address at SLD that America remains willing to provide strategic leadership. What Mattis says about the military aspects of Washington’s regional engagement will be closely scrutinised.

If, under Trump, the US is no longer ‘rebalancing’, then what are the foundations of US strategy in the region and what is the place of allies and partners in this strategy? What policy will the US pursue in the South China Sea? The conduct of the administration’s first  Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island near the disputed Mischief Reef just last week was welcomed in the region as a sign that the US remains an active player.

If Secretary Mattis wanted to communicate measures that might help protect the existing order that has provided security and prosperity for all in the region (including China), he could announce that the tempo of FONOPs will be stepped up, and at the same time encourage Australia, Japan and European allies (notably the UK and France) to mount similar operations. Announcing US Coast Guard deployments to support partners against intrusions by China’s paramilitary and auxiliary vessels into their waters would also be useful.

The alternative to maintaining a near-constant presence involving a high tempo of naval and air activity in and over the South China Sea would mean that these waters would effectively become a Chinese-controlled strait, to the detriment of the interests of the US, its allies and partners. But it’s not too late to prevent that from happening.

In addition, the US Defense Secretary could provide more details on Trump’s proposal for a significant increase in the 2018 US defence budget, some of which would be invested in ‘a more robust presence in key international waterways and choke points’ including the South China Sea. And if he wanted to be truly ambitious, he could usefully outline a plan to make US Pacific Command into a multinational structure that would enable its allies and security partners to assume greater responsibility for Asia–Pacific security within a collaborative framework.

A more thoroughly multinational PACOM could involve allies assigning ships and other forces to PACOM in peacetime, and earmarking others for use in time of crisis or war. Allies such as Australia could then participate more easily in peacetime PACOM operations such as FONOPS.

It’s in Australia’s fundamental national interest for Washington to maintain its strategic leadership in the Asia–Pacific. To that end, it would be encouraging if Prime Minister Turnbull’s Keynote Address not only emphasised the critical importance of the US role in maintaining the ‘rules-based order’, but should also flag concrete Australian efforts aimed at closer security and defence cooperation with not only the US ally but also Southeast Asian partners. Tellingly, earlier this week Dennis Richardson, Australia’s recently retired Secretary of Defence, voiced support for Australian FONOPs in the South China Sea.

As the regional security environment deteriorates, Australia cannot afford to be strategically passive.

ASPI suggests

While the ‘first 100 days’ are an unreliable indicator of what’s to come, it’s certainly a good opportunity to reflect on the period where a new leader is at their most powerful, which is exactly what everyone’s been doing. David Remnick continues to mourn over at The New Yorker, stitching the new President’s brash NY biography together with what he’s been up to since moving into 1600 Penn. NBC has a useful rundown, while the ABC are keeping an eye on Trump’s campaign promises. Some folks over at the ANU have turned their minds to the first 100 days in order to consider how the region can make the best of the 45th President. Their reflection is useful and timely, and chimes nicely with Stephen Walt’s excoriating analysis of Trump’s biggest foreign policy blunder to date: ‘his clueless approach to Asia.’ (To hone in a little further on one pixel of that image, don’t miss this behind-the-curtain Navy Times run-down on the USS Carl Vinson debacle.) And yes, heaven is a place on earth: The Simpsons have given us their dark take on how Trump has adjusted to the demands of high office.

Buzzfeed are marking the occasion by looking at 100 of Trump’s lies and falsehoods which, they claim, ‘come with an unprecedented frequency, scale, and lack of shame.’ In a similar vein, don’t miss this great longread from Politico on Trump’s ‘fake war on the fake news.’ For a real war on fake news, catch up with Jimmy Wales’ moves to launch WikiTribune, a crowd-funded news outlet where volunteers will check copy to ensure that the tone, style and substance is on-point. It’s an interesting experiment, and maybe not a bad thing when you’ve got incomprehensible interviews like this one.

To mark the 102nd anniversary for Australian and New Zealand troops arriving on the shores of Gallipoli, The Sydney Morning Herald published a beautiful piece on an unsung hero of Anzac Day, RAAF’s Sergeant Peter McCrackin, who braved the elements to prepare for his performance of The Last Post at Melbourne’s Dawn Service this year.

And to finish off this week, we give you the sad tale of the 300lb, egg-shaped security robot who was taken out of action by an angry drunk. As the Knightscope droid returns to its job keeping public spaces like sports stadiums and shopping malls safer, now’s as good a time as any to re-up some stellar literature on Artificial Intelligence. First up, these two somewhat alarmist pieces from Wait But Why discuss, with facts and stick figures, our position at the precipice of what the author terms ‘The Far Future’ as super intelligent technology becomes emerges. A more neutral perspective from Idle Words discusses the ethical issues arising AI, and argues that everyone should put down their pitchforks. So, the Knightscope droid forgives, but does it forget?

