Peter Dean and Ken Gleiman’s recent paper Beyond 2017: the Australian Defence Force and amphibious warfare is undoubtedly timely: first, because policy that will shape important decisions to be made within the ADF is expected in the form of the Defence White Paper; and second, due to the amphibious capability approaching operational certification. Also welcome are contributions here on The Strategist by Albert Palazzo and Michael Clifford. Fundamentally, both argue that policymakers must decide what the amphibious capability should look like. Equally, they allude to the implicit uncertainty with regards to the way in which the ADF will ultimately operate the big ships.

Despite the often chaotic, perhaps even emotional, debate on amphibious capability, we all know that a government or ADF decision on amphibious capability represents no boundary to its actual use. Furthermore, the assumption that we can be definitive about it belies the actual challenges that the ADF will face in integrating training, personnel requirements, equipment and other factors that will emerge after the capability is declared operational and lessons are learned from its actual use. This isn’t an especially unique problem facing the amphibious capability, but is echoed in other programs such as Army’s modernisation of its command and control systems under ‘digitisation’.

That there’s so much debate on the capability today reveals how challenging it’s been for the ADF, if not commentators, to rationalise its direction, let alone to coherently enunciate Australia’s approach to the execution of maritime strategy. To avoid treating this capability ‘skin deep’ we need a sense of military history and a prediction of strategic requirements, and we need to properly amalgamate strategic policy, adapt doctrine and concepts and appreciate what’s practically achievable, all while being mindful of funding and time constraints. Even with those factors at the forefront, it’s still too much to expect senior military leaders to have the prescience to correctly foresee Australia’s future conflicts and contingencies. As readers of The Strategist know too well, we can’t predict the future.

In a more practical sense, the best outcome for the capability as a consequence of these decisions is one in which meaningful capital investment eventuates to support functions such as land logistics, aviation, littoral watercraft and other elements often forgotten in arguments fixated upon ships and the work of the 2nd Battalion at the capability’s core. However it seems more likely, given the current policy environment and resource constraints, that the ADF will only credibly achieve an amphibious capability that can logistically sustain and execute relatively small commitments at the lower end of the conflict spectrum. In a debate prone to ‘faddism’ that routinely overshoots what’s practicably deliverable given existing means, it’s imperative that when it comes to capability development that the basics aren’t overlooked for want of more ‘icing’ on the ‘cake’.

But this isn’t to say that the ADF shouldn’t do the best it can to prepare for the biggest challenges it may face; combat intensive amphibious warfare against a capable adversary. Preparing for even the most unlikely scenarios is a fair expectation of anyone to have of a credible military force—even if resources aren’t forthcoming. Nor should we excuse the government for its part in defining key strategic requirements that drive capability choices in Defence. However it does suggest that it will be important for the ADF to plan, develop, train and exploit opportunities and understand constraints of what’s actually possible and practically achievable with what’s on hand. After all, the only thing military leaders will have real control over when Government asks the ADF to respond to a crisis is an enunciation of what the amphibious capabilities’ limits are, and what operational options might be possible at that point of time.

Whatever the next Defence White Paper states, and whatever the leaders of the ADF decide upon as a consequence, I argue we are really at the beginning of uncovering the practical usefulness of a modernised 21st century amphibious capability. Integrating the capability into the ADF will largely be a voyage into the unknown—it will expose numerous capability gaps and limitations in the joint force as Beyond 2017 alludes to. Quite clearly this means we must be pragmatic when it comes to the expectations we might have, if not the actual potential, of this capability.

Government and policymakers have major, costly commitments to make to empower the ADF to develop the amphibious capability to its full potential. In turn, ADF leaders must also articulate clearly their own intentions; an obligation now well due given the near two decades of trialling and experimentation, and a number of major regional expeditionary operations that can inform them. But it’s likely to be the practical experiences of coming years that will prove to be the most vital factor in establishing confidence in the ADF’s amphibious capabilities and determining what is operationally achievable—irrespective of whatever choices are made in 2017. The real challenge for the amphibious capability is yet to come as we move from the mud of strategic decision making, into the potential quicksand of actual manifested capability generation.

Tony Abbott today set the course for future government policy on naval shipbuilding in Australia. In his speech to ASPI’s Future Force Structure Options for Army Conference, the Prime Minister committed the government to a continuous build program for the next generation RAN frigates:

It is the government’s intention to develop a continuous build of major surface warships here in Australia to avoid the unproductive on-again, off-again cycle that has done this industry so much damage.

He took the opportunity to flag policy announcements over the coming weeks on naval warship construction. The competitive evaluation process (CEP) for the next generation submarines is due to be completed by late-November 2015, with three contenders in Japan, Germany and France vying for the contract worth up to $50 billion.

Conspicuously, while the Prime Minister spoke of the CEP for the future submarine project, he gave no comfort to those who favour a wholly local build for the boats.

It is certainly not necessary or practical that all our defence equipment be made here in Australia but it is necessary that it be sustainable in Australia.

That said, our preference will always be for local build where world class equipment can be obtained at a reasonable price in a way that doesn’t limit interoperability with our allies.

Mr Abbott said there would be work on combat systems for the new boats as well as long-term sustainment work in Adelaide. The forthcoming Defence White Paper is expected to confirm that at least eight next generation boats will be ordered.

Obviously, we want to maximise Australian involvement in its build, including work on combat systems integration, and this will result in the creation of at least 500 new highly skilled jobs.

While the Prime Minister expressed reservations about ‘very significant cost blowouts and very significant delays’ in the air warfare destroyer program, he cited the ANZAC frigate program and Austal’s work for the US Navy in support for the government’s continuous build strategy.

