Tag Archive for: North of 26° south

The defence of (northern) Australia—then and now

Once governments have decided that their defence policies will focus on the defence of Australia, two conclusions immediately follow. First, priorities for the development of the Australian Defence Force will have a strong maritime dimension. Second, because of the nature of Australia’s strategic geography, there will necessarily be a focus on operations in or from the north of the country.

Such considerations set the framework for an extensive series of studies, starting in the 1970s, to work out the consequences of this central policy choice in more detail. There was also guidance from the key strategic observation of the time: in the shorter term, only lesser contingencies were credible, and more serious contingencies were credible only in the longer term, after years of warning.

The work included conceptual studies focused on the problem of defending Australia carried out by the Defence Department’s central policy areas, and some more technology-oriented studies conducted by the Defence Science and Technology Group. This program of analysis encountered terra incognita in both senses: such work had not been attempted since before World War II, so there was a distinct conceptual vacuum, and, in Canberra at least, there was precious little understanding of what there was ‘up north’.

Some important decisions ensued, and here are some examples. The government decided (in 1984) to develop the bare-base airfield at Tindal (near Katherine in the Northern Territory) into an operational base for a squadron of F/A-18 Hornets. The experimental Jindalee over-the-horizon radar was set up close to Alice Springs, with its surveillance arc looking north.

The army established a set of Regional Force Surveillance Units, including the Darwin-based NORFORCE (North-West Mobile Force), which drew on the detailed local knowledge of members of the army reserve. Other bases were to be modernised or developed (the patrol boat base in Darwin, and additional bare airfields), and there was a growing recognition of the vulnerability of ports to mine-laying (such as Darwin and the ore-exporting ports), and therefore of the importance of mine countermeasures.

Interpreting strategic guidance for priorities for Australia’s maritime capabilities was relatively straightforward. But there was no such convergence of views with respect to the army. To resolve the impasse, the government appointed Paul Dibb to conduct a review of Australia’s defence capabilities. The review dismissed the army’s arguments that gave priority to more substantial conflict (in particular, its plans for mechanisation).

In contrast, it gave priority to an army capable of countering a protracted campaign of dispersed raids across the north of Australia (while also allowing for modest capabilities in the expansion base against the remote prospect of a conventional land battle in Australia). It argued strongly for elements of the regular army to be based in the north, and for the establishment of the Northern Command (NORCOM) in Darwin. A specific role for the army would be the formidable task of protecting the bases from which maritime operations would be conducted.

The subsequent 1987 defence white paper (and later decisions) built on Dibb’s recommendations. Examples include the basing of the army’s 1st Brigade in Darwin (but with one of its battalions now based in Adelaide), the establishment of NORCOM, and the continued development of northern air bases and training grounds. The success of the experimental Jindalee radar led to the full-scale development of the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN, based in Laverton, Western Australia; Longreach, Queensland; and Alice Springs, Northern Territory), with a primary focus on the surveillance of Australia’s northern approaches and Darwin.

In short, the decades since the 1970s have seen an impressive level of investment in the ability of the ADF to conduct operations in and to Australia’s north. Yet there have been times when that focus has become blurred. Earlier this century, with ADF deployments to Afghanistan and the Middle East, it became fashionable in some quarters to talk about the return to an ADF designed for distant expeditionary warfare, and to be dismissive of ‘defence of Australia’ policies. In any event, the effort required to support the conduct of operations, both closer to home and further afield, led to less attention being paid to the defence of Australia’s own north. The overall significance of that neglect has been amplified in more recent times by the deterioration in Australia’s strategic environment.

In the 1970s, a fundamental conclusion was that there would be many years of warning before a potential adversary could develop the capabilities necessary for serious conflict with Australia. This situation has now changed, and will change further. In particular, with the economic growth of China and the expansion and modernisation of its armed forces, the warning time for more intense and technologically sophisticated conflict has shortened. This is not to paint China as necessarily our adversary, but it does increase significantly the challenges of strategic risk management, as Dibb and I have discussed. That has consequences for the readiness, sustainability and even structure of the ADF, and other parts of the national defence effort such as intelligence, science and industry.

What does it all mean for Australia’s north? Several matters require attention, all of them obvious and in some cases already recognised elsewhere. Bases in the north need to be modernised, including for the storage of advanced munitions. We need to recognise the likely demands of intensive operations in the Indo-Pacific, including strike operations, and the possible conduct of joint operations with such countries as Indonesia and India as well as with the US.

Serious consideration should be given to hardening to mitigate the risks associated with increasing regional strike capabilities. Fuel supplies, especially for sustained operations from northern bases, need to be highly reliable. Staffing arrangements for JORN (and other surveillance capabilities) need to be capable of sustained round-the-clock operations. Plans for mine countermeasures, including the use of the reserves, should be dusted off.

