Despite international crises in Europe and the Middle East, the US remains a Pacific nation and is committed to a greater strategic emphasis on the Asia–Pacific region. But in order for this ‘rebalance’policy to translate into lasting influence, the US needs a comprehensive diplomatic, defense and development agenda to prepare for key emerging threats—including climate change, which has been recognised as an ever-present existential threat that multiplies the region’s existing vulnerabilities (PDF).

In 1949, the US decided that its national security depended on the maintenance of a strong alliance with its European compatriots. The Marshall Plan, a US$13 billion package of conditional assistance, was a critical step in that process designed to maintain a Europe stable and secure enough to resist Soviet aggression. By effectively connecting economic and development assistance to Europe with diplomatic and security objectives, the Marshall Plan quickly elevated Western Europe from devastated to developed. It helped to lay the groundwork for the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Such a broadly-successful plan can provide lessons for a new US strategy in the Asia–Pacific—a region grappling with population pressures, climate change and the challenge of a rising China.

In concert with other initiatives, meeting the region’s climate needs through a Climate Security Plan could enhance regional stability, build goodwill, enhance US cooperation with nations on humanitarian and disaster relief and serve as a non-threatening way of competing with China for regional influence. There are existing programs, funds, strategies and structures that can form a foundation for such a plan. Scaling-up investment and enhancing coordination across the traditionally-distinct silos of defence, diplomacy and development are at the heart of such an approach.

In terms of defence, the US military can help maintain stability in climate-vulnerable nations in the Asia–Pacific region, through both military–military and civilian–military engagement on climate preparedness. Some of this engagement is already happening, including mil–mil cooperation on disaster risk reduction with partner nations such as Malaysia; large-scale joint exercises such as Pacific Angel; regional security dialogues on climate change and security at the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting; and military-led diplomacy through the Pacific Outreach Directorate of US Pacific Command. The US can do much to build resilience in the region by expanding programs led by US PACOM, including ensuring that the Department of Defense broadens its strategic guidance to US PACOM to allow for broader integration of climate change risks into its deliberate and contingency planning processes, strategic analyses, joint exercises and cooperative security programs. This would give US PACOM the space to coordinate with its counterparts in the diplomatic and development agencies to address climate change as a strategic security risk in its Area of Responsibility.

In terms of diplomatic action, enhancing cooperation with allied, partner, and prospective partner nations on addressing climate-related threats will be critical. Again, the US won’t be starting from scratch. In 2013, the US supported the Majuro Declaration at the Pacific Islands Forum, which called on countries to create a fund to address climate risks in Pacific islands. In 2014, the US concluded a historic deal on climate change with China. However, a much greater emphasis on bilateral and multi-lateral partnerships for addressing climate change in the region is needed. With US backing, APEC may have room to expand its mandate into climate change adaptation. In 2012, the US launched a high-level engagement process in the region that included ‘coping with climate change, and rising sea levels,’ which can be built upon. Lastly, more expansive US support for climate-sensitive DRR in the region could have benefits that go well beyond the often short-lived diplomatic benefits of successful disaster response efforts.

Development support, including increases in financing for climate change adaptation, will also be of critical importance. Until now, such financing has been minuscule relative to the threat. That could be problematic as the US seeks to broaden its partnerships in the region beyond its traditional allies, including with strategically significant and extremely climate-vulnerable countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. While recent US commitments—like its US$3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund, USAID’s ADAPT Asia–Pacific program and the Lower Mekong Initiative—will help in this regard, it may not be enough, especially given China’s recent announcement of an alternative ‘South-South’ climate fund. Some low-hanging fruit includes renewal and expansion of the five-year Pacific–American Climate Fund and a broadening of the mandate and scope of the Global Security Contingency Fund to include strategic climate investments to key allied partners and nations in the region.

Conditions have changed since the Marshall Plan was implemented and there are many ways in which modern investment programs and strategic engagement strategies are different. However, the key positive lessons of the Marshall Plan are relevant today.

If the US wants to be successful in the Asia–Pacific, it’ll need to invest in combating the region’s climate change ills (PDF). Such a policy will shore up and sustain US leadership in both the Asia–Pacific and the world. Failing to play such a leadership role may ultimately result in other nations either assuming that leadership mantle, or being left unable to prevent and respond to instability and conflict. The US can nurture its capacity and role in the region if it so chooses to seize the opportunity to lead on climate security.