Podcasts

In a first for The Strategist, we suggest you get an earful of a recent installment of The Osher Gunsberg Podcast—yep, they dude from Australian Idol, The Bachelor etc… Earlier this month, Gunsburg sat down with Michael Ware, the former war correspondent originally of Brisbane, to dive into some of his harrowing experiences covering many battlefields, his efforts to deal with PTSD, and his latest endeavour embedding with risky and dangerous groups around the globe. It’s an incredibly absorbing 86-minute chat.

Ron Bartsch, president of the Australian RPAS Consortium, recently spoke to the Defence Connect gang to unpack the benefits (to both battlefield superiority and ISR) that unmanned platforms will have for every arm of the ADF (31 mins). He discusses legislation surrounding drone usage and where Australia sits relative to other countries that use unmanned platforms in combat.

Video

In IHS Janes’ feature video this week (7 mins), senior analyst Alex Barnes offers his assessment of Afghanistan’s security in the year ahead—a great primer for anyone interested in Middle Eastern politics, counterterrorism and the peace process underway in the war-torn country.

Events

Canberra: Two US heavyweights will be visiting Canberra next week, former Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asia–Pacific Security Affairs David Shear and CSIS’s Zack Cooper. Catch up with them both on 4 May at ANU’s National Security College as they discuss fresh research on Washington’s tactics to meet the challenges across increasingly unstable Asia.

Sydney: This event’s still quite a ways off, but it’ll be a good’un, so flick your calendar forward to 13 July 2017 and mark ‘John Howard on Trump and US-Australia relationship’, and then head over to the USSC site to register.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Pixabay user Yuri_B.

Ahoy, readers.

First up this week, a look at the curious incident of the lost carrier battle group in the Asia–Pacific. Let’s be clear: this whole episode is whack. President Trump’s claim that the US was ‘sending an armada’ turned out to have a couple of trailing caveats, the biggest being that the flotilla was inexplicably headed in the opposite direction to exercise with the RAN (the training portion was later cancelled). So in the end, the DPRK’s sabre-rattling had been met with a ghost fleet, an event which should give us all pause to reflect on just what reassurance means in the time of Trump. And how do we square this with Melania’s (Michelle’s) claim that ‘your word is your bond’?! There were a couple of useful WTF takes: Gail Collins in The New York Times and David A. Graham over at The Atlantic, as well as some local sentiments in The Wall Street Journal.

Two good pieces on Brexit to gulp down: the first, an interactive from the NYT, assesses London’s heath and asks whether the city is set to fall; the second, from the NYRB, parses the history of referenda on the EU question and looks at how this whole Brexit thing is working out (and where it could lead).

If you’re finding it a bit much trying to keep up with the ever-evolving Trump-Russia story (impactful think tank work being the latest), The Washington Post has you covered with this handy collection of the who, what, when and where. (“Why” to follow?) The Post has also released a cracking podcast/piece combo this week which looks at Russia’s emerging role as chief guardian of sovereignty and ‘the right’.

Kicking off our fresh research section this week is an excellent longread from CNAS which holds a magnifying glass to Chinese cyber intrusions into American and Taiwanese infrastructure, offering some thoughts on how to protect against them. A fresh report from CSIS looks at defending US interests in a slightly different way—through modernisation of its current missile defence program. Two new offerings from the Congressional Research Service and RAND examine the relationship between Chinese and American militaries: the first from CRS discusses the implications of China’s naval modernisation for the US Navy, and the second from RAND weighs up the extent of Chinese investment in US air power. Moving away from military capability, Charlie Winter of ICSR was recently interviewed by VOX-Pol on the development of Islamic State’s online messaging tactics since 2014—read the transcript here. And finally, a sobering report from UNICEF looks at how militant Islamist group Boko Haram has increased its use of children as suicide bombers in Central Africa, and offers firsthand accounts of the brutal treatment that abducted girls and boys are subjected to.

To wrap things up, a stand-out article from Nautilus looks at the dark side of nostalgia and its impact as a political force. While people are more likely to remember the good than the bad when reflecting on previous experiences, they’re unlikely to think about who might be negatively affected by what they might deem a better, simpler time—for instance, the America that Trump supporters long for as they push to ‘make America great again’. Some of these values have been up for debate in the lead up to the release of controversial Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, which will premiere next week. Check out these three reviews (one, two, three) that draw parallels to Atwood’s dystopian United States to the Washington DC of today.

Podcast

CAUSINDY has done plenty to improve the relationship between Australia and Indonesia  since its inception, but just this week, the youth organisation has upped its game once again—this time with the launch of a brand new podcast. ‘Aus–Indo in 30’, a fortnightly effort hosted by Nurina Savitri and Samantha Yap, both CAUSINDY alum, will zero in on a different aspect of the bilateral and feature a wide range of experts. To kick the new series off, this week Savitri and Yap discuss different representations of women and power across the two countries (28 mins). Subscribe here.