Similarly, plans for the use of the army to defend northern bases, again including the use of reserves, should be reviewed (among other things, the potential levels of threat will be higher now than in the 1980s). We also need more clarity on how the ADF would draw on the civilian infrastructure (much improved since the days of the 1970s studies), and on the relationship between military and civilian authorities in the event of contingencies.

There is now much to be done. While there is no cause for panic, it would be a serious breach of faith to be complacent in the face of such a call for action.

North of 26° south and the security of Australia

In terms of Australia’s first, and primary, strategic defence objective—‘to deter, deny and defeat any attempt by a hostile country or non-state actor to attack, threaten or coerce Australia’—it seems that Paul Dibb’s 1986 review of defence capabilities was prophetic. Dibb’s assessment is as accurate now as it was 32 years ago: ‘There are risks inherent in our strategic environment that could pose difficult problems for the nation’s defence.’

Today, however, the time frame for change is much shorter. Over the past three decades, many of the factors that have shaped the assumptions of our ‘defence of Australia’ strategies have changed substantially, and often deteriorated.

In 1986, Australia was a long way from the global conflicts of the day. Of course, Russia made efforts to bring superpower competition to our region—with its presence in the Pacific and Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam—but failed. The Cold War between Russia and the US also fostered a comforting alliance of necessity between China and the West that lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Australia now finds competition and potentially conflict far closer to home, especially in the South China Sea.

While Russia was declining, China was rising. In 1990, China’s GDP was estimated at US$390 billion; in 2016, it was more than 30 times that amount (US$11,779 billion). In 1989, less than 5% of Australia’s exports were destined for China. By 2015, the proportion had grown to almost 30%, making China our number one trading partner.

With its new-found wealth, China has been investing widely in its Belt and Road Initiative, creating new levels of maritime, air and land connectivity. All the while, it has been increasing, and very often asserting, its influence across the Asia–Pacific and Indo-Pacific.

Over the past decade, the defence technology advantages in the region that Australia once enjoyed have rapidly eroded. China continues to reform, build and modernise its military, and it isn’t the only one in our region doing so. Chinese efforts have also been backed by an ambitious research and development program.

Australia’s north has changed, too. In 1986, the Northern Territory had a population of 155,000; today it’s 247,000. Northern Australia’s contribution to our economy is also rising. It is a major exporter of commodities ranging from gold to gas. According to Deloitte Access Economics, northern jurisdictions will account for nearly 42% of the Australian economy by 2040, up from 35% in 2011. The Northern Territory’s LNG projects alone supply more than 10% of Japan’s annual global gas imports. Arguably, infrastructure investment in the north hasn’t always kept pace with this growth, which could in time affect future growth opportunities and national security.

The emphasis on ‘self-reliance’ in the 1987 defence white paper likely reflected the author’s wariness of abandonment by our key allies. The UK’s military withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1967, US President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Guam Doctrine and the fall of South Vietnam loomed as large in defence strategists’ minds then as the likely impacts of the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ policy do today. Although the Australian Defence Force’s presence in the north has increased, and further investments were foreshadowed in the 2016 defence white paper, the less favourable strategic circumstances still require new thinking.

Traditional national security threats have intensified over recent years and non-traditional ones have broadened. Transnational serious and organised crime in the maritime domain (including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; piracy; and trafficking of weapons, drugs and people), terrorism and an increasingly assertive Chinese maritime strategy are generating further security complexity.

In the 1980s, official strategic guidance indicated that our defence planners would have ‘at least 10 years’ warning of a substantial military threat’. That’s clearly no longer the case. The 2016 defence white paper set a firm foundation for developing Australia’s future defence capabilities; however, its projections of our strategic circumstances now look like wishful thinking. In 2019, Australia’s strategic outlook appears to be far more uncertain and susceptible to rapid changes with short warning.

Northern Australia’s dispersed critical infrastructure and primary resources remain vulnerable to traditional and non-traditional national security threats. Modern weapon systems put these resources within striking distance of conventional weapons, and they’re also susceptible to hybrid warfare strategies like that used by Russia in Ukraine.

While Australia has a long-term defence capability plan, we need to continue to test our assumptions about the defence of northern Australia and the north’s significance to national security.

In response to these changes, and with the support of the Northern Territory government, ASPI is establishing its latest research program, ‘The north and Australia’s security’. The program will provide a sustained research focus on the security of Australia’s north and the north’s critical role in contributing to the broader security of Australia. The program will concentrate on:

  • maintaining a strong public policy focus on the role of the north in the broader security of Australia at a time when strategic circumstances are driving new policy thinking in Canberra
  • developing a modernised way of thinking about the north and security by updating strategic frameworks that remain anchored in the 1980s ‘defence of Australia’ context
  • situating the north in a broader discussion about national security interests beyond defence—encompassing home affairs, border security and customs, space, cybersecurity, humanitarian and disaster response, biosecurity and energy security.