There’s little that’s new in our new White Paper, but there’s one bold innovation which has so far received less attention that it deserves. The Turnbull Government has substantially downgraded, if not quite completely abandoned, the core idea which has been the foundation of Australia’s defence policy for 40 years: the self-reliant defence of Australia. Are we witnessing the end of an era?

Since the canonical Australian Defence of 1976, every White Paper until now has unambiguously affirmed that the principal task of the ADF is the defence of Australia from direct attack, and that it must have the capabilities to do so against any credible threat without relying on the combat forces of our allies. This has been has been the definitive answer to the question ‘What does the ADF need to be able to do?’ and hence the essential starting point for deciding what capabilities it needs and how much we have to spend on it.

There’s always been debate about whether the self-reliant defence of Australia should have been our primary strategic objective for all these years. But there’s no question that this has been the policy, right up to and including the last White Paper in 2013. Paragraph 3.35 of that document said: ‘The highest priority ADF task is to deter and defeat armed attacks on Australia without having to rely on the combat or combat support forces of another country’.

Each of its five predecessors in ’76, ’87, ’94, ’00 and ’09 had a sentence very like that. So, to be fair, does the 2016 White Paper. Chapter One, paragraph 1.15, which summarises the Defence Strategy that is to be set out in Chapter Three, says:

‘The self-reliant defence of Australia’s territory remains the highest priority for this Government, and protecting Australia from the threat of armed attack or coercion is the primary mission for Defence.’

But that isn’t what it says in Chapter Three, where the issue is most extensively addressed. The formulation offered in the table in Paragraph 3.3, and again in the subheading above 3.12 seems intended to be the most authoritative: it goes ‘Deter, deny and defeat attacks on or threats to Australia and its national interests, and northern approaches’.

There are several points to make about this formulation. First, the phrase ‘and its national interests’ robs the whole concept of any content, because ‘national interests’ covers just about anything. Indeed the very next paragraph [3.4] defines the whole set of strategic defence interests up to the global level as merely a subset of national interests. So the direct defence of Australia itself isn’t seen as a distinct objective. (And anyone who thinks this is mere pedantry of no relevance to real decision-making has never sat around the DC table.)

Second, the apparently authoritative words in paragraph 3.3 don’t say that the ADF should be able to defend Australia without relying on our allies’ forces. As we have seen, self-reliance is mentioned in para 1.15, and it’s mentioned again in Para 3.13, so perhaps their omission elsewhere was on oversight. But if so, that is itself suggestive. It’s more likely, as well as more charitable to those who drafted and approved the White Paper, that we’re seeing here a conscious, or semi-conscious, decision to step back from self-reliance, and return to a defence policy that assumes Australia will always be fighting alongside allies, and that the ADF’s key role is to support such allies. This interpretation is supported by the great emphasis placed throughout the White Paper on working with allies and partners to defend the seemingly-ubiquitous ‘Rules Based Global Order’.

Third, as Kim Beazley has delicately pointed out, the new White Paper is a little uncertain about whether this first ‘Strategic Defence Objective’ of defending Australia is or isn’t our highest priority and should therefore carry the most weight in determining our capability choices. In fact Kim is too charitable—on this key point the White Paper seems plainly self-contradictory.

In some places, such as the lines from para 1.15 quoted above, the first objective is given clear precedence. In others, such as on page 18, para 1.20 and para 3.33, the document clearly implies that all three strategic objectives are to be given equal weight. Perhaps the intended meaning is that all three objectives should weigh in setting force priorities, but that the first objective should weigh more than the others. This was after all the approach adopted in different ways in the 2000 White Paper and its two successors.

But if that’s what the 2016 White Paper meant, why not say it? Again, maybe this simply reflects muddled thinking and loose drafting, but we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that the government is deliberately stepping back from a principle that has underpinned our defence policy for a generation.

So what’s happening here? One part of the explanation for all those muddles may be found in the circumstances in which the White Paper was produced, being started under Tony Abbott and finished under Malcolm Turnbull. No one would be surprised to discover that Tony Abbott and his closest advisers approached the drafting a new White Paper with an instinctive dislike of the whole ‘self-reliant defence of Australia’ tradition, and that their preference was to radically refocus Australia’s defence priorities towards meeting global threats in partnership with Anglosphere allies.

It therefore seems likely that Mr Abbott left his successor a draft that downplayed the defence of Australia and didn’t mention self-reliance at all. Under Mr Turnbull an attempt was made to bring the draft back closer towards the policy mainstream, but too little was done to erase the residue of Mr Abbott’s proclivities.

