MARTIN DUNN
Recently the Chief of the Defence Force confirmed that a new Strategic Review has been in preparation since earlier this year. This should be no surprise as the Coalition Government has been hinting at some changed directions since it came to office, and implicit in this was the need to update strategic guidance. Here I offer no answers to what the new strategic guidance might look, but rather offer some questions that the writing team might well consider.
What are we for?
An important starting point is why we have a defence force. While it might seem obvious to us, it isn't necessarily so to others. There are still pacifists who question the fundamental need for armed services, and look for the elusive "peace dividend". Even discounting this, the sort of answer we give should have a lot to say about the way the Defence Organisation should be developed.
Traditionally, four objectives are cited:
In broad, these are likely to remain with varying degrees of emphasis. However, attempting to define these in more specific terms becomes problematic. While some people assume that it is possible to provide some comprehensive definition of interests - whether national, regional or global - the reality is they are heavily tinged by the political considerations of the day.
Some also seek to distinguish between defence of Australia, and the other objectives where commitment is likely to be limited. Now while it is true that we are unlikely to make open ended commitments to every peacekeeping operation going, the difference between the objectives tends to be one of greys rather than black and white. For example, at the other extreme, we never attempted to defend ourselves against Soviet nuclear missiles during the Cold War. The resources devoted to defence of Australia still needed to be balanced against other economic and social priorities in the context of the budget. Thus, as with any objectives, our defence objectives are tempered by pragmatic concerns, and acceptance of certain levels of risk. The issue is how much emphasis should be put on each objective.
What is our attitude towards our neighbours?
The most contentious issue becomes our treatment of our neighbours. Are we to regard them as friends - a barrier to hostile interests entering the region - or potential foes? Our declaratory position tends to waver between both, yet some consistency is needed for addressing issues such as regional engagement and arms exports. This issue was identified by John Howard himself in Opposition,[5] but clarity he sought has not yet been achieved.
Is self reliant defence dead?
If we do not consider our neighbours as threats, then what should be the emphasis on defence of Australia per se? We now have security treaties linking us to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea - the complete archipelagic chain to our north. Should we look more seriously at making them a shield for Australia?
What is the basis for planning?
Current strategic guidance talks about planning on the basis of capabilities not threats - excluding the issue of intent from our calculations. Our planning is done on the basis of the capabilities available in the region, but which? Not all of them. Not the best from each state. Not those of the biggest, the most modern, the most unstable or the most erratic states.
Clausewitz observed that it was politics that drove campaigns to be the way they were. By planning in the absence of intent, we can only guess at an adversary's concept of operations. It is usually assumed that the campaign will be one of attrition directed against the ADF and economic infrastructure in northern Australia. The adversary's aim being to inflict disproportionate costs on Australia. However, the difficulty with such arguments is that it is hard to construct objective measures of success. Already in peacetime Defence spending is about twice the Gross State Product of the Northern Territory - how much more disproportionate do they need to be for victory? For those who claim the objectives are more psychological or political than economic, yet again little is available to measure success.
Are we right to largely ignore alternatives that need not be confined to northern Australia: terrorism, information warfare, submarine and mining operations in our southern waters, and interference with our shipping outside Australian waters? What about if one of our neighbours and allies genuinely needs Australian military assistance? Have we got the right scenarios?
A claimed advantage of defence of Australia is that it provided a clear basis for force structuring that more disparate and amorphous scenarios could not. But should we let ease of planning distract us from the realities of the future?
For Australia, allowing an adversary to grind themselves down against our defences sounds unattractive. Are we really prepared for a long war? And what do we want to happen once it ends? Are we satisfied just to have our opponent - tired or bored - simply cease operations against us and return to being an unfriendly neighbour who is only potentially hostile?
And further, what is the balance that we should strike between the long and short term? The short term is more certain, and increasingly conflict looks less likely although potentially more threatening than in the past. But alternatively, the long term is more uncertain and offers the prospect of a real deterioration in our security circumstances. Should we continue to focus on the short term or should we put more effort into developing a basis for expansion against unfavourable changes in our strategic environment in the longer term?
How do we translate this into a strategy?
Having decided what we want, we need a strategy to achieve it. To date, that strategy has been some variation on denial or defence in depth. We see our defence in terms of a number of layers that filter and eventually stop incursions.
Defence in depth sounded attractive, but possibly more so because it could be equated to the individual Services' tactical concepts of defence in depth. Yet the analogy was poor. There was no "mutual support" between the layers, just some surveillance cuing. Importantly, it does not readily answer questions such as how porous the layers should be or how much weight should be placed on each. Just about any force structure would be consistent with a defence in depth strategy.
Significantly, the strategy says little about how we would seek to gain the initiative and almost nothing about conflict termination. Strategic strike and offensive capabilities more generally are mentioned as things that should be available to the Government. The question of how we might win a war is left unanswered. The implications are that strategic strike will provide the means, but the mechanism is still not addressed.
And from now...
The Defence Organisation spends a lot of time attempting to provide high quality and efficient planning, but what is the point of good strategic planning without a strategy?
As the strategic guidance documents are updated, these are but a few of the issues that need to be addressed, but it is likely that some of the questions will prove intractable. Our existing strategic guidance represented the best available compromise at the time. We are still to see whether the next will be any better.
5. Hon John Howard MP (Leader of the Opposition). Australia's Defence Policy: Lessons from the Past, Principles for the Future. 5 October 1995, p 8.
Originally published in Research & Analysis: Newsletter of the Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, Issue 11, Canberra, December 1996.
(c) Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 1996 - reprinted with permission.