{"id":26497,"date":"2016-05-09T14:30:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T04:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=26497"},"modified":"2016-05-09T09:42:03","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T23:42:03","slug":"dwp-2016-betting-big-at-the-regional-roulette-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/dwp-2016-betting-big-at-the-regional-roulette-table\/","title":{"rendered":"DWP 2016: betting big at the regional roulette table"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We now have our third Defence White Paper in less than seven years. In the preceding quarter century we managed only four. The reduced shelf life of recent White Papers reflects\u2014in part\u2014volatility at the top. Over the same seven-year period, we\u2019ve had two major reorganisations of Russell Hill, three defence chiefs, four department secretaries, five prime ministers and six defence ministers.<\/span><\/p>\n

While there are strong threads of continuity running through the past three Defence White Papers\u2014at least in terms of plans for the ADF\u2014the near-continuous chopping and changing has been damaging. Not just the corrosive effect of on-again-off-again funding that\u2019s resulted in at least five \u2018lost years\u2019, in which plans for the defence force have been put on hold, but also due to changing government direction. For example, we\u2019ve had not two, but three distinct strategies for the future submarine acquisition over the period. Little wonder that we\u2019ll likely now have to extend the life of the Collins-class.<\/span><\/p>\n

To make matters worse, the past seven years have seen deterioration in our strategic outlook. Iraq has descended back into chaos, Afghanistan teeters on the brink, Russia has gone rogue and North Korea has an even crazier dictator. At the same time, domestic terrorism remains a live threat, and cyber-attacks proliferate by the day. Most seriously for our region, China has abandoned Deng Xiaoping\u2019s advice to, \u2018hide your strength, bide your time\u2019, and has instead been brazenly asserting its control over the South China Sea through land reclamation and militarisation. If that wasn\u2019t enough, there\u2019s a cult of personality emerging around Xi Jinping while the communist party propaganda machine whips up belligerent nationalism. China\u2019s dream may become our nightmare.<\/span><\/p>\n

Precious time has been lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps we can now get on with the job of building a stronger ADF. Even with an election around the corner, things look favourable. We have bipartisan agreement on most aspects of defence policy, including a commitment to the white paper\u2019s decade-long funding plan. In contrast, in both 2007 and 2013, the opposition went to the electorate promising a new defence white paper and a comprehensive review of the Defence organisation. Thankfully, neither\u2019s in prospect this time around.<\/span><\/p>\n

But before we congratulate ourselves for finally getting our act together, it\u2019s worth asking whether the White Paper is fit for purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of financial planning, this year\u2019s White Paper is more robust than any of its predecessors; it\u2019s uncharacteristically transparent about funding and an unprecedented effort has been put into estimating costs. Similarly, the renewed emphasis on international engagement is hard to fault. Even industry seems happy, having been elevated into the hallowed pantheon of \u2018fundamental inputs to capability\u2019. But none of this is worth a pinch of salt unless we have a sound strategy and the military capability to back it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite supposedly new criteria for force design\u2014three \u2018equally-weighted\u2019 strategic objectives rather than a focus on self-reliant defence of Australia\u2014the 2016 plan for the ADF looks remarkably like those from 2009 and 2013. That is, modernisation across the board with moderate emphasis on bolstering air and maritime capabilities. Perhaps it\u2019s a coincidence that the answer stays the same even when the question changes. Or perhaps the question doesn\u2019t matter and the military will share the spoils irrespective of the earnest discussion of interests, objectives and tasks at the front of the document. The critical question is whether doing a little bit more of everything is adequate to mitigate the strategic risks ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two critical judgments in the 2016 Defence White Paper. The first is that there\u2019s no risk that United States will cease to play its \u2018enduring\u2019 role in the Indo\u2013Pacific. The second is that a regional major-power conflict is sufficiently remote (or perhaps sufficiently discretionary in terms of our involvement) that we can afford to treat it on an equal footing with tasks such as \u2018support the governments of Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and of Pacific Island Countries to build and strengthen their security\u2019. If either of these two judgments turns out to be incorrect, we\u2019ll confront a dark future underprepared.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s surely a risk on both counts. Anyone who thinks that America\u2019s role in the region is preordained has failed to register the support accruing to Trump and Sanders in the US presidential primaries; each candidate would substantially diminish America\u2019s role in the world. Similarly, absent complete and absolute faith in deterrence, it\u2019s hard to argue that we need to spend tens of billions of dollars on high-tech conventional platforms such as submarines and fighters while simultaneously maintaining that major inter-state conflict is so unlikely that it can be put on par with maintaining law and order in Honiara.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we decided to hedge against the risk of a US retrenchment from Asia and\/or major conflict in the region, we\u2019d face a series of hard choices. There\u2019d be winners and losers among the three services\u2014remember what happened to the army in the 1980s\u2014and we\u2019d have to make some big bets about our relationships with other countries. What that might look like depends entirely on the strategy we adopt. We could go the way of Sweden and Switzerland and really get serious about self-reliance. Or we could go the way of Japan and South Korea and draw the US closer by hosting its armed forces\u2014think B1 bombers in Tindal and Virginia-class submarines in Brisbane. Probably the only thing that\u2019s certain is that we\u2019d have to spend a lot more on both our defence force and our national resilience (for example, by re-establishing domestic oil refineries).<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2016 Defence White Paper defers those difficult choices to another day. In an uncertain strategic environment, that might be the right thing to do. The strategic landscape is in flux, so the longer we wait the clearer the merits and risks of various strategies will become. And it\u2019s not as if we\u2019ll be standing still: the DWP envisages steady improvements for most of the ADF in the years ahead. Nonetheless, like a gambler watching a roulette wheel slow before placing a bet, we risk putting our chips down too late. Every year we keep our options open is a year we lose working on the option we finally choose. It doesn\u2019t help that today\u2019s plans for the ADF will play out at glacial pace. For example, we\u2019ll not see the twelfth submarine until the late 2040s or 2050. Let\u2019s hope time is on our side.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We now have our third Defence White Paper in less than seven years. In the preceding quarter century we managed only four. The reduced shelf life of recent White Papers reflects\u2014in part\u2014volatility at the top. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1636,90,549],"class_list":["post-26497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-defence-white-paper-2016","tag-strategic-interests","tag-strategic-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDWP 2016: betting big at the regional roulette table | 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\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/dwp-2016-betting-big-at-the-regional-roulette-table\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DWP 2016: betting big at the regional roulette table | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We now have our third Defence White Paper in less than seven years. 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