But a fumbled transition is at most only half the story, because there’s a second, much deeper, reason why policymakers might find themselves easing away from self-reliance. The posture adopted in 1976 made sense in an era when US primacy in Asia was uncontested, so the only threats Australia had to defend itself against were those that could be posed by a poorly-armed Indonesia.

Recent White Papers–especially 2009’s–have grappled with the implications for self-reliance of waning US primacy, and failed to come up with an answer. Today the issue is more acute than ever, and perhaps the ever-starker implications for self-reliance have just become too hard to think about. If so, that’s a big mistake. As the US-led order in Asia passes, self-reliance becomes more important than ever, and defining what it might mean, and how it could be achieved, is the key challenge we face. Our new White Paper tries to evade that challenge by stepping back from self-reliance. It won’t work.

There’s a dominant motif that runs through the strategic assessment underpinning the latest Defence White Paper and, despite what China might think, it’s not containment. It’s uncertainty. Australia is beefing up for an uncertain world. Beneath some reassuring words about growing regional prosperity and the US rebalance lies a set of deep uncertainties—about the resilience of the current regional order; about the magnitude, scope and timing of possible challenges to that order; and about the ease with which strategic competition might spiral more easily into conflict in coming decades.

That’s why the government hasn’t reneged on its earlier commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. Indeed, it’s brought forward that commitment by three full years, from 2023–24 to 2020–21. Attracted as it must have been by the prospect of reaching a budget surplus earlier than now, the government’s opted instead for a measured expansion of Australia’s defence capability.

In the 2013 Defence White Paper, the Gillard government depicted a regional security environment that bore hallmarks of both cooperation and competition. Today’s White Paper signals a judgment—see para 1.6—that the Asian security environment has become more competitive and less cooperative in the intervening years. Moreover, the risk of further slippage in that direction can’t be ignored—and muscling up takes time.

Unarticulated in the White Paper is any judgment about the shifting nature of conflict—and whether thresholds and firebreaks that we’ve become used to over previous decades are weakening. Surely actors with a greater appetite for strategic risk are pushing at the lower rungs of the escalation ladder? It’s not only the risk of conflict that’s going up. The possibility of unexpected breaches of the thresholds is going up too—making more likely the prospect of sudden conflict with unexpected escalation ladders.

That doesn’t mean we stand on the brink of World War 3. Nor is there much prospect of a military attack upon Australian territory by another country. But we do stand on the brink of an age of argy-bargy—though the White Paper doesn’t use that technical term—of a rather less civilised global and regional order. The sort of ADF the White Paper intends to field—an ADF that’s more capable, agile and responsive—is one more suited to that age of argy-bargy.

The White Paper doesn’t bury the message; indeed, it rehearses both judgments—about rising uncertainty and the need for a more muscular and responsive ADF—right up front in para 1.1. But there’s relatively little unfolding of either judgment in Chapter 2, which canvasses Australia’s strategic environment. There, the US–China relationship—and Australia’s relationships with both countries—is handled exceedingly diplomatically; as is the section on the rules-based global order. Terrorism is depicted as a threat, and state fragility as an enabler of a range of malign actors. There’s a professional, if dry, section on regional military modernisation, and a set of observations about the cyber and space domains.

Coverage of Australia itself and of its immediate neighbourhood follows those earlier topics, before the chapter turns to a closer analysis of North Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and proliferation of WMD. There are some critical judgments here too: I think para 2.83 reflects a new benchmark in Australian positive thinking about Indonesian military modernisation, for example (a position reinforced later at para 5.37). But, again, there’s little sense of alarm. The section on Weapons of Mass Destruction—paras 2.102-2.106—is actually boring. Readers of Chapter 2 will be left wondering quite why we’re embarking on the course we are.

In contrast to previous White Papers, which were constrained by geographical notions of capability priority, Chapter 3 promises an ADF better structured for the full range of its far-regional and global missions. Para 3.10 notes the government’s agreement to three equally-weighted Strategic Defence Objectives to guide the development of the future force—a pleasant and overdue change to earlier doctrine that only the defence of Australia or its near environs could determine force structure.

Notwithstanding Chapter 2, the broad setting of the White Paper suggests a sense of urgency. Not only is money being made available more rapidly than before, there’s a broader theme running through the document about our need for an ADF geared to a higher level of preparedness. I think the White Paper gives us the force structure we will want over the next couple of decades. But I’d have been happier with a Chapter 2 that was less diplomatically phrased.