The government’s shipbuilding plan is expected sometime in July, and will set the direction for construction of the RAN’s future frigates. Decisions involving the future ownership of Adelaide-based ASC are also expected in the coming weeks. ASC will remain the hub of naval construction in Australia.

The Prime Minister also used the occasion to re-commit the government to raising defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2024:

At a time when the armed forces of like-minded nations are facing cuts, Australia is boosting defence spending to almost $32 billion next year and $132 billion over the forward estimates.

That is an increase of almost $10 billion compared with the four-year estimates announced in last year’s Budget.

Mr Abbott promised that the forthcoming Defence White Paper wouldn’t be ‘an unfunded wish list,’ but rather that ‘it will be a costed, sustainable, long-term plan’:

We’ve listened to the experts from defence, from our intelligence services, from industry, academia, think tanks and broader government. 

All the big projects and programmes in the portfolio have been assessed by industry analysts. 

For the first time, there has been an externally validated assessment of defence costs so that we can be more confident that defence spending is finally value for money.

The Prime Minister said the upcoming White Paper, together with the Defence Investment Plan, Defence Industry Policy Statement, and the Naval Shipbuilding Plan would determine the shape of the future army, navy and air force with a sharp focus on interoperability:

…succeeding in the future will depend on more than high-end capabilities.

It’s the integration and the sharing of information between platforms and systems that will make our armed forces truly interoperable and allow us to maintain an edge in our region.

Properly knitted together, these capabilities will be more than the sum of their parts and will ensure a more mobile, agile, adaptable, and potent Australian Defence Force.

Mr Abbott said the ADF should not only be capable of mounting independent combat operations anywhere close to home but able contribute to coalition military operations around the globe: ‘We owe it to those in uniform, we owe it to our country and to our citizens, we owe it to the wider world in which we are a force for good to ensure that our armed forces are becoming more potent and more capable all the time.’

The adjectives applied by the government to describe the forthcoming Defence White Paper and its accompanying plan for the ADF include ‘fully costed’, ‘externally assured’, ‘achievable’, ‘affordable’, ‘credible’, ‘realistic’, ‘properly funded’ and ‘enduring’. This is all well and good. But if the new White Paper is to ‘restore the compact that should rightly exist between the Government and its Defence Force’—as the Minister has said—there’ll need to be another adjective put on the list: ‘transparent.’ If the government wants to be taken seriously when it claims that its plan is ‘credible, affordable and properly funded’, it’ll have to show us the money.

To varying extents, past White Papers have tried to do so. Without doubt, the Howard government’s 2000 effort is the gold standard. It provided a decade’s worth of overall funding guidance in the document, and backed it up with a detailed breakdown of new funding over the decade in the subsequent budget. The 2009 White Paper provided far less information and the 2013 document did even less. All we got was a single figure in the budget for the six years of funding following the four-year forward estimates period. The difference between the 2000 White Paper and its successors is easy to understand. The 2000 document had an important story to tell, whereas its successors had a lot to hide.

The argument within official circles (that I’ve been regaled with many times over the years) will be that funding transparency is undesirable because it limits the government’s flexibility. Flexibility, in this context, is the ability to claim to be doing something while not actually doing it. But if the Abbott government is fair-dinkum about having an ‘affordable and long-term plan that aligns strategy, capability, and resources’, it’s time to put the money on the table.

There are two reasons why the government should be eager to be transparent about its defence funding plans. First, transparency would allow them to put the ‘2% of GDP’ issue back in the box once and for all. Disclose a funding envelope today that hits 2% of GDP in 2023-24 and be done with it. Otherwise, they could find themselves chasing their tails trying to adjust to the vagaries of the movable feast that’s nominal GDP as the economy waxes and wanes. Second, it would provide political momentum to defence funding that a future non-Coalition government would find more difficult than otherwise to overcome.

So when the government releases its ‘vision for Australia’s defence strategy over the next two decades in the new Defence White Paper’, here’s what it needs to do to justify the growing list of adjectives being applied to the document:

• The White Paper should include a two-decade long funding envelope (see page 122 of the 2000 White Paper to see a decade-long version), divided between personnel, capital and operating costs. The division between the three costs will allow a back of the envelope assessment of the internal feasibility of the plan.
• Update the funding envelope each year in the Budget for changes to foreign exchange, inflation, new budget measures and funding shifts between years.
• Provide a decade-long Defence Capability Plan (DCP) with dates for first- and second-pass approval and funding bands for each project. And I don’t mean the ridiculously fuzzy information we’ve been served up in recent times, but something more like the crisp transparency that the Howard government delivered back in its 2001 DCP.

Nothing I’ve suggested would compromise national security or the Commonwealth’s commercial position, but it would allow the government to be held accountable for its promises.

The Howard government wasn’t afraid of being held to account, let’s hope the Abbott government isn’t either.

The Abbott government is hard at work burying the 2013 Defence White Paper as it prepares a new version to be released next year. Because of the way my mind works, I carried a copy of the Labor White Paper with me to the ASPI Submarine Choice conference. Listening to the defence minister (PDF) while writing the post that went up yesterday, I turned to the shortest chapter in that 2013 policy.

Chapter seven, ‘Defence Budget and Finances’, needs only one and a half pages to make the money statements in 17 terse paragraphs. The third and final page of the chapter has only three words—Page Intentionally Blank.

The beauty of the Intentionally Blank page—as joke or Delphic editorial comment—is that it allows the reader to insert almost any punch line. Overhauling the 2013 White Paper to produce a 2015 version, the Abbott government can scribble happily in that blank space. Read more