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Why Australia should join ASEAN

5 October 2015

Australia should join the Association of South East Asian Nations.

And to promote this big call even higher up the mountain to be climbed, Australia will become a member of ASEAN.

The ‘should’ and ‘will’ claims come with huge degree-of-difficulty handicaps and long timelines. Hard to achieve, much persuasion required, and plenty of time needed. But not impossible to imagine. We should do it the gradual ASEAN way by aiming to have Australia as a partial member within a decade.

ASEAN is about to proclaim itself a Community. This is classic ASEAN: announcing the achievement when it’s still largely an aim. Australia should use the same technique: proclaim its readiness for membership as it sets out on the long climb to make it reality.

An ASEAN aspiration would offer a new dimension to the Turnbull Government’s narrative about an optimistic country living in Asia in the best of times.

The ‘should join’ ASEAN argument rests on a broad range of Australia’s Asia interests—not least the tectonic shifts in the power balance— as well as the many elements of the Oz relationship with Southeast Asia.

The other side of the ‘should’ claim is that bringing Australia inside would help the practical policies and political aspirations of the ASEAN Community. ASEAN aspires to big changes in the nature and meaning of the Association; Australia offers much for that long-term Community project. And Australia offers much to ASEAN’s dual geostrategic purpose: maintain stability, retain independence.

The ‘will become a member’ is more than just blue sky optimism. The ‘will’ declaration draws on the long history of Australian involvement in Southeast Asia. Often in the past that Australian effort has been ambitious—on occasion adventurous. Time for new ambition, even at the risk of some thrills, spills and bruises along the way.

Joining ASEAN is the logical culmination of decades of Australian regional engagement. ASEAN membership would be an embrace of region in the service of deepest interests.

In the defence realm, Australia seeks a united, stable Southeast Asian that acts as a strategic shield across the north of the continent. Economically, the Australia–New Zealand–ASEAN Free Trade Agreement can be the departure point for further Oz–Kiwi integration in the new Community.

History teaches that very little is historically inevitable, yet the history of Australia’s approach to ASEAN is a consistent trend. Australia draws ever closer as ASEAN grows in importance and power.

Last year, Australia marked the 40th anniversary of becoming ASEAN’s first dialogue partner. Over the decade leading to the 50th anniversary, Australia should make the case for joining.

The Australian aim shouldn’t be full membership by 2024. Repeat, not full membership within a decade. To go for the complete package would be to set up failure. Do this the ASEAN way: step by step. Australia should instead reach for half-in/half-out membership as an ASEAN observer. Let’s reach for observer status by 2024, shifting up from the current perch of dialogue partner (and departing the pack of dialogue partners).

Australia would seek the same observer status currently held by Papua New Guinea (since 1976) and Timor Leste (2002). Yet Australia’s aspiration would be to play a bigger, more constructive and active role than the existing observers. On the journey to the ASEAN Community—social, political and strategic—Australia has much to give. Start the climb to full membership after achieving, consolidating and contributing from the half-in role of observer.

If Australia seeks membership, New Zealand would come along. A joint Oz–Kiwi effort would be mutually reinforcing. Convincing the Kiwis would be the easiest part.

Two huge arguments need to be confronted. One, obviously, is with ASEAN. The ten-member Association will take a mountain of convincing.

The other country which would have to make big changes in its thinking and understanding of itself is Australia. The shift in Australian attitudes would be as significant as that within ASEAN.

This series will draw on conversations and interviews in Southeast Asia over the past couple of years. Often in those conversations—after working through the objections of ASEAN interlocutors—the same end point was reached: Australia will have to convince itself before it can convince ASEAN. If we come to believe it, many in ASEAN would be interested in the conversation that will follow.

The ultimate arguments won’t be about the geography of Southeast Asia; this will be about attitudes, understandings and beliefs. And the right to belong that comes from a sense of belonging. Here lies much of the benefit of even beginning this process.

The geography argument, by the way, is simply dealt with. Australia, as a nation sharing a border with Indonesia, is seeking the same membership status as two other Indonesian neighbours, PNG and Timor Leste.

Despite the negative arguments mounted by Australia’s Foreign Affairs Department, Canberra won’t have to give up deeply-held policy beliefs to enter ASEAN. Australia can heartily embrace the values enshrined in ASEAN’s Community.

Membership wouldn’t impact on the alliance with the US, any more than formal alliances with the US have restricted the ASEAN roles of Thailand or the Philippines. Certainly the quasi alliance Singapore has created with America hasn’t altered Singapore’s ASEAN commitment. Australia would come at this from a different direction, but with the same spirit. The alliance would be an asset not a hindrance to ASEAN membership. To be continued…

Towards a more robust ANZUS alliance

24 August 2015

It’s important to consider steps to make the ANZUS alliance more robust to weather the challenges brought about by the rise of China. Our contributions to US-led operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan weren’t trivial for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in operational terms, but they were far less consequential in strategic terms for two main reasons. First, Afghanistan and Iraq were ‘wars of choice’ as there was no existential danger posed to Australia, so we could continuously adjust our political and operational objectives in order to declare a relative ‘victory’ to our domestic audiences. Second, even if Australia had decided not to support its US ally in these campaigns it wouldn’t have caused irreparable damage to the Alliance. Washington wouldn’t have liked it, but US policy-makers would’ve seen the continued value of ANZUS for US interests in the Asia–Pacific.

