By Robbin Laird
RSL Australia has recently released a paper by John Blaxland of the Australian National University which underscores the need for a broader Australian national defence strategy rather than one narrowly focused on the Australian Defence Force.
“The Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL Australia) was formed in 1916 in response to the lack of a unified approach to the organisation of repatriation facilities and medical services for those returning from the Great War (World War I)…
Since its formation, RSL Australia has evolved into the nation’s largest Ex-Service Organisation. An ethos of compassion and service remains the motivating influence of the League. Our core mission has never changed and has continued to evolve to meet the needs of each generation of servicemen and women.”
The media release announcing Blaxland’s paper highlighted the following:
Increased Defence spending, stronger connections with ASEAN nations, a compact with South Pacific countries, a national community service scheme with elements similar to the US Peace Corps, strengthening Australia’s strategic and economic ties with the United States, and setting up a new national institute to monitor strategic threats are key recommendations of a major report issued today by the Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL).
In a detailed paper, An Australian National Security Strategy – Adapting to Poly-Crisis, the RSL’s National Defence and Security Committee says, overlapping demands now confronting the nation require Australia to strategically harness its natural and human resources to successfully meet these challenges.
These interwoven demands included a changing climate; cleaner, greener industry; stretched health services; deepening geopolitical shifts; accelerating technological transformation, increasingly autonomous systems; and growing challenges in governing cosmopolitan societies.
The RSL says the challenges confront all Australians, not just veterans and those in the Defence Force, and Australia requires a national security strategy to meet the growing social, economic, political and security challenges of today and the immediate future.
It says there must be a domestic political and social re-awakening to face the challenges to avoid damaging societal upheaval and to brace for the fallout of a spectrum of emerging issues.
Australia must weigh up its strategic options to achieve its desired outcome as a stable, prosperous and healthy nation, free to pursue its liberal democratic ways in association with the security and economic partners it chooses.
The primary author of the paper is former military officer John Blaxland, Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at the Australian National University and currently Director of the ANU’s North America Liaison Office. Professor Blaxland’s work was supported by other members of the RSL’s National Defence and Security Committee.
RSL National President Greg Melick says the paper speaks to the nation, not just veterans and those in Defence.
“This is a matter for all Australians; it impacts everyone”, Greg Melick said.
“War, famine and disease, daily in the headlines, make for an uncertain future while politicians struggle to rise above the tyranny of the urgent.”
“Following the Defence Strategic Review, the Government has committed to follow through in principle on many of its recommendations yet has chosen to do so by readjusting internal defence priorities rather than significantly boosting funding. The result is a mixed message to the Australian people about the gravity of the challenges and the urgency of our response.”
The paper notes that Australia has long been regarded as the land of plenty. Its resources are enormous and diverse, but as many Australians forget, they are finite, and the abundance experienced so far has generated a degree of complacency. With crises emerging on numerous fronts, that approach can no longer stand.
Greg Melick said the paper contended that Australia should actively engage the United States to encourage the US to remain constructively connected in the (Asia / Pacific) neighbourhood.
“Australia currently has limited sovereign capacity to respond to the growing range of threats. This means investing further in the capacity of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) as well as state police and emergency response services and related government instrumentalities and infrastructure,” he said.
“All of the proposals outlined in An Australian National Security Strategy require adequate resourcing and the nation must brace to face the reality of the challenges emerging and the urgency of visionary engagement in response.”
“In Defence, nuclear propulsion submarines are in the mix but must not come at the expense of other capabilities required to increase resilience and preparedness for the full spectrum of challenges on the horizon.”
“In terms of military capacity,100 fighter aircraft, a dozen or so warships, three regular force combat brigades and some special forces are no longer enough. The plan to expand the surface naval fleet and acquire advanced submarines is a positive step, but this requires more than a shuffling of internal defence funding priorities – it requires a substantial increase in resourcing in the short, medium and long term. It is not something which we can afford to delay.”
“A key issue is that the current defence budget has not really increased, instead, a readjusting of funding is occurring. Preparing the nation’s defences from an inadequate situation is not going to be cheap and we need to be serious about this.”
“As well, Defence needs to reassess recruiting standards to seek more flexible entry conditions, amidst changing modern combat roles in cyber and space security and offer more flexible employment conditions to retain personnel.”
Among a range of conclusions and recommendations are:
- The establishment of a statutory National Institute of Net Assessment, akin to the Productivity Commission, to consider the full spectrum of challenges, drawing on the breadth of research expertise in the university sector, as well as industry, think tanks, government and beyond.
- A strengthening and deepening of Australia’s ties with ASEAN and its member states, especially Indonesia and others to enhance regional security and stability.
- Addressing the Rohingya and broader Myanmar refugee crisis to prevent it worsening and before another wave of boat arrivals and further undermining of regional order. It suggests former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is well-placed to play an instrumental role in this.