Video

CSIS recently released a solid new report on US missile defence (available here). They launched the effort with a presentation from the authors and a speech from Republican senator Dan Sullivan, who stuck around for a meaty Q&A to dive into what’s necessary when it comes to ‘defending the homeland’. Check it out (2 hours, 23 mins).

Events

Canberra: The ANU will soon host Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Witold Waszczykowski, for a speech on regional security and migration. Tickets are free and set to walk out the door, so get in quick.

Sydney: Although it’s hard to believe it has been that long, President Trump’s 100 days in office milestone is just around the corner. In conjunction with ABC News and Radio National, the United States Studies Centre will host a public debate on 27 April evaluating the President’s foreign policy progress.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Pixabay user Freeimages9.

There’s been a heft of useful reads in the last week about new US Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, born of curiosity about the man, the outcomes his recent jaunt to Asia, and judgements on his performance to date. On the first count, the Independent Journal Review dives deep into Tillerson’s transition from oil exec to America’s chief diplomat. (The journo, Erin McPike, has also whacked up the interview transcript.) On the second, Mike Green wrote a positive report card on T.Rex’s Asia appearance, while Ely Ratner offered a negative assessment over at POLITICO. And on the third count, this effort judges Tillerson as ‘Low-Energy’, while this one is concerned with where he’s headed. (And ICYMI, Julia Ioffe checks in on how things are going at the State Department these days…)

President Trump sat down with TIME’s Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer this week, to chat about how the President handled truth and falsehood through the campaign and now that he’s ensconced in 1600 Penn. The interview covers off a range of issues, from James Comey, wiretapping, Sweden, Ted Cruz’s father, the US Intelligence Community, and more. Check out the transcript here. For a punchier rendering and to save some time, The Slot have redacted everything that’s not verifiably true. It all chimes rather well with this much-discussed/tweeted Wall Street Journal editorial on the truth and the President’s credibility.

In a stellar series of infographics published this week, The New York Times breaks down what Donald Trump’s proposed expansion of America’s armed forces might look like in real terms. The article asks a poignant question: if defeating ISIS is the reason for the boost, how would a pumped-up military help Trump accomplish his goal? Now’s as good a time as any to reflect on the thought-provoking piece James Fallows wrote for The Atlantic in 2015 which seeks correlation between the American populace’s vague understanding of, but undying support for, the US military, and the declining number of recruits.

RSiS kicks off our fresh research recommendations this week, with an excellent short read on the unlikelihood of joint patrols between Australia and Indonesia in the eastern part of the South China Sea. Two choice picks on countering drug use and organised crime, the first from Australia 21, which has just released their findings from a roundtable involving Australian law enforcement and policy heavyweights on how to develop safer and more effective laws and long-term strategies for Australia’s drug policies. And the second, from RUSI, looks at factors that enable the illicit drug dealings of organised crime groups across Europe. And a little closer to home, ASPI released its inaugural Counterterrorism Yearbook, a publication designed to shine a spotlight on CT developments in hotspots around the globe. Keep an eye on The Strategist over the coming weeks for some short excerpts.

And finally, last week marked the 72nd anniversary of the first ever jet airstrike—conducted by the German military against Ally-held Ludendorff Bridge towards the end of WWII. Luckily enough, the Germans learned in their six-day offensive that bridges make for very difficult targets, with every single bomb released missing entirely. Ironically, the bridge collapsed on its own terms a few days after the airstrikes ceased.

Podcasts

In case you haven’t come across it yet, Aviation Week’s ‘Check 6’ podcast is a handy listen for any airpower wonks. In a recent episode, editors Jen DiMascio, Lara Seligman and Graham Warwick sat down with Marine Lieutenant Colonel David Burke for a chat about the F-35 program, and, from an operator’s perspective, why it’s a superior aircraft to the F-22 and the F-18.

Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS, was in the country this week for a handful of events hosted by ASPI. Alongside the punishing schedule we set for him, he found time to talk with RN’s Eleanor Hall about Rex Tillerson, dynamics in North Asia, the US-Australia relationship, and a range of other points. Catch up here (11 mins).

Videos

Described as ‘The Hurt Locker meets An Inconvenient Truth’, new doco The Age of Consequences casts climate change as a significant threat to US national security and global stability. The film recalls the Arab Spring, events in Syria and the rise of ISIS to explore how climate change is bringing about more conflict, resource scarcity and human migration. Directed by Jared P. Scott for PBS, it aired on ABC’s Four Corners program Monday night. Catch up on iView.