However, the strategic challenge of China to the Asia–Pacific security order significantly raises the stakes for the Alliance. As Ross Babbage points out, whether Australia likes it or not, ‘we now find ourselves close to the centre-stage of major power competition, international tensions and potential conflict.’ Not surprisingly, the debate has focused on the big strategic question of whether Australia might one day have to ‘choose’ between its US ally and its major trading partner China. The standard response by many politicians and analysts to Hugh White’s work on the ‘China Choice’ has been that there’s no binary choice to make. Yet, Hugh didn’t really make an argument about a simple, binary choice. Instead, his main point was that because of the enormous consequences of a potential war with China, the US and Australia would be hard pressed to agree on the circumstances under which to resist a Chinese challenge to the regional security order.

But if one doesn’t agree with Hugh’s central recommendation, that the US and China should ‘share power’ in the Western Pacific—whatever that means—then making ANZUS more institutionally robust and operationally effective becomes imperative. The simple truth is that one of the main contemporary functions of ANZUS in 21st century Asia is to deter Chinese adventurism and, if necessary, to fight it—with enormous consequences for all involved. How well is ANZUS prepared for this challenge? A common view is that the ‘institutional and ideational foundations of the United States–Australia alliance are deep and enduring’, a point made in the recent ANU/CSIS alliance report, which also highlights the close military links between the two allies, noting that ‘Australia currently has hundreds of ADF personnel on exchange or embedded into the US military’.

That’s true as far as it goes, but ANZUS’ current level of political and military institutionalisation could well be insufficient to meet the ‘China challenge’. Because of the enormous stakes involved, the political–strategic and military–operational demands for the Alliance are certain to grow significantly. But contrary to widespread reassurance, ANZUS is far less institutionalised politically than is often assumed. To be sure, the annual Australia–US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) is important for leadership exchange at the highest levels. Embedding officials in relevant departments of both countries also helps to promote common understanding about the key issues facing the Alliance.

However, the ‘China challenge’ demands a more institutionalised structure comprising senior political, diplomatic and military leaders from both sides, meeting on a more regular basis to discuss fundamental questions about future Alliance decision-making on China. That includes issues such as a mutual understanding about the ‘red lines’ for Chinese behaviour; continuous political and operational assessments of Chinese intentions, actions and capabilities; concrete political and military contingency planning involving China scenarios; and coordination of diplomatic responses, including the military, to Chinese activities in the Western Pacific. As well, the Alliance might consider communicating its primary tasks and capabilities more openly to other nations and organisations. For instance, it could formulate an ‘ANZUS Strategic Concept’, akin to the NATO alliance’s strategy.

Such steps require a change in Australia’s preference for more flexible, ad-hoc arrangements with regards to the Alliance. That was fine when there was no serious challenge to the US, but maintaining the credibility and capability of the ANZUS alliance in the emerging Asia–Pacific security environment will be far more challenging. If Australia wants to uphold the Alliance as a centrepiece of its strategic and defence policy, strengthening its institutional resilience will be a key task.

This includes the level of military cooperation. There’s already a high degree of technological interoperability between the ADF and US forces, as well as a long history of joint military operations. And embedding senior ADF officers at US Pacific Command has helped to facilitate a common understanding about the strategic–operational challenges facing the Alliance in the theatre. But those small peacetime steps mightn’t be adequate in a real China contingency. In that sense, the recommendations by a CSIS report to establish a fully-integrated, combined US–Australia amphibious capability are a step in the right direction. So too is the idea of forming a ‘small, high-quality Australia–US Strategic Planning Group’. Hopefully we’ll never need to use the alliance in an existential war, but if we do we don’t want to come up short.

The Bangkok bombing and Australia’s security interests

19 August 2015

Monday’s bombing of Erawan shrine in central Bangkok has killed at least 22 people and injured more than 120. Yesterday, a second bomb fortunately resulted in no injuries when it bounced into the water at popular tourist spot, Sathorn Pier.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, has described the Erawan shrine bombing as the ‘worst ever attack’.

Despite the Royal Thai Police’s focus on the offenders, the international media’s analysis of the incident is exposing a large number of politically and religiously motivated groups capable of terrorism in the ‘Land of Smiles’.

Despite claims to the contrary by Thai officials, the media and travellers, the attack is far from unprecedented.

Terrorism looms large in Thailand, and has done so since at least 2001. In 2015 alone, there have been multiple bombings in the country, from Southern Thailand, to Koh Samui, to Bangkok. What’s more, these bombings haven’t been attributed to only one group.

In addition to the global threat from terrorism from ISIS, a number of other highly prominent terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas, are rumoured to have a presence in Bangkok.