- With other like-minded countries, developing a federation-like compact of association with South Pacific countries perhaps with residency rights to boost Defence recruitment, and including cultural, scientific, educational and financial connections.
- Maintaining and strengthening of economic and security ties with the United States and other closely aligned states and use Australia’s trusted access to counsel the US administration against adventurous initiatives while promoting the rules-based order.
- Consideration of a universal national community service scheme with elements similar to the volunteer US Peace Corps, to foster a common sense of identity and to manage chronic personnel shortfalls in Defence and other key sectors so easing the reliance on Defence in times of natural disasters and emergencies.
Greg Melick said An Australian National Security Strategy pointed to the need for a steely focus on security for the nation, encompassing the full range of challenges, all accelerated by the fourth industrial revolution.
“The RSL strongly supports the paper’s conclusion that the old approach is no longer viable. The time to act is now,” he said.
The paper should be read in its entirety and provides a significant conceptual overview to the challenge of shaping such a strategy.
I had a chance to talk with John about his paper but focused on one aspect of the paper, namely, the establishment of a National Institute of Net Assessment.
I was particularly interested in this suggestion having worked for Andy Marshall for Net Assessment in the Pentagon on several projects but also because I believe that having a central focal point to bring in researchers and doers in a variety of the domains affecting the security and defence of Australia would generate the kind of discussion that could get beyond the parameters of the traditional defence discussions which occur in the West.
Australia’s unique global position could allow it to get beyond how the defence discussion has been narrowed by the historical experiences of the conflict with the Soviet Union which still shapes American and European discussions of defense,
My friend and colleague Dr. Harald Malmgren argued in a recent interview with him that a major barrier facing the United States in understanding the global challenges we now face is the following:
“Although the U.S. has labelled this as an era of great power confrontation, the world is accustomed to such an idea throughout much of the history we have lived through.
“But it has been thought of as a binary choice, one between democracy and communism in the time of the competition with the Soviet Union and during the world war, between freedom and totalitarianism.
“We do not face such a choice currently.
“The United States has developed a powerful global military but the Russians and Chinese, to mention the two primary global competitors, are not prepared for an all-out military confrontation with the U.S.
“Instead, working together, they are focused on avoiding direct confrontation while engaging in a in a multiplicity of disruptive military, political and economic activities globally which erode U.S. strength and prevent decision makers from harnessing U.S. military power in a focused confrontation with its adversaries.
“For example, Russia is using widely deployed mercenaries armed with economic tools to reduce dramatically the influence of France and the U.S. in large swathes of Africa.
“While China uses an aggressive array of bribes and threats to reshape the politics of the various sovereign nations throughout the Indo-Pacific area, the U.S. does not have in place official government institutions to counter this wide array to micro manipulations and interventions.”
How then to broaden the defence perspective and to include the key elements of national capability which a large nation but with only 25 million people living on an island continent in a national strategy?
My own experience in Australia is that this is hard because many of the key elements affecting a national perspective simply are not treated as part of a national strategy, such as energy, transportation infrastructure, civilian industry and various new sciences and technologies which clearly affect Australia’s sovereignty and security but are outside the ken of defence discussions.
The establishment of a National Institute of Net Assessment as suggested by Blaxland could provide for a neutral reference point to forge such a discussion.
What we discussed was the idea of creating a nimble body that can tap expertise in various areas to generate discussion of the key elements of national power which need to be addressed in a national approach.
As Blaxland put it: “Such a National Institute would encourage out of the box thinking and consider challenges beyond the usual stove-piped thinking.
“We have good specialists but their thinking can get trapped by a narrow professionalism and we need a broader debate about how the current is changing under the influence of both domestic and global technological, economic and societal forces and how we can get on top of these issues to consider them in relationship to one another.”
I suggested that perhaps such an organization could be built around a small permanent staff with the analytical core being persons who would be part of the organization as a core research staff servicing for a year and then returning to their normal employment supplemented by speakers from the region and in various parts of the Australian economic sectors. Perhaps an annual report might be generated to highlight the key themes focused on during that particular analytical year.
But whatever the organization, the goal is not to create another research organization but rather a fulcrum point for national discussion that would have influence in the region.
According to Blaxland, “the difficulty is to get ownership behind the idea.
“What I’m talking about is not owned by anyone, any government department, any one agency, any one discipline.
“There’s not an obvious champion.
“What I am concerned about is that ideas being prioritized are narrowly framed.
“We need to put specific ideas into a broader context.
“There is the need to think about the repercussions and kind of ripple effects of one’s proposals in one area on the economic and social ecosystem write large.”
See also the following:
National+Security+Strategy+May+2024Noted Australian Military Analyst Works Australian-U.S. Relations from the Ground Up