Defence and Security
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Richard Butler. Nuclear Security Summit: Washington Finale?
Seven years ago, President Obama spoke in Prague Square and undertook to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”. He cautioned that this outcome would be immensely difficult to achieve and may not be reached in his own lifetime, but his speech was heard and widely taken as signaling an enhanced Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford and Michael Keating – Submarines; cost, capability and timelines.
This article is a response to the article posted yesterday by Paul Barratt and Chris Barrie. ‘The case for building the future submarines in Australia.’ Both Paul Barratt and Chris Barrie have served at the highest levels in Defence and their views are clearly worthy of very serious consideration. Indeed, their contention that a military-off-the-shelf Continue reading »
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Paul Barratt and Chris Barrie. The case for building the future submarine in Australia
When charting a trajectory to a desired end point it is as important to have an accurate fix on the starting point as it is to know where one wants to end up. So it is with SEA 1000, the Future Submarine (FSM) project. Much of the commentary is based on a politically inspired perception Continue reading »
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If we strike a deal with Japan, we’re buying more than submarines.
In this article in the Melbourne Age, Hugh White comments ‘So before we decide whether to select the Japanese (submarine) bid, we have to ask if an alliance with Japan is good for Australia.’ See link to full article below: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/if-we-strike-a-deal-with-japan-were-buying-more-than-submarines-20160314-gni3hl.html Continue reading »
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Geoff Miller. Japan, ’embedding’ and a world not of pure reason.
“The Australian” of 29 March reported Murray McLean, former Ambassador to Japan, as defending the Japanese submarine bid against criticism that it would amount to a “virtual alliance” that would ultimately thrust us into conflict with China. He reportedly said that “Australia should choose a submarine based on the best technology and the best price”, Continue reading »
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Geoff Miller. Managing or containing China.
Australia, China, the South China Sea – and the uses of language. Recent reports published in both Australia and the US—including most notably in our case the Defence White Paper—and a series of visitors to Australia from China, the US and Japan, have increased the already high degree of interest and concern over future strategic Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Eye in the Sky. Film review.
I’d just come home from a screening of Eye in the Sky, Gavin Hood’s fine thriller about a terrorist cell in Kenya, when the news came through that Taliban suicide-bombers had killed more than a hundred people in Pakistan. Timely reminders of the reality of modern warfare and its distinctive horrors aren’t hard to find Continue reading »
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John Menadue. White man’s media.
On 26 March I provided a link to an article by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, who commented ‘The atrocities in Brussels happen almost daily in the streets of Baghdad, Aleppo and Damascus. .. A dead Muslim is an unlucky mutt in the wrong place at the wrong time. A dead European is front page Continue reading »
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Richard Broinowski. Australia and the South China Sea
A tangled web of territorial claims threatens stability in the South China Sea. The figures appear rubbery, but a consensus is that Philippines occupies seven islands and reefs, Malaysia five, China eight and Taiwan one. Vietnam occupies twenty seven. There is also conflict over fishing grounds. Meanwhile, there seems little or no room for compromise, Continue reading »
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Garry Woodard. Should Australia do more on the South China Sea?
No. The Prime Minister’s statement in regards to the Middle East that this is not the time for gestures or machismo applies in spades to what we do in the South China Sea. Australia should act prudently and, though some will see this as a contradiction, transparently and after full parliamentary and public debate. Australia’s Continue reading »
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What a godsend politicians and journalists are to ISIS.
In The Guardian, Simon Jenkins writes about the way that the ISIS recruiting officers will be thrilled at how things have gone since their atrocity in Belgium. He points particularly to the ‘paranoid politicians and sensational journalists’ who have perhaps unwittingly provided great support for ISIS. Jenkins comments ‘The atrocities in Brussels happen almost daily Continue reading »
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Greg Barton. Out of the ashes of Afghanistan and Iraq: the rise and rise of Islamic State.
Since announcing its arrival as a global force in June 2014 with the declaration of a caliphate on territory captured in Iraq and Syria, the jihadist group Islamic State has shocked the world with its brutality. Its seemingly sudden prominence has led to much speculation about the group’s origins: how do we account for forces Continue reading »
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Brian Toohey. The $50 b. submarine purchase.
Jon Stanford’s three-part series on the Turnbull government’s determination to spend $50 billion on big new submarines is a welcome contribution to understanding what’s at stake at a time of cuts elsewhere. The decision risks repeating the Hawke government’s disastrous mistake of rejecting a proven design in favour of the bespoke Collins class subs. Stanford’s Continue reading »
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John Stanford. Technology, economics and Australia’s future submarine. Part 3 of 3.
Part 3: Implications: a more efficient and less risky approach Introduction The purpose of this three-part article is not to question the government’s requirement for advanced submarine capability but rather to explore some of the technological, economic and financial issues, and the associated risks, around the programme by which the government is seeking to deliver Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. Technology, economics and Australia’s future submarine Part 2 of 3.