But the absence of any claim of responsibility is a strong indicator that the ‘usual’ international terror groups aren’t involved.

In southern Thailand, the Patani separatist movement has conducted a series of terror attacks over more than a decade. Hundreds of casualties, including insurgents as well as soldiers and civilians, have been reported each year. Bombings believed to be linked to the separatist movements occurred in Songkhla in 2005 (two killed, 60-plus injured), Hat Yai in 2006 (four killed, 80-plus injured), 10 bombs in South Thailand towns in February 2007 (seven killed, 23-plus injured) and seven more bombs in Songkhla in May 2007 (four killed, 36 injured), and a series of bombs in several towns again in 2012 (16 killed, 300-plus injured).

While the Patani separatist group are possible contenders, especially given the first attack was on a religious site, their activities have previously been limited to Thailand’s southern states.

On 10 July, The Thai government upset members of the Muslim Uighur community in Turkey and Thailand when it deported nearly 100 Uighur’s back to China, despite US condemnation. A number of human rights groups claim that the Uighur face certain persecution in China. In Turkey, the deportation sparked a number of violent protests. But although it’s hard to prove that anger with the Thai government could have led to such an attack, there’s a strong possibility.

In Bangkok, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or ‘Red Shirts’ have also been implicated in a number of terror-type incidents. In 2015, a bombing at a shopping centre in Bangkok (two injured) and a grenade attack at a car park (none injured) were attributed to Red Shirt supporters, with reports that many more attacks were planned.

Without any claim of responsibility and with so many potential motivations, until the Royal Thai Police can catch a suspect, it’s unlikely that we will know who or what was really responsible for the attack. In the meantime, public confidence in the Thai military government’s ability to maintain safety and security will continue to decline if there are any further attacks.

The Royal Thai Army launched a coup d’état in May 2014 to restore and maintain peace in the wake of an extended period of politically motivated violence that was crippling Thailand’s economy. While the domestic security situation remains unstable the likelihood that the military-led National Council for Peace and Order will reinstate the Thai constitution seems slim.

For Australia, Thailand is an important law enforcement and national security partner. Closer cooperation between the two countries in the area of counter-terrorism is critical to defeating any regional threat. While Australians continue to travel to Thailand they could be threatened by potential terror attacks. Australia should continue to offer vital support in the form of forensic specialists to the Thai investigation. This attack also brings into question the wisdom of successive government efficiency dividend cuts to the Australian Federal Police’s footprint in Thailand.

The Trans Pacific Partnership—the strategic dimension

11 August 2015

In Australia, we typically don’t consider trade relationships and trade agreements as contributing to national security. Yet, there’s an important strategic economic dimension. If two or more economies are prospering because all are able to trade competitively-priced products with each other, a common interest in the prosperity this creates and maintaining this open market emerges. This is the logic behind the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement.

The bigger the trade, the stronger the disincentive to let political disputes reach the point where military conflict ensues; a certain casualty of which would be disruption of trade and damage to economic growth. China’s determination to mark territory in the South China Sea is an interesting test case. The nations opposed to this are the same ones with which China wants to build closer economic relationships. Considering the balance of interests, one must assume the economic interest will prevail. Raising living standards is obviously more important to the survivability of the Chinese Government than seeking strategic objectives when there is no strategic threat.

Highly relevant to this is the emergence of mega free trade agreements among Asia–Pacific economies. The TPP is the first example. It was announced as a tool in a ‘new pivot’ of US interest in strengthening its strategic engagement in East Asia. This presumably helped sell the idea to a US Congress which has classically been sceptical about ‘free trade’. China was initially suspicious—if not somewhat hostile. The US also announced at the same time that it was strengthening its military presence in the Pacific. But when Japan joined the TPP negotiations, the new Chinese Government evidently saw a trade a grouping emerging which it wanted to join. Any nation for which trade is important becomes anxious if it sees other economies get freer access than it to the markets of others.

The TPP agreement is important to Australia because it:

Creates opportunities for Australia to increase agricultural exports;
Encourages Asian Pacific, particularly developing, economies to reduce controls on foreign investment and open services markets which will create important opportunities for Australian business; and
Lays the foundation later for a free trade agreement among all 21 APEC economies including the trade powerhouses of the US, Japan and China.

No one today is prepared to predict the path of the global economy. One of the long-standing orthodoxies broken by the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath is that foreign trade leads growth. Historically trade increased at about twice the rate of growth. This hasn’t been the case for three years.

One of the potential growth stimulants which a TPP, and subsequently larger Asian Pacific FTAs, could foster is removal of controls on foreign investment and opening services markets—finance, telecommunications, healthcare, tourism, education, professional services, transport, for example. Whereas services industries contribute around 80% of growth in industrialised economies, in developing economies in the Asia–Pacific region, they contribute between 40 and 60% of GDP. Access to these markets is restricted. They have to open if economic growth in Asian Pacific developing countries is to occur.

If this potential driver of growth were unlocked, Asia–Pacific economies would all benefit. China, as its new commitments in the FTA to reduce some barriers to service providers showed, and other developing countries, are recognising this.

