Mike Scrafton

Mike Scrafton was a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, senior Defence executive, CEO of a state statutory body, and chief of staff and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence.

Mike's recent articles

MIKE SCRAFTON. China in Australias Defence and Strategic Policy

An incoming government addressing China in defence policy and strategic policy must overcome the natural impulse to assume the future will be a linear projection of the present. There is no reasonable scenario in which a major war in East Asia involving China does not end in disastrous outcomes for Australia and that determines the future strategic objectives.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Political leadership and the next war.

If there is any consensus among commentators on geopolitics and strategic policy, it is that the world is entering into uncertain and dangerous times. In the term of the next Australian government political leadership could confront grave situations requiring decisions about war and peace. Few of Australias leaders, if any, have seen combat let alone managed existential questions at the national strategic level.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Warners blinkered warnings

Geraldine Dooge interviewed Nick Warner Director General of the Office of National Intelligence (podcast) for Radio National. As Warner is the principal adviser to the Prime Minister on intelligence matters his assessments of the strategic environment are of great interest.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The Golan Heights: Whose rules?

President Trump has recognised the 1981 Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. Whatever Trumps motivesgenuine concern for Israels security, geostrategic positioning in the struggle against Iran, fulfilling a divine mission, or domestic politicshis act raises important geopolitical issues and questions of international law. Trumps move should force the Australian government to revisit its prioritisation of defence of the rules-based global order in its foreign and defence polices.

MIKE SCRAFTON.Extremism and race: slaying the phantom

There will be many views on the priority to be given to domestic race-based extremism and the best way in which it should be approached. Recently, Mike Pezzullo didnt mention race-based violence among his seven gathering storms facing Australia. An omission retrospectively corrected post-Christchurch at Senate Estimates. But his Harmony Day message displays a shallow comprehension of this insidious problem.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Defending against the sacrificial knight errant on an existential crusade

Hopefully the security agencies wont simply default to the jihadist archetype in their response to the atrocity in Christchurch, as the media has. Distinguishing between motives of the perpetrators of such unpardonable acts and understanding the internal logic by which they justify their actions is important. Marques like far right, white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi, or Islamophobe occlude the detail in Tarrants case and are unhelpful in finding an implementable understanding of these violent phenomena.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Another American civil war?

The silhouette of yet another potential catastrophe is beginning to take shape. To add to the dissolution of the post war global order, global warming, mass species extinction, and great power conflict, there seems now the prospect of a post-Trump Presidency American civil war. Maybe. Not really?

MIKE SCRAFTON. Morrison is not the man for the times

Last month Scott Morrison delivered Our plan for keeping Australians safe and secure to the National Press Club. Not so much a headland speech as a report from the bookkeeper. Not FDRs Four Freedoms address to Congress or Churchills Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri; the Prime Ministers flat rhetoric avoided the big strategic issues that will confront future Australian governments. China was not mentioned. Nor was the US.

MIKE SCRAFTON. ASPIs Agenda for change 2019

To pinch an epigram from former Air Force colleagues in Defence, ASPIs Agenda for change 2019: Strategic choices for the next government is a target rich environment. The contributors set out a smorgasbord of advice on strategic policy issues for the next government to chew on; some of which is commonplace, some keen insights, some very soundly based, and some more controversial and contestable.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Facilitating repression, abandoning values.

Admirable as Senator De Natales persistence was in pressing Defence on the issues of military sales to Saudi Arabia, he pursued the wrong issue. Australia is, and will remain, a trivial player in the global arms market and the Yemeni horror is not really pertinent to the sale the Senator was questioning. Clearly Australias reputation could be tarnished indirectly through being associated states perpetrating an unspeakable calamity in Yemen. But they also oppress their own people and this makes the EOS deal an important moral and political issue and not a strategic one.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The dangerous shibboleths of strategists

Some commentators on strategic policy seem to regard Australias national interests as close enough to immutable. That makes strategic policy a trivial and static matter.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Some possible implications for Australias strategic policy in Trumps emergency

President Trumps declaration of a national emergency over illegal immigration on the southern border of the US is destined to bring on a short term constitutional and political crisis in the US. The security of the US/Mexican border is not of direct interest to Australia but the longer term outcome of contest between the Executive and the Congress is something that bears close attention.

