{"id":1445,"date":"2012-09-28T14:45:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T04:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2012-10-01T21:12:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T11:12:12","slug":"australias-military-engagement-a-view-from-vcdf-and-aspi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-military-engagement-a-view-from-vcdf-and-aspi\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s military engagement: a view from VCDF (and ASPI)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"VCDF<\/a><\/figure>\n

The Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Mark Binskin AO, delivered a thought-provoking speech entitled \u2018The ADF as as a foundation for Australian prosperity\u2019<\/a> to an ASPI dinner last night, and here are three reflections from ASPI analysts.<\/p>\n

Peter Jennings:<\/em><\/p>\n

Air Marshal Mark Binskin, the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, gave an interesting speech\u00a0emphasising the ADF\u2019s role in contributing to regional stability. There is no doubt that Defence is shaping for a closer focus on the Asia-Pacific after the drawdown in Afghanistan. The ADF \u2018is not just an insurance policy\u2019 Binskin said; it can build and deepen relations, respond to disasters and stabilise trouble spots.<\/p>\n

Some implications flow from this approach. Based on the principle that governments fund things that do useful jobs, Defence has an obvious interest to set out the case for how it continues to promote regional stability. In doing so, Defence needs to rethink the current modest levels of funding for its Defence Cooperation Program, a core part of how the ADF engages with regional militaries via joint exercises, training and officer exchanges, and provide a dramatic step-up in funding for engagement. Notwithstanding pressures to cut civilian numbers, the International Policy Division should receive a staffing boost. IP currently stands at around 120 people\u2014it was closer to 160 in the \u2018peaceful\u2019 1990s. Resources need to go to the emerging priority areas.<\/p>\n

Most critically Defence needs to set out some detailed thinking about how it will go about deepening relations with key friends and allies. Defence Minister Stephen Smith\u2019s announcement in Japan that the two countries will agree a framework for defence technological cooperation<\/a> is an important pointer to the future of that relationship. Given the important position Australia has in Japan\u2019s defence thinking (an entire chapter was dedicated to Australia in the most recent white paper<\/a>), it seems there is willingness on both sides for deeper defence cooperation. Binskin also highlighted the level of Indonesian involvement (for the first time, in fact) at the recent Exercise Pitch Black 2012<\/a>, a multinational air power exercise. Funding for defence cooperation with Papua New Guinea sharply increased in the last budget. These are but a few of the big changes taking place so there\u2019s a positive story to tell about Defence\u2019s own repositioning towards Asia.<\/p>\n

This points to the reality that the next Defence white paper needs to have a stronger focus on posture\u2014that is, what it does with the capabilities it actually has, rather than planning for the capabilities it doesn\u2019t have and, on current funding plans, will get less of over a longer period.<\/p>\n

In many respects, the planning for a reinvigorated defence engagement strategy on the region will suffice for a potentially missing chapter to the long-awaited Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, where Defence was inexplicably marginalised in the development of the report.<\/p>\n

Andrew Davies:<\/em><\/p>\n

During his speech to ASPI last night, Air Marshal Mark Binskin referred several times to the return on investment that Australia gets from the money it spends on its defence forces. At these functions I usually try to let the Q&A be between our speaker and our members and guests, but I couldn\u2019t let that one go, so I asked\u2014slightly tongue in cheek\u2014what the rate of return is, and followed up with a more serious question of how you\u2019d measure the value for money.<\/p>\n

VCDF responded that it\u2019s not possible to quantify the value, but gave a very good example of how having high-end military capabilities can act to develop stronger ties between nations. He cited the support that Australia was able to give to Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. Our C-17 airlifters were able to deliver outsize equipment vital for the relief effort and deploy search and rescue teams within a day or two of the event\u2014and made us one of very few nations that could make a contribution of that sort. In Binskin\u2019s view, it\u2019s no coincidence that Australia\u2013Japan relations are warmer now than ever, and are marked by a growing willingness to cooperate in areas such as military technology exchange.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no reason to doubt that interpretation, and we\u2019ve seen a similar sincere gratitude come though in ASPI\u2019s discussions with Japanese officials, think tanks and academics since then. So I\u2019m happy to concede that he\u2019s right on that point. But I\u2019m less convinced about the inability to quantify the return on investment in military capabilities. If that was really true, how could governments ever decide where to make marginal investments?<\/p>\n