The Free Trade Agreement with China had given a foretaste of what FTAs covering more Asia–Pacific economies, such as the TPP can offer. The TPP will provide new opportunities for growth and build an appetite for an FTA covering all members of APEC. With three of the world’s biggest economies in such an agreement (the US, China and Japan), this would cover 60% of world GDP.

Claims the TPP (and other Free Trade Agreements) will cause job losses, allow foreign investors to trample on Australian business, increase pharmaceutical costs, and distort intellectual property rights are either mischievously wrong or significant exaggerations.

Is the TPP stalled? Negotiators say not. A common view is that negotiations can run to the end of 2015 before the Congress turns its attention solely to the presidential election campaign. Also, the hold outs are currently Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand. All understand the US political system and what drives negotiations with the Administration. Finally, commentators point out the TPP would be a legacy of the Obama Administration. All this points to finalisation of this agreement before the end of 2015.

In the meantime, discussion continues inside APEC on how to construct the next building block on TTP, a Free Trade Agreement among all APEC economies. This is the inevitable ambition for the next decade.

The Future Frigate: power generation and emerging weapons systems

6 August 2015

With the Abbott government’s announcement of a new ship building program in Adelaide, there will be plenty of argument over the logic and strategic basis of the decision, on top of the ongoing domestic shipbuilding debate.

Indeed, it has already started. I agree with Andrew Davies and Mark Thomson that the decision is both bold and questionable in light of the continuing proliferation of precision and anti-access/ area-denial weapons in the Asia–Pacific region.

But outside of high-end, peer-to-peer conventional warfare, surface combatants have great utility and strategic value. In any case, it’s too early to understand the changing nature of naval warfare sufficiently to declare surface combatants completely obsolete. Assuming that surface combatants will still be essential elements of naval warfare in the coming decades, we need to apply critical thought to the capabilities we require from them.

I have posted previously about the coming shift in naval warfare and the need for future platform designs to take into consideration emerging technologies. These platforms will likely see many adaptions and changes over their service life, and it’s difficult to predict all the ways we will utilise them. We can be assured, however, of the importance of one design element that needs to be baked in from the start: power.

Power generation and storage will be critical for future naval warfare. The reason for this is the emergence of energy intensive weapons systems, such as lasers and rail guns. Lasers are already being tested in operational conditions, with impressive results. Many believe that lasers will present the best defence against swarming UAV attacks. Electro-magnetic rail guns haven’t yet progressed to that stage of testing, but they aren’t far off. The Joint High Speed Vessel USNS Millinocket will conduct sea trials with a 32 mega joule (MJ) railgun next year.

The promise of rail guns is significant. Rail guns use magnets built into their barrels to accelerate projectiles at speeds of up to Mach six to a range of 180 km. Taking up the same space as a 127 mm Mark 45 cannon (10 square meters), it’ll be capable of firing a 10kg projectile 100 nautical miles at a likely sustained rate of 4 to 5 rounds per minute (10–12 max per minute—about half the current rate of fire).

That round will have roughly the same kinetic energy as the current 127mm’s 32kg conventional explosive round, which has an effective range of 23 km. The Royal Australian Navy’s SM2 missile has a range comparable to the prototype rail gun, but they cost several hundred thousand dollars per round. The prototype rail gun round costs around $25,000.

The benefit is obvious. Currently the Royal Australian Navy has 127 mm Mark 45 Cannons on both the ANZAC-class frigates and the Hobart-class destroyers. Replacing them with a weapon of the same size will provide naval gunfire with the range and twice the speed of a missile, for the cost of an artillery shell. And that’s before we talk about the logistical and safety benefits of moving away from chemical propellants.

The problem with rail guns and lasers will be integration. Both require large amounts of power. The rail gun that will be tested on the USNS Millinocket will require 32 megawatts of power to operate. That’s about the power supply of Darwin and would almost max out the power generation of Australia’s new LHDs. While some new US naval platforms, such as the Zumwalt-class destroyer, can generate twice this power load, it’s something that must be designed and integrated from the start.

Advancing battery and other energy storage technologies may ease the retrofitting of these weapon systems in the future. But it will be difficult to make the most of the capability if it’s not a design requirement from the outset. There would also be additional offsets, such as batteries, taking up precious space onboard. Not to mention the costs and time in dry-dock to undertake the retrofit.

It’s impossible to know all the ways that technology will impact on a military platform through its service life. It’s highly likely that the design will need to include provision for various types of unmanned systems for instance, as well as increasingly sophisticated sensors. But these can be added or changed during the fit-out phase.

Energy intensive weapon systems, such as lasers and electro-magnetic rail guns, are on the verge of deployment and their requirements need to be considered from the start. So as we debate the needs and requirement of the new platforms, let’s take our lead from Jeremy Clarkson and make sure they have ‘more power’.