Although Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s Australian tour has opened the door for plenty of discussion on bilateral security and trade issues, Vox reckons that another brand of Chinese diplomacy takes the cake. In a recent video (5 mins), the news outlet discusses the evolution of the Asian superpower’s ‘panda diplomacy’. A useful watch for anyone seeking to better understand China’s foreign policy processes—or anyone seeking their daily dose of baby animal footage.

Events

Canberra: Busy on Tuesday night? If not, get along to the SDSC to talk Trumpian Asia policy. The SDSC’s Andrew Carr will talk with the USSC’s Ashley Townshend, whose new report was released last week. Register here.

Sydney: After an eventful week north of the 38th parallel, the Perth USAsia Centre, in conjunction with the United States Studies Centre, will host a timely discussion next Thursday focusing on the US administration’s growing concerns over Kim Jong-un’s provocations and how those trepidations may translate to policy. All the details you need are right here.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Flickr user Abraxas3d.

Ahoy, loyal readers.

The Trump–Russia story continues to roll on, or does it? A few voices have piped up in the last week or so to warn Trump’s critics/the media about the difference between finding a smoking gun and conjuring Don-Vlad collusion through smoke, mirrors, innuendo and fantasy. We brought you Massa Gessen in the NYRB last week, so let’s look further afield. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone recently counselled against the expectation that there’s a lot more to come: ‘Reporters should be scared to their marrow by this story. This is a high-wire act and it is a very long way down.’ And Ben Smith of Buzzfeed (which fed the beast by releasing the Steele dossier) offered a similar warning about the ‘false temptations of the Russia story’. On a different but no less important note, our main suggestion here is pure hedonism: watch (or rewatch) The Americans. Vulture will tell you why.

And actually, while you’re at it, The Crown is well worth your time, too. On the subject of Queen Elizabeth II, The Guardian carries a riveting and beautifully constructed long read on the secret plans that will unfold when the British monarch dies. Dive in.

A flurry of reportage has dominated American media after the overnight release of the Trump administration’s first budget blueprint. The Washington Post has a handy series of infographics that give a good rundown of the winners and losers. As predicted, Defense has won very bigly indeed, with the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department receiving cuts of almost 30% to their funding. But does slashing a department’s funding actually equate to a cut? Apparently not, according to Sean Spicer.

Plenty of great new research on the US and the new administration’s defense posture has emerged this week. First off, from our friends at USSC, this brand new report argues that Australia must develop a more extroverted security stance in Asia to bolster against Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy. A fresh CSIS publication takes a closer look at the security dynamics between the US and China in a completely different arena, the Middle East. A Strategic Perspectives paper from the Institute for National Strategic Studies discusses the importance of the India–Japan strategic relationship to the US’s strategic goals in the ‘Indo-Asia-Pacific’. And in the midst of all that, a new offering from CNAS compares and contrasts historical trends in the size and capability of the US military (it’s heavy on the graphs, if you’re into that sorta thing).

And finally, people of all stripes will mourn the loss of the Cisewu tiger, an unintentionally jovial, cartoon-ish statue erected outside an Indonesian Army base to strike fear into the heart of adversaries. After spending time this week at the wrong end of a viral social media campaign, TNI members used hammers and chisels to remove the statue, proving it to be the greatest paper tiger to date—despite the fact it was made of concrete.

Podcasts

This pick is a bit different to our usual offerings, but we hope you find it as compelling and ambitious a podcast as we do. US journo Alexis Madrigal, now editor-at-large at Fusion, has kicked off an 8-part audio documentary, Containers, on how global shipping has transformed our economies and realities. The first episode, ‘Welcome to Global Capitalism’, is available over at Soundcloud.

Back in January, The Washington Post launched a brand new podcast series, ‘Can he do that?’ Each week, host Allison Michaels zeroes in on a logic and convention-defying aspect of The Donald’s time in the White House. This week’s episode, for instance, looks at Trump and the fourth estate—‘the enemy of the people’ (32 mins). Keep an ear out over the next 200 weeks.

Video

In a useful little clip, Vox takes a look at what happens when, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, an American president renders himself obnoxious and is deemed unsuitable for office. This 6-minute video examines impeachment (or near impeachment) through the ages, and looks at how the US system of disposing of state leaders differs dramatically from British conventions.

Events

Melbourne: Those trying to discern the contours of Trump’s Asia policy (read: everyone) could do worse than get along to the NGV on Monday to hear some thoughts from Brookings’ Fellow Thomas Wright, who recently penned a sterling piece for POLITICO on Trump’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ foreign policy. Sign up here.

Canberra: Following on from #IWD last week, UNSW’s Laura Shepherd will offer some thoughts on 28 March at ANU on how the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations promotes female participation in peace and security governance.

Also here in the capital, please join us at ASPI HQ on 22 March to discuss the future of the Japan–US–Australia trilateral, and how it might alleviate heartburn over the South China Sea. Register here, and see you then!