Today’s Defence White Paper has everything in it but a sound military strategy by which Australia can secure its national interests and international aspirations.
Julia Gillard unveiled the white paper in Canberra this morning. There is sound analysis of the strategic environment, making clear that the most important factor in the “Indo-Pacific” will be managing tensions as China and the US move into a period of strategic competition. There are some prudent spending decisions. The Growler electronic attack aircraft provide a powerful capability that helps to bridge the gap until the Joint Strike Fighter can be delivered. The navy’s ageing replenishment ships and cracking Armidale patrol boats will be replaced sooner than expected. And the Pacific patrol boat program, a key plank in Australia’s engagement with South Pacific neighbours, will be renewed rather than scrapped.
There are also some tough decisions which have been delayed. After three years, the government is no closer to deciding how to replace the army’s multitude of fighting vehicles. And despite thousands of pages of study and years of development analysis, no tough decision on the future submarine project has been made — beyond deciding to build it in South Australia.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith outlined that the life of the Collins submarine could be extended an additional 13 years to 2038. That means those navy officer cadets flanking the Prime Minister this morning will probably retire before the first new submarine hits the water.
As expected, the White Paper focuses on defence diplomacy to manage the region’s rising tensions. The thinking behind this is that the more militaries know each other, the less likely they are to go to war. And so there is much talk of humanitarian and disaster relief exercises, joint postings, and security agreements and forums.
“Both political parties acknowledge openly that they are underfunding Defence by almost $7.6 billion.”
But there is surprisingly little detail about how this enhanced defence diplomacy will be achieved. On Indonesia, the country looming as Australia’s most important security partner after the US, there is very little detail in this White Paper. How will the government pursue closer security partnerships with Indonesia? What opportunities are there for the ADF as the Indonesian military grows and modernises? What common challenges do our two countries face and what specific initiatives will the Australian government pursue? Much of this is still left to the imagination.
So too, the Defence White Paper is largely quiet on the future direction of Australia’s military integration with the US. Beyond vague and restated commitments to consider future naval force posture options with the US, and a summary of announcements made at last year’s AUSMIN talks, there is little to show what the government’s detailed thinking is on pursuing closer integration with the US. We already have senior Australian Defence staff in leadership positions within the US Pacific Command, and have recently embedded a Royal Australian Navy ship within the US seventh fleet. An Australian general is leading US military exercises in South Korea. Do all of these developments make us more or less dependant on the US military — and what is the opportunity cost for our other defence relationships in the Indo-Pacific?
On Defence funding, a measly 700 words in this 132-page policy document. The Defence Minister is right, there has been “an outbreak of bipartisanship” on defence spending — an unspoken truce between Liberal and Labor as both promise no more than that they will aspire to lift defence spending to 2% of GDP.
Think about what that means; both political parties acknowledge openly that they are underfunding Defence by almost $7.6 billion. The consequences of underfunding health or education by that amount would be difficult to hide, unions and interest groups would be vocal and the detail would be known. But the Defence policy space is far more murky, and this White Paper does little to explain what it is that the Australian Defence Force can’t do and what risk we are carrying because funding remains short.
There is no more important area of the government’s responsibility than Defence, the Prime Minister said today. But barely five minutes into the launch of the White Paper the Prime Minister was back to tweeting about the NDIS.
* James Brown is the Military Fellow at the Lowy Institute and tweets at @captainbrown
A public defence White Paper describing what we can’t do? I don’t think so.
Who are our supposed enemies out there; is it China, Indonesia, or India?
Given our involvement as a servile partner with our so called best-est friend the U.S. in their wars with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Australians have suffered a lot of death and injuries.
Can anyone please tell whether or not our real enemy is our so called best-est friend the U.S. Who knows we may have to choose one day or lose out on trade $$$$ with some of our supposed enemies – what then?
James, the blunt fact is that this government knows little of the relationship between its foreign and its defence policy and, one suspects, cares even less. The conceptual confusion is most apparent in the 180 degree turn over China from the last White Paper when the PM was a Mandarin speaker who, in the words of a former diplomat, knew Chinese but not the Chinese.
As you rightly point out the White Paper is short on detail about Indonesia. Again, ignorance is the most likely explanation. The decline in the study of the Indonesian language in Australian schools is symptomatic of our attitude. Ask most Australians about Indonesia and they will tell you of their holiday in Bali. That it has the world’s 4th or 5th largest nation by population, is the biggest Muslim nation by far, and is as important to us as the EU, the US, Japan and China is something outside Canberra’s radar judging by the importance not only this White Paper accords it, but decades of neglect that precede it.
The government clearly sees attaching itself to the US apron strings as the core of its “defence” policy. No acknowledgment here of the consequences of that blind loyalty and/or stupidity that lead us into Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and now it seems as part of the US full spectrum dominance policy in being a party to Obama’s so-called ‘Asia pivot’, better known as the continuing encirclement of China. To that one might add the profound suspicion that Australian SAS troops are in Africa! Don’t recall that being mentioned let alone debated in the House.
If one thinks that a Coalition foreign/defence policy will be better informed, more subtle and actually reflect Australia’s long term vital interests then post 14 September is going to be a rude awakening.
Yes, to the above and as Malcolm Fraser and the former Canadian Defence minister pointed out very recently, you can’t score “brownie points with the USA by being a yes man to them or their need to go to war”
Malcom Fraser also pointed out that it has been known since prior to Vietnam and it continues to be so, USA would/will back Indonesia over Australia in any situation.
This was all discussed in relation to how Australia became involved in the illegal invasion of Iraq. one man alone, John Howards decision!
I’m surprised you would expect to find the sort of details you are talking about in what is a high level white paper. Surely it’s meant to be broad brush strokes. Apart from anything else it probably isn’t very diplomatic (or productive) to get into the detail about our neighbours/allies in a public document.