Crowded waters: naval competition in the Asia–Pacific and the ADF

2 July 2015

Claims that a destabilising ‘arms race’ is underway in the Asia–Pacific have become commonplace and are supported by reports that regional defence spending has surpassed Europe for the third consecutive year. As my ASPI report released today shows, the corollary of this situation is intensifying naval competition in the region. The implications for Australia and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are significant.

Decisions on arms acquisitions in the Asia–Pacific continue to be driven by a multitude of strategic rationales and domestic factors. The significant changes underway since 2008 raise questions regarding the primary motivation behind regional naval acquisitions, including their supporting air capabilities.

Maritime disputes between China and its neighbours have increased tensions and affected countries’ military modernisation programs. These tensions have driven the requirement for greater surveillance capabilities and signals intelligence systems as well as more surface combatants with longer endurance and platforms able to launch anti-ship missiles, submarines, and long-range aircraft.

These disputes occur in the context of heightened uncertainty about the future distribution of regional power, particularly between the US and China. Consequently, regional naval arms decisions are increasingly driven by ‘action–reaction’ dynamics—reciprocal dynamics in which developments in offensive and defensive capabilities become an interactive process in which the arms requirements of one party depend upon the known, assumed or anticipated capabilities of the forces of other parties; Those dynamics are manifested in counter-reaction (where one party responds to another’s capabilities) and mirror-reaction (where a party imitates another’s capabilities). In other words, these dynamics display some of the important characteristics of an arms race and show that the Asia–Pacific maritime zone is indeed becoming more contested, and potentially more volatile.

Obviously, there are regional differences between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. Naval ‘action–reaction’ dynamics are most clearly visible in Northeast Asia. It should be noted that a common argument (see for instance here) against the emergence of naval arms races or serious competition in Asia is that defence spending as a percentage of GDP remains rather modest in most countries. That’s also true for northeast Asian countries. However, this measure doesn’t take into account the real value amount, nor does it consider the sophistication or type of the defence equipment acquired by individual countries. Doing so paints a different picture, one that shows that China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are increasingly reacting to each other’s capabilities and modernisation efforts. US capabilities are a key factor in this equation as well.

The picture in Southeast Asia is more complex. The South China Sea has dominated strategic rationales for increasing capabilities, particularly submarines. Since 2012 the number of naval platforms in many countries decreased while military expenditure continued to climb, indicating substantial efforts to modernise and invest in fewer but more capable systems. Despite these efforts, Southeast Asian countries (with the exception of Singapore) haven’t yet worked out how to develop, operate and sustain sophisticated capabilities. Should the ADF deploy to Southeast Asia in the future, it could face more sophisticated capabilities.

While the ADF won’t lose its ‘capability edge’ in Southeast Asia in the medium term, in the short term investments in certain platforms increase the chance of a ‘lucky punch’. For instance, Indonesia is testing supersonic missiles from its frigates and putting Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles on fast attack craft. With rising economic growth, Southeast Asian countries will better address problems such as maintenance and logistics and increase their combat capability through improved situational awareness and better command and control systems.

The dynamics of regional naval modernisation indicate that the future security environment in the Western Pacific will only become more contested. Northeast Asia is already caught up in action–reaction dynamics. Maritime Southeast Asia might follow suit over time. Importantly, while not imminent, the ADF’s key tenet of being a technologically superior force in Southeast Asia will gradually be eroded, at least in certain capability areas.

The upcoming Defence White Paper will need to address how the ADF will modernise its own air and maritime capabilities in a neighbourhood that’s becoming more complex. It also means that we need to invest even more in building sustainable regional defence partnerships and further strengthening our US alliance.

Defence and climate change management

22 June 2015

In February 2015, President Barack Obama listed climate change alongside international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and infectious disease in a new national security strategy. The US National Security Strategy called climate change ‘an urgent and growing threat to our national security’.

A new report released today by the Centre for Policy Development suggests that climate change will be given only piecemeal consideration in this year’s Defence White Paper. If that’s right, then it’d be the first White Paper since the 2000 version not to canvass, with some degree of seriousness, the need for Defence to prepare for rapidly changing weather patterns.

Terrorism, the threat of ISIL and an assertive China now take the spotlight on a crowded national security dais. But as The Longest Conflict: Australia’s Climate Security Challenge makes clear, climate change is a unique type of threat. While countering terrorism was badged the ‘long war’, climate change is an inter-generational challenge: it requires a paradigm shift in thinking about what constitutes our strategic horizon.

The Longest Conflict’s key recommendations build on previous work by ASPI and others (PDF, p33–43). Chief amongst these are: the requirement that the 2015 White Paper sets out a climate security roadmap, develops a climate resilient ADF, and brings Defence into whole-of-government policy discussions on climate change.

There are two aspects of this new CPD report that we particularly liked. First, climate security need not be viewed in zero-sum terms: there are real strategic opportunities to be harnessed where everyone’s gains are maximised. There are, for example, opportunities to constructively engage our regional allies—including on a military-to-military level—that deepen security ties in a positive way around climate change, and in particular HADR.