In his thoughts above, Peter Jennings makes a case for expanding the size of International Policy Division within Defence, to further boost the ability of the Department to support defence cooperation and regional engagement. But the question to be asked is whether that investment is the best one that can be made with the extra funds? Would a similar expansion in DFAT to boost their regional engagement program be more or less effective? Of course, these aren\u2019t binary choices, and the right answer might be a bit more of both\u2014but the question of marginal investment always needs to be thought through.<\/p>\n

Consider a hypothetical in which the government has $100 million unallocated in its budget deliberations. If it was looking to boost its regional diplomatic\/engagement effort, it might choose between supplementing Defence ($24.2 billion in the 2012\u201313 appropriations) and DFAT ($1.45 billion). The extra money would constitute a 7% boost for DFAT, but less than half a percent to Defence. It might still be the case that Defence offered the best return\u2014but it\u2019s far from clear, and in the absence of metrics that allow an estimate to be made, it would come down to a judgement call. And of course that all presupposes that boosting diplomacy is preferable by some measure to increased expenditure on health or education.<\/p>\n

Other government portfolios are subject to at least some analysis of the value the country gets back. As a couple of examples, education programs can be benchmarked via productivity measures, and the cost of preventative health programs can be weighed against the reduced demand for health services later. Mark Thomson sketched some ideas for how we might do a cost-benefit analysis for Defence expenditure a few weeks ago and argued that Defence shouldn\u2019t be exempt from the same scrutiny as other aspects of government spending<\/a>. Having thought through the VCDF\u2019s speech, I\u2019m coming around to Mark\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

Natalie Sambhi:<\/em><\/p>\n

Following the theme of regional engagement that both my colleagues raise above, in listening to Air Marshal Mark Binskin\u2019s speech I was interested in how Australia might expand this engagement in future. Of note was this quote from VCDF:<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s changing strategic circumstances means that in the coming years, the ADF needs to build a defence capability that can support our national security interests in a neighbourhood that is growing more capable, more confident and more outward looking.\u00a0 At the same time, we need to accommodate constraints on the resources we have available to do this and live within our means.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Parts of our region might be growing more capable, more confident and more outward looking but, as I recently argued<\/a>, that\u2019s not something that Australia has to necessarily grow anxious about. Recognising the potential of regional partners, particularly Indonesia, is one way to maximise our capabilities in context of changing strategic circumstances and future budgetary constraints.<\/p>\n

Indeed VCDF underscored the return on investment (however quantified, see Andrew Davies\u2019 section above) of \u2018credible high-end capabilities\u2019 by assisting Australia\u2019s regional influence. During question time, Binskin gave the example of Indonesia\u2019s participation in Exercise Pitch Black 2012. He noted that only when other nations sent their high-end capabilities (in Indonesia\u2019s case, their Sukhoi Su-30 and Su-27 fighter jets) do we start to see the levels of trust required for deep cooperation.<\/p>\n

Looked at that way, it pays to reframe the discussion of the modernisation of regional militaries less in terms of an erosion of Australia\u2019s technological edge and more in terms of an opportunity for deeper regional engagement and strategic complementarity.<\/p>\n

Peter Jennings<\/a>\u00a0is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute,\u00a0Andrew Davies<\/a>\u00a0is senior analyst for defence capability at ASPI and executive editor of\u00a0<\/em><\/em>The Strategist, and\u00a0Natalie Sambhi<\/a> is an analyst at ASPI and editor of\u00a0<\/em><\/em>The Strategist.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Mark Binskin AO, delivered a thought-provoking speech entitled \u2018The ADF as as a foundation for Australian prosperity\u2019 to an ASPI dinner last night, and here are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[17,51,38,89,8,135],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia-and-its-region","tag-australia","tag-defence-cooperation","tag-department-of-defence","tag-dfat","tag-indonesia","tag-japan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia's military engagement: a view from VCDF (and ASPI) | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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