Beijing has come under increasing international pressure over its building and militarisation of the maritime features it occupies in the Spratly Islands.

On 30 January, the US Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels. Three months earlier, they conducted a similar exercise near a Chinese-occupied reef in the Spratlys. According to a report in The Australian, Canberra might also carry out a similar Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the coming months.

Recently, there has also been more pushback against China’s activities in the South China Sea by regional states. The US, which already operates P8 maritime patrol aircraft out of Malaysia and the Philippines, said in December that Singapore would be hosting P8s. In August last year, ASEAN dedicated seven paragraphs to the South China Sea, noting that China’s land reclamation work in the South China Sea may ‘undermine peace and security of SCS.’

The arbitration case that the Philippines has taken to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at the Hague is likely to be ruled on before June. In October, the PCA awarded its first decision to the Philippines, stating that the case was ‘properly constituted’ under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The US has stressed that countries should prioritise the freedom of navigation and overflight so that global commerce remains unimpeded. The fact, however, is that China doesn’t threaten commercial shipping through the South China Sea. A recent Reuters report showed that the shipping industry is not as concerned about US warnings that Beijing is seeking to exert control in the South China Sea. Even if China does eventually take over the South China Sea, shipping firms don’t think that this would affect the passage of merchant ships. Rather, the Sino–US struggle in the South China Sea is more about China’s dim view of US military vessels conducting activities in its Exclusive Economic Zones and territorial waters.

What’s worrying is China’s attempts to change the region’s status quo, given the ambiguous legal basis of its nine-dashed line claim on the South China Sea, the scale and speed of its land reclamation work, and the militarisation of the Spratlys features it occupies.

While China’s actions are audacious, there’s little left that will dislodge its now favourable position in the Spratlys.     

Washington’s recent FONOPs are commendable. But the true test of FONOPs is when other regional players join in, which is unlikely. ASEAN members have to tread carefully, given that their participation would trigger Chinese protests and jeopardise the long-drawn talks for a binding Code of Conduct. In November, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested that Japan would consider sending patrols to the South China Sea, but his Cabinet Secretary later said that Japan had no ‘concrete plans’ to do so. This leaves only Australia, which is yet to take a decision.

Ironically, the US conduct of FONOPs may give Beijing the chance to accelerate the military phase of its island-building project—what has been described as the ‘Chinese trap’. In a January conference call, PLA Navy chief Admiral Wu Sheng Li told his US counterpart John Richardson that China doesn’t seek to militarise the reefs, but that the amount of eventual militarisation depends on the ‘level of threat’ that China faces.

The much-discussed Code of Conduct remains a holy grail. All ASEAN members have to agree on such a code, and this would be difficult. Moreover, China wouldn’t want any form of dispute settlement mechanism in the code.

But this doesn’t mean that regional countries are without arrows in their quivers. The Supreme Court of the Philippines has upheld the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement between Manila and Washington, which could pave the way for augmented rotational basing of US troops on Philippine soil. Vietnam, too, is intensifying defence relations with the United States. And a PCA decision that comes down in favour of Manila would impact China.

What China has, however, is the luxury of time and space. A recent study by RAND shows that what were dominant US advantages over China in a Spratlys conflict in 1996 will turn into approximate parities or disadvantages come 2017. In 1996, the US held ‘major advantages’ in 8 out of 9 areas, including air superiority, counterspace and anti-surface warfare. Come 2017, the major advantages will be whittled down to two: the US’ ability to carry out attacks on air bases and US anti-surface warfare.

There is no doubt that China is isolated on the South China Sea issue. But that judgement misses the nuance of the situation. In recent years, China has worked hard to win friends and influence people. China’s now the top trading partner for most Asian countries; the rise of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its One Belt, One Road strategy have been well received.

Even the US, one of the most vocal countries when it comes to China’s activities in the South China Sea, has sought to put the relations on an even keel. Speaking to his Chinese counterpart in Beijing recently, John Kerry said that both sides would need to work on a new UN resolution targeting North Korea after its nuclear test on 6 January. He added that both the US and China agreed they needed to find ways to ease tensions in the South China Sea.

As Thomas Christensen writes in The China Challenge, the best way to avoid the ‘tragic spirals of tension’ that has accompanied power transitions of the past is to build trust through cooperation—for example, the US distancing itself from Taiwanese independence, fostering cooperation with China in initiatives like the Six Party Talks and through anti-piracy efforts off the Gulf of Aden.