Second, we also liked the focus on the Asia–Pacific. It’s a part of the world that’s extremely vulnerable to climate change, with rising sea-levels, storm surges, and other extreme weather events including bushfires, droughts, floods and mega-typhoons.

By 2030, there’ll be almost a billion people in low elevation coastal zones across the region. Climate change will displace people through floods, storms and rising sea levels, as well as food and water shortages. Bangladesh is the ‘ground zero’ of global warming, where rising sea levels could displace millions of people over coming decades.

But while some militaries are turning their attention to climate security, others aren’t. The recent Chinese White Paper, for example, doesn’t discuss the subject. Other big military players such as Russia, India and Pakistan also seem disinterested. For those states, and others too, there appears to be a view that spending to ensure that their armed forces are climate resilient won’t necessarily enhance their war fighting capabilities.

By contrast, the US recently convened a major defence, national security, and climate change symposium that set out many dimensions of national security, conflict and climate change.

The US army, for example, has embarked on a ‘net zero’ initiative to make its bases water-and energy-independent through green technology, and it’s conducting a review (PDF) to assess the vulnerability of its overseas bases to climate change.

The CPD report certainly raises the need for more detailed information of climate security risks. Here it’s worth noting that many of the risks confronting national security and Defence are preparedness risks that undermine what the ADF calls ‘fundamental inputs to capability’. They include military personnel, its ‘organisation’, collective training activities, major systems, supplies, facilities, support as well as ‘command and management’.

The current Force Posture Review, that’ll underpin this year’s White Paper, should consider the impacts of climate change on these matters. If the proposal to prepare a stand-alone climate strategy is a bridge too far for Defence, then the ADF might consider including it as one part of the forthcoming Defence Environmental Strategic Plan.

Although there have been pockets of activity, for the most part Defence has been playing catch up on climate change and its broader implications for national security. This new CPD report underscores the need to strengthen the current ADF Global Change and Energy Sustainability Initiative team to work on climate preparedness issues and appoint a senior ADF officer to act as a single strategic voice for climate change national security issues.

Such a move would be particularly timely in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this year, where delegates will attempt to reach a global deal on climate change.

Alliances, maturity and Asian strategic balances

17 June 2015

Geoffrey Barker has written an important couple of posts (here and here), arguing the case for a post-ANZUS defence policy for Australia. Important because, if he is right, and ANZUS has passed its use-by date, Australian policy settings face radical overhaul in the coming years. But is he right?

At the heart of Mr Barker’s argument lies a set of assumptions: that ANZUS belongs to the category of alliances that are more prone to collapse than endure; that grown-up states—‘mature states’, he calls them—should stand on their own two feet; and that the practical benefits of ANZUS are going down—and the risks of entanglement up—as relative power balances shift in Asia. I’d like to consider each of those positions in this post.

Let’s start with the issue of the use-by date. In the academic literature, Stephen Walt’s article ‘Why alliances endure or collapse’ argues that there are a variety of factors that help to explain alliance durability. In terms of Walt’s analytical framework, ANZUS doesn’t look like it’s about to collapse. Yes, changing threat perceptions colour the relationships between the alliance members, and yes, some issues of credibility flicker in the background. But it’s not an offensive alliance, it’s not aimed at any single adversary, and it’s not the subject of domestic political contention. Moreover, it’s part of a system of alliances that jointly contribute to global and regional security, and while that system endures we’re not about to pull it down. In short, if we were trying to determine whereabouts ANZUS might best fall on the durability spectrum, it would be more towards the ‘durable’ end than the ‘collapse’ end.

Secondly, the issue of maturity. If our alliance genuinely stands between us and a more mature foreign and strategic policy, Australians would be more inclined to set it aside. After all, we all want a sensible, mature strategic policy for Australia. But is ANZUS a barrier to a more independent, strong-willed and self-reliant Australia? I don’t think so. Alliances in general are not a refuge for the weak-willed and the immature. Any quick survey of the membership of US alliances worldwide would show that it’s typically the advanced states—like Britain, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea—that form the membership. That’s just sensible: the craven and faint of heart have little to offer potential alliance partners.

Of course, our data points about the merits of alliance membership aren’t just academic. We have close to hand a real-world case of whether alliance membership is a good or bad thing: was NZ’s strategic policy more mature after its expulsion from ANZUS arrangements in 1985? Or did it struggle harder for lower returns, snuggling closer to Canberra when Washington withdrew the security blanket? I think I’d want to see more convincing evidence of the gains from alliance non-membership before recommending it as a course of action.

Finally, is ANZUS of declining value to us as US relative power declines in Asia? Well, US relative power is going down as other powers rise, which would seem to portend a more uncertain strategic environment rather than a more certain one. For us to throw away a set of formal security assurances—true, not a guarantee—while power balances are shifting in Asia would seem to aggravate our own strategic problems, not solve them. We would still face that transformational Asia, but with fewer policy options than before and an ADF weakened by fewer connections to the US military. US relative power might be declining, but it will remain a major player in Asia for decades yet.