Part 2: Economic and financial risks Introduction The first part of this article considered the technological risks involved in the decision, as set out in the 2016 Defence White Paper, to procure twelve new submarines at an acquisition cost of at least $50 billion. The economic and financial risks of this project are discussed here Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. Technology, economics and Australia’s future submarine. Part 1 of 3
Part 1: Technology risk Introduction The most important acquisition included in the government’s Defence White Paper, released in February 2016, is the decision to procure twelve new submarines for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). With an acquisition cost of at least $50 billion (and with a much higher through life sustainment cost), this is Continue reading »
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Sam Bateman. Defence White Paper and the China threat.
Australia’s flawed position on the South China Sea Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper says a lot about the South China Sea, both directly and indirectly. It expresses concern about land reclamation and construction activities by claimants in the sea and about the possible use of artificial structures for military purpose. It also makes much of Continue reading »
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Alison Broinowski. Defence White paper – the China threat.
Strategically timid. In his final book, which was too little noticed, Malcolm Fraser declared that we must reassess the strategic dependence which has determined our defence policy throughout settler Australian history. ‘We need the United States for defence’, he wrote in Dangerous Allies (2014), ‘but we only need defence because of the United States’. Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. An act of faith and a blind eye.
The Defence White Paper 2016 has now been published. An engaging, critical, analysis of it has been offered by Professor Hugh White, ANU, (Pearls and Irritations March 10th ). Rightly, the purpose of the White Paper is to outline how Australia’s security can be assured in the current and expected environment. A central assertion of Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. The Defence White Paper and the China threat.
In a paper distributed by the ANU East Asia Forum, Professor Hugh White has pointed out that the Defence White Paper makes two invalid assumptions: the post-Cold War US-led international order will be maintained and that it must be. He is right on both counts and I will not repeat his views here except Continue reading »
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Richard Woolcott. The burning question – should Australia do more on the South China Sea?
My clear response is ‘No!’ China, as a major trading nation, now has the same rights as the US to protect its maritime and air approaches to its mainland. Australia should avoid provocative statements and actions at sea or in the air. When we talk about the need to support ‘a rules-based global order’, we Continue reading »
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Kishore Mahbubani. The China threat! What happens when China becomes number one?
In considering the Defence White paper, it is important as Hugh White has pointed out, that we consider carefully the growing power of China and its determination to be accepted as a strong regional and global power. In this article (reposted from 27 April 2015) by Kishore Mahbubani, he describes the likely consequences of China Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Defence White Paper and the China threat The Thucydides trap – do not allow yourself to be manipulated into war.
Very senior Turnbull ministers talk of the ‘Thucydides trap’, the risk that countries allow themselves to be manipulated into war. Could they be referring to the risk of Japan drawing us, together with the US and China, into war. If ministers were seriously worried about this prospect it didn’t seem to influence the Defence White Continue reading »
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Hugh White, Australia’s Defence White Paper and the China threat- a hidebound view of Asia’s future’
Any defence policy is ultimately based on a view of the international system and how it is expected to evolve over coming decades. These are the judgments that most fundamentally influence the nature and scale of armed conflict that a country’s forces must be prepared to fight. Australia’s new Defence White Paper makes two central Continue reading »
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Merriden Varrall. The Chinese elephant in Australia–Japan relations
Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Tokyo, where she outlined an increasing emphasis on security cooperation between Japan and Australia. The next day she was in Beijing, where she reportedly received a frosty reception. The two are not unrelated — Beijing is not thrilled about Australia’s growing security ties with Japan. Because Australia Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Japanese royal family resists war revisionism.
After WWII many people, including me, believed that Emperor Hirohito should bear considerable blame for his complicity in Japan’s wars of the 1930s in China and in the Pacific in the 1940s. There is no doubt that the late Emperor Hirohito was traumatized, as was his nation, by the disasters of WWII. But perhaps that Continue reading »
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David Stephens. Malcolm Turnbull’s post-Anzac pitch to the Australian Defence Force
Tony Abbott admired soldiers. He liked to be around them, to talk about the fortunes of war (“shit happens,” as he memorably muttered to troops in Afghanistan). He quoted Samuel Johnson about how men despise themselves if they have never been a soldier. His Anzac Day Dawn Service speech last year at Gallipoli portrayed the Continue reading »
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Tessa Morris-Suzuki. The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies
On 16 February, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida signed a ‘Strategy for Co-operation in the Pacific’, in which both countries emphasised their shared values of ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law’ As they were doing so, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Shinsuke Sugiyama was in Geneva addressing a Continue reading »
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Laurie Patton. Utopia: the professor, the public service, and the need for change.
In an article in The Mandarin former Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, Professor Peter Shergold, is quoted urging public servants to adapt and to show courage. http://www.themandarin.com.au/60090-adapt-die-peter-shergold-manifesto-public-service-transformation Shergold is spot on. But before things can change we need to be willing to accept that mistakes are made, even by the best of people. Last week Continue reading »
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Niall McLaren. A case for ‘armed neutrality’
In its short history, Australia has been among the most aggressive nations on earth, regularly engaging in wars that, on any objective basis, have nothing to do with us. These military adventures cost us dearly in men, material and credibility without ever showing the slightest evidence that they improve our security. Malcolm Fraser argued that Continue reading »
