{"id":24940,"date":"2016-02-29T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T03:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=24940"},"modified":"2016-02-29T15:41:32","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T04:41:32","slug":"the-dwp-2016-the-adfs-peacetime-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-dwp-2016-the-adfs-peacetime-roles\/","title":{"rendered":"DWP 2016: the ADF\u2019s peacetime roles"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>Last year, the Defence White Paper expert advisory panel set out to gauge public attitudes to Defence. The community made it clear to the expert panel, chaired by ASPI\u2019s Executive Director Peter Jennings, that they wanted the<\/span> ADF to carry out a number of peacetime missions<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n In addition to its core war fighting roles, there were a number of domestic tasks, including several that involve an overlap of responsibility with other government agencies, which were frequently mentioned by the public as roles they expected the ADF to play.<\/span><\/p>\n The White Paper specifically notes protecting sovereign rights in our exclusive economic zone, providing specialist domestic counterterrorism support, protecting our offshore infrastructure, contributing to security at major events, responding to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response operations, and providing specialist equipment to state and territory emergency response services<\/span> as domestic responsibilities of the ADF.<\/span><\/p>\n The community rationale for Defence to undertake those homeland missions is clear: the ADF possesses specialised capabilities on a scale and of a kind available from no other Australian agency.<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes the ADF will be the head agency in those tasks, (where, for example, there might be a need to employ military force). But in most cases Defence won\u2019t be taking the lead.<\/span><\/p>\n The DWP acknowledges the importance of those ADF peacetime tasks. It points out that <\/span>our most basic strategic defence interest is a secure and resilient Australia, where we\u2019re \u2018resilient to unexpected shocks, whether natural or man-made, and strong enough to recover quickly when the unexpected happens\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n The DWP states that we \u2018cannot afford to equip, train and prepare our military forces solely for the unlikely event of a major attack on our territory\u2019. But the paper doesn\u2019t<\/span> go so far as to suggest those peacetime roles should determine the force structure.<\/span><\/p>\n One issue that was frequently referred to the White Paper expert advisory panel was the security consequences of climate change, with many suggesting it would lead to an increased need for disaster relief activities, including by the ADF.<\/span><\/p>\n I was pleased <\/span>to see the repeated references to climate change and its deleterious effect on both the strategic environment and on Australia\u2019s defence infrastructure. (See pp. 16, 41, 48, 55-56 and 102.) \u00a0The Paper clearly acknowledges that climate change has national security consequences for Australia.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt that some of our new capabilities such as the Canberra-class LHDs, future frigates, offshore patrol vessels and our air transport fleet will find climate change and its effects a key driver of activity over the coming decades.<\/span><\/p>\n The treatment of climate change in the DWP brings us into line with our biggest security ally, the United States, which has \u2018normalised\u2019 climate change across its military operations.<\/span><\/p>\n