The key reason we support the US position in Asia, and do what we can to strengthen it, is not because we have an interest in following blindly the dominant Western power of the day. We are not inherently interested in protecting one great power’s national interests over another’s. Rather, we’re interested in a stable, prosperous, liberal regional order. So far, the US has been the only great power committed to designing and sustaining such an order in Asia. China’s only going to displace the US in Australian strategic thinking when it can prove that it is a better supporter of such an order than the US is. That time’s not close.

If we were to move into a post-ANZUS strategic policy, how would we best advance that broader strategic agenda? The costs to Australia would not be merely financial but strategic and reputational. We would be paying more for our defence, would be less well-positioned to pursue our regional ordering objectives, and would have soured our relationships with remaining US allies.

China responsible, lots at stake

8 June 2015

Remember a decade ago when the US appealed for China to be a responsible stakeholder?

Congratulations, Washington. Wish come true. China sure is responsible for a lot of things happening strategically and economically. And a lot is at stake.

When Robert Zoellick launched the stakeholder line in September 2005, the deputy US Secretary of State was arguing for Beijing to take more responsibility in the system that had delivered China so much:

For the United States and the world, the essential question is – how will China use its influence? To answer that question, it is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China’s membership into the international system: We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in that system. China has a responsibility to strengthen the international system that has enabled its success.

The core assumption was that China should be a stakeholder in the global system. And, lo, it’s happening, though not quite as Zoellick intended. So implicit as to be explicit was the Washington view that China would sign up to what the US had created.

Instead of settling for a stake in a US steak dinner, Beijing wants a meal better suited to chopsticks. Or maybe it’s a buffet. China gets to choose what it wants to take from the existing system and where it wants to push a different recipe. That’s why China is not a revisionist power. Instead it’s a ‘status quo-tidal power’ seeking both stability and a continued shift of the tide in Beijing’s favour.

Apply the responsible stakeholder matrix to another significant idea driving US (and Australian) policy towards China—engage and hedge.

The engage side is about economics and trade. The hedge is where the military play. What’s striking is how these two elements—engage and hedge—have diverged. Two concepts supposed to run in parallel are off in different universes; not parallel universes so much as opposed existences. That’s why the US effort to create a Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China is as much rebalancing strategy as trade policy.

Obama’s line that China is welcome to join TPP is good engagement speak. It’s also fantasy. Embracing the TPP would mean Beijing returning to the Zoellick vision of China doing due duty on behalf of the US system.

In the economic universe, China is the responsible stakeholder who loves the system so much it wants to buy an even greater share. And drive the system. And write new rules so the system works better. Buying and building a bigger stake is about improving the system so chopsticks are a natural utensil for any stakeholder to hold.

Some of what China is doing, though, is straight out of the Zoellick handbook. Take the slow, decade-long appreciation in the value of China’s currency. The IMF now judges that the yuan is ‘no longer undervalued’.

Hurrahs and hosannahs all round, surely, for such responsible behaviour. All that bombast and bluster from Washington about China’s unfair competitive advantage from its undervalued currency must have worked. What a stakeholder.

China is powering along with the effort to see the yuan become part of the IMF’s reserve currency basket. For the IMF, this is not a matter of if but when. Already, the yuan has become Asia’s most active currency for payments to China and Hong Kong. As part of the slow currency internationalisation, Beijing now has 30 currency swap arrangements with partners such as Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and New Zealand.

Beijing’s creation of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) is interesting stakeholder behaviour on many levels. Washington hated it; too much chopsticks, not enough steak. Perhaps, though, Zoellick should have spent more time selling his logic in Washington. The US Congress didn’t get the responsible stakeholder memo.

Visiting Hong Kong, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, says Beijing was pushed into launching the AIIB by the refusal of the US Congress to give China more clout in existing multilateral systems. Congress has blocked a 2010 IMF agreement to shift voting rights to acknowledge China’s growing role. Thus, says Bernanke, the ‘US Congress is largely at fault for all that’s happening.’

The same FT piece on Bernanke links to the recent comment by the former US Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, that Washington’s handling of the AIIB may be remembered as the moment the US ‘lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system.’

Summers’ is writing about a vital power that is not stepping up to its stakeholder responsibility—the US:

This failure of strategy and tactics was a long time coming, and it should lead to a comprehensive review of the US approach to global economics. With China’s economic size rivalling America’s and emerging markets accounting for at least half of world output, the global economic architecture needs substantial adjustment. Political pressures from all sides in the US have rendered it increasingly dysfunctional.

In the opposing universes of engage and hedge, the sky is a different colour. In the engage realm, China is the stakeholder who is picking up all sorts of responsibilities and buying lots of friends.

Travel to the hedging universe and alarms abound. Not much responsibility, and lots at stake.

In the stakeholder stakes in the South China Sea, China has staked out its stake and is staking a lot on holding everything it has staked.

China no longer has much stake in the US security system in Asia. Yet Beijing is responsible for many other stakeholders shifting towards the US. Almost everyone in the Asian system (apart from North Korea, Russia and Cambodia) has had a Beijing-induced epiphany along Zoellick lines.