The casual talk of war

The casual talk of war heard today is of great concern. War is treated as if its a board game and the only pieces are military forces. The experiences of the twentieth-century, and to a lesser extent those of this century, have demonstrated the widespread destruction and death, social dislocation and economic collapse, political disruption and often revolution, or geopolitical realignment, that accompany major wars. War is an unreliable tool of statecraft and unpredictable pursuit.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The Problem with the Nationhood Power

When influential public officials take the podium to tell us whats what we should pay attention, close attention, to their words. Mike Pezzullo is one of the most powerful Federal public servants and therefore his view of the Australian political system in which he operates and the arguments he puts forward in support of those views are important.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The Intelligent use of Intelligence

The United States Intelligence Community presents an annual assessment of national security threats to Congress. President Trump and the US Intelligence agencies are at odds over the 2019 Report. Putting aside Trumps simplistic and intuitive understanding and his disregard for any evidence that contradicts his preconceptions, the enthusiasm with which Trumps antagonists have grasped the agencies judgements also raises an important question about the value and use of intelligence product.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The fissures in NATO.

NATO defence ministers will meet in Brussels over 13-14 February. Member states will struggle to find any accord in the face of an array strategic and political challenges from internal and external sources. Overshadowing all else will be the vagaries of American policy and the Administrations undisguised lack of enthusiasm for NATO, or any multilateral arrangements.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Three democracies in crisis

The three nations that gave birth to modern democracy are exhibiting its weaknesses. Democracy is showing its limitations in dealing with contemporary challenges in UK, the US and France. Saving democracy from authoritarianism and populism is a popular subject. Yet first the viability of existing democratic institutions has to be questioned.

MIKE SCRAFTON. The Geopolitics of Lombrum Naval Base

It is difficult to find a strong, rational strategic argument for Australias to return to Lombrum Naval Base (or HMPNGS Tarangau) on Manus Island. Of course, not all of Defences activities have strictly military objectives or relate directly to the defence of Australia and in the Southwest Pacific Defence cooperation has been a major component of foreign policy and diplomacy. But even in that context an Australian naval presence at Manus Island makes little sense. The somewhat vague US decision to contribute to developing the base is even more obscure.

The need to think more seriously about war

Government justifications for major investments in ADF new capability and assertions by defence experts that Australia should substantially expand its defence spending rarely address two important issues. The prospect for military success in a war in East Asia and the expectations around Australian casualtiesmilitary and civilian. Thinking about the first issue helps shed some light on the second.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Hunting for the reason-The new frigates.

In line with normal practise, the government has plenty to say about the economic and employment benefits to flow from the acquisition of the new Hunter class frigates and a little bit about what they can do. But offers nothing about the strategic justification for these expensive naval assets. That doesnt mean there isnt a strategic justification. However, the public should be entitled to hear the governments full explanation of the priority of this capability.

MIKE SCRAFTON. What MQ-4C Triton reveals of strategic policy

Government decisions on major equipment acquisitions can signal the governments estimate of the future international environment and national strategic priorities. The governments justification of the MQ-4C Triton leaves important strategic policy questions unanswered.

MIKE SCRAFTON: NATO 2018 and Communique Dread

Dread and angst must be haunting the corridors of Europes foreign and defence ministries. The NATO Heads of State and Government will meet over 11 to 12 July 2018 in Brussels and the question of the communique will already be weighing heavy on ministers, advisers and officials. NATO is a consensus decision-making body but the prospects of an agreed communique seem slight at this stage. NATO has been the spine of the Western alliance and the liberal international order. Discord among its members can only benefit states interested in weakening the bonds holding the current order in place.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Looking down from the Trump/Kim summit: a geopolitical view

Of the risks attendant on the summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jung-un, the most grave is that the geopolitical consequences will be ignored.

MIKE SCRAFTON. Rethinking Strategic Policy

Australia is faces an increasingly novel external environment. For strategic policymakers this means discarding as much old thinking as possible in order to understand the contours of that future. Crucially, the policymaker also must remain cognisant that the sine qua non of strategic policy is the use of lethal armed force in international relations. At one end of that spectrum of violence lurks catastrophic war.

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