In the South China Sea, China sits entrenched at the top of the hill. Unless the US and its allies take more forceful action, China’s island building represents a gradual chipping away at the edifice of regional order that the US has built over the decades.

It’s all happening over in Davos, Switzerland, as the World Economic Forum hosts its 2016 Annual Meeting. As The Economist mused earlier in the week, ‘The scope for Davos satire is boundless: billionaires fretting about inequality; legions of personal assistants scheduling meetings about automation; and Bono’. Highlights so far include remarks from the US Vice President Joe Biden; a conversation between Fareed Zakaria and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu; and an incredibly optimistic presentation from Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau. The theme of this year’s confab is ‘the fourth industrial revolution’, with FT nominating the four big issues to be automation, China, emerging markets and the Brexit. But at the end of the day, the uninvited and unwelcome guest intruding on this year’s meet is the significant degree of uncertainty borne of a gloomy economic outlook. Here are some snaps from the event so far.

To mark 25 years since the start of Operation Desert Storm, The Atlantic have pulled together a photo essay capturing the mood on the streets of the US and on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait. 2016 also marks 100 years since Sykes Picot; head over to The Strategy Bridge for a consideration of the agreement’s implications.

The Taliban, or its offshoots, have claimed responsibility for two horrific attacks that took place on Wednesday. The first, a suicide bombing in Kabul, essentially fulfils a threat made by the terrorist group last October to treat the country’s ‘satanic [television] networks’ as ‘military objectives’. The Diplomat looks at how the Taliban are attempting to justify the attack by branding the victims as a foreign intelligence network rather than journalists.

The second attack took place at Bacha Khan University in northern Pakistan, just over a year since the horrifying Peshawar school attack which led to the deaths of 148 people, predominantly children. The Guardian asks why terrorist groups are increasingly targeting schools, colleges and universities. And Foreign Policy carries a piece which argues that Pakistan should build more schools to counter the negative effects of Taliban attacks on education in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

CSIS this week released a major study on the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia–Pacific, which considers US strategy, force posture, capabilities and partnerships across the region. Catch up with the report launch event here.

During his time in power, Xi Jinping has broken the record for being China’s most jet-setting president. However, until Tuesday of this week, he hadn’t set foot in the Middle East. There’s been no shortage of analysis on what to expect from his high profile visit; The Wall Street Journal has deemed ‘jockeying between Iran and Saudi Arabia’ for Chinese favour as likely, while CNBC has indicated that Xi’s meetings will focus on foreign policy as well as One Belt One Road. For some background reading, check out this report from Chatham House (PDF), which asks whether China might seek to fill a ‘geopolitical vacuum’ left by the US’ gradual withdrawal from the Middle East. Alternatively, the English language version of the Chinese government’s ‘Arab Policy Paper’, which is the first of its kind and offers some context to Xi’s visit, was released earlier this month.

And finally, in another resounding triumph for both North Korea and communism, The Pyongyang Times revealed this week that the DPRK has invented a hangover-free alcohol that’s a hit with both ‘experts’ (in what field remains unclear) and ‘lovers’ alike. Foreign Policy, who were unfortunately unable to reach the hermit kingdom’s experts and lovers for comment, reported that the liquor, which ‘exudes national flavour’, gets its unique tang from ginseng and scorched rice.

Video

Chatham House has released a chat between (27 mins) of Mark Malloch-Brown and Jonathan Prentice, both of the International Crisis Group, where they discuss the ten most prominent crises to watch in 2016.

Podcasts

In case you missed it, The ABC’s Richard Fidler last year invited former war correspondent for Time and CNN, Michael Ware, to discuss Daesh creator Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his stunning documentary ‘Only The Dead’. The Brisbane-born Ware pulled the doco together using footage he’d shot with a hand-held camera at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Highly recommended for Ware’s enlightening thoughts of the Middle East, war and journalism.

Artificial intelligence has been high on the agenda across the last few days in Davos. FT’s Murad Ahmet sat down with Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT for a short discussion on the sidelines of the Forum. Take a listen here.

Events

Canberra: Whip out your diaries quickly, because this event is unmissable. David Kilcullen—former senior advisor to General Petraeus and author of the Quarterly Essay ‘Blood Year’—will speak at ANU’s Bell School on 22 February, focusing on the errors of governments and militaries in this new chapter of the War on Terror.