Asia’s stakeholders have a much sharper understanding of what’s at stake. The strategic love lavished on the US in Asia no longer happens quietly, behind closed doors.

China has driven a change in the security mood, electrifying the hedging universe. You can debate the effectiveness or weight of the Obama rebalance. But measured by Asia’s response, the rebalance is great policy. The region just wants more rebalance and more reassurance. Thank China for driving home to everyone else in Asia, in the most direct and dramatic way, how much they have at stake.

China rises, China acts

3 June 2015

China is starting to give Asia a big case of initiative fatigue. Too many ideas, too much activism. As Simon and Garfunkel crooned, ‘slow down, you’re moving too fast!’

Xi Jinping confirms he’s the most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping by abandoning Deng’s central foreign policy advice. No more keeping a low profile and biding your time. China’s time is now. And doesn’t Asia know it.

China is offering up lots of cash to buy friends and build relationships—Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road, plus the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICs bank and the negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (everyone in but the US). Then there are the Asia-for-Asia-run-by-Asians ideas from Xi: the New Asian security concept and Asia Pacific dream. No prizes for picking the superpower that is excluded from that Asia dream.

All this feeds into the discussion of changing relativities and the flux in Asia’s balance of power. Much of the debate is about where China’s initiatives will lead and what China really wants.

As always in such discussions, turn to one of the great thinkers and writers about China’s history in Asia, Wang Gungwu.

Writing from Singapore, Wang notes that the problem confronting ASEAN is to form a realistic assessment of China’s intentions and America’s resolve.

In considering the Beijing intention side of that equation, Wang thinks, as he always does, of the long sweep of China’s history:

China’s key problem is how to convince its neighbours that it has no intention to move from being assertive to being aggressive. It does not seek to replace American with Chinese dominance. Its national interest lies in creating an environment in which China will not be feared as a superpower but respected for its wealth and creativity, necessary conditions for a modern civilisation.

The Asian interest, Wang says, is in a China that succeeds. And that means China as the Asia superpower. A significant judgement from Wang Gungwu is that China will be a different sort of beast, aspiring to its natural role as a civilisational superpower. The Chinese White Paper proclaims the ambition for a blue water navy, yet Wang believes Chinese habits of mind will pull in other directions. The British or US model of the naval superpower, he thinks, is not a natural fit for China:

If China is prosperous and strong, it will be a superpower in Asia. It is not in the region’s interest to try to prevent China from being that. But there is no reason to believe that the Chinese will copy the British and the Americans and try to build a superpower based on naval might to maximise their global dominance. This kind of concept is absent from the Chinese heritage. Zheng He’s [15^th Century] voyages were an aberration in China’s maritime history. The voyages showed capacity but no ambitions to dominate the seas or build maritime empires. The voyages were stopped when they proved that there were no enemies that threatened China from the seas. The imperial court’s decision to destroy the navy was an action consistent with China’s heritage, not the voyages before that. China’s history thus suggests that it seeks to be a power founded on economic wealth and technological brilliance – the factors which made its civilisation admired for millennia.

Economic wealth and technological wealth is a great place to start, but a central problem for China as leader is to get enough followers. In the followship stakes, China has to convince Southeast Asia. ASEAN should be a natural part of China’s realm. Beijing’s confidence in its power, as expressed in its multiple initiatives, is that the followers will have to fall in behind.

ASEAN has become a key target for China’s assertiveness—a point made at the Asia Pacific Roundtable in Kuala Lumpur, by Aileen Baviera, from the Asia Centre at Philippines University:

China’s vision is clear, and part of its realist assumptions is that, being a big power in its part of the world, it will not encounter much resistance from smaller states in its periphery. Even in instances where the pursuit of its economic sovereignty and security goals bring it into conflict with other states, China believes it has the means to prevail…a belief that, after all the screaming and kicking that may take place from those who have difficulty adjusting to a new environment where China will have become the dominant power, states will eventually get used to it. Countries care most about economic welfare, it is argued, and for as long as cooperation with China can offer material benefits, threat perceptions can be mitigated.

Baviera makes the point that the region understands—but China seeks to ignore—that Beijing’s assertiveness and coercive behaviour saps its ability to build strategic trust with not only the Philippines and Malaysia, but also Indonesia and Singapore.

A China that’s a cause of conflict rather than a security provider will tear at ASEAN. I would argue that the US has long demonstrated its acceptance of the language and the forms of ASEAN’s proclaimed neutrality. And the US has shown it can live with ASEAN’s understanding of its own centrality.

The new China is going to different places and is asking harder questions of the region. Baviera poses those questions in sharp terms:

Will the broader Asian security architecture envisioned by China not diminish the relevance of ASEAN itself and spell the end of ASEAN centrality? Given the current security situation in the seas of East Asia, will China’s continued military buildup not spur a full-blown regional arms race and turn a relatively peaceful and stable region into one with high risk of armed conflict?

Great questions with no firm answers. Asia can live with lots of multilateral initiatives from China. It’s the power for unilateral actions where the nightmares lurk.