Tag Archive for: AUSMIN

HADR—time to lift our game?

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RIMPAC 2014At a time the Royal Australian Air Force is busy delivering humanitarian aid and military stores to communities under threat from Islamic State militants, a Chinese Navy medical assistance voyage to help some of our South Pacific neighbours calls for a quick look at how well we’re conducting military humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) close to home as well as further afield.

The People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) launched its first modern hospital ship, the Peace Ark, in 2007, five years before it commissioned its first aircraft carrier, partly because doing so was technically easier, but also because it offers a powerful tool for international engagement. Five times smaller than its US Navy equivalent, the USS Mercy class—which was designed first and foremost to provide global support for major combat operations such as the First Gulf War—the Peace Ark is sometimes referred to as a humanitarian ship, given its primary soft-power mission.

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The future of the US–Australia strategic relationship

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AUSMIN 2014With the annual Australia–US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) recently concluded in Sydney, it’s a good time to reassess the broader Australian–US strategic relationship. I want to frame that assessment here by employing a SWOT analysis. The methodology is clunky but simple enough to allow a set of insights about the relationship’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I’ve allowed myself three of each, as follows.

Three strengths: familial closeness, shared grand strategies, a solid foundation. First, closeness. The Anglosphere’s our international family, and while it’s easy to mock the importance of belonging to an international family, states that don’t belong to one (like Japan) would beg to differ. Ties of blood and culture run deep. Second, grand strategy: the best long-term allies are those who essentially want the same thing. In grand strategy, Washington and Canberra both want a stable, liberal, prosperous global order. And that’s a good basis for long-term cooperation—because the tie isn’t just of blood but of interest. Third, the foundation: we both enjoy an alliance that’s over 60 years old and is as close today as it’s ever been. Both allies are still looking for new ways to cooperate in order to make the alliance more relevant to the 21st century. Read more

AUSMIN: Happy talk?

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Image courtesy of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au

A glance at the AUSMIN 2012 communiqué reveals an obvious but important point: the alliance actually does stuff. It has moving parts and decisions lead to real actions, such as cooperation between military forces. Our strategic engagement with the US is built on a substantive and substantial defence and intelligence relationship which has got busier in recent years. Even in what is branded a year of consolidation after 2011’s pivot, new layers of cooperation were added in 2012, with the announcement of a C-band radar being relocated from Antigua to Exmouth in Western Australia.

The radar will be the first low-earth orbit space surveillance network sensor in the southern hemisphere. A Pentagon media release rather dryly notes that the ‘C-Band radar can also significantly contribute to tracking high-interest space launches from Asia.’ This multi-million dollar decision will grow US-Australian cooperation on space matters at a time when space is becoming more and more critical to global security.

On this point alone, we might have expected Australian ministers to be spruiking the delivery of yet more tangible cooperation with the US. Not a bit of it. The post AUSMIN media conference was an amusing combo of muted Australian understatement and American enthusiasm. Bob Carr opened with: ‘AUSMIN concluded its meeting today very much in a spirit of business as usual, steady as she goes, no new strategic content or announcements but a matter of consolidation.’ Hillary Clinton countered with: ‘[b]ut if you look at what we’re doing, and Minister Carr gave a brief overview, it’s quite extensive’. Read more

Trunk call for AUSMIN

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Image courtesy of Flickr user Thomas Hawk.When US officials of the calibre of Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Locklear and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell say they are worried about Australian defence spending, you can take it as read that they are putting views shared with their bosses, Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton. It’s puzzling that Stephen Smith has so quickly dismissed their comments by saying [here and here] that there’s no American concern about Australian defence spending because he hasn’t heard that personally from Panetta. With AUSMIN to be held in Perth this Wednesday, Mr Smith may need to revise his talking points.

Based on recent visits to the US, I can confirm that a wide range of current and previous administration officials—and others watching the relationship—are worried about Australian policy. Americans are dismayed that there has been such a quick reversal of Australian defence spending plans from 2009 to now. They worry about Australian commentary saying we should distance ourselves from the US in order to get closer to China and are concerned that the Asian Century White Paper, with its cursory treatment of the US, is a big step in that direction. Although they may not bluntly say so, many of the Americans knowledgeable about Australia think that we are ‘off the reservation’ on strategic policy right now. Read more