{"id":45098,"date":"2019-01-30T11:29:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T00:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=45098"},"modified":"2019-06-26T11:40:16","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T01:40:16","slug":"north-of-26-south-and-the-security-of-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-of-26-south-and-the-security-of-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"North of 26\u00b0 south and the security of Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In terms of Australia\u2019s first, and primary, strategic defence objective<\/a>\u2014\u2018to deter, deny and defeat any attempt by a hostile country or non-state actor to attack, threaten or coerce Australia\u2019\u2014it seems that Paul Dibb\u2019s 1986 review of defence capabilities<\/a> was prophetic. Dibb\u2019s assessment is as accurate now as it was 32 years ago: \u2018There are risks inherent in our strategic environment that could pose difficult problems for the nation’s defence.\u2019<\/p>\n

Today, however, the time frame for change is much shorter. Over the past three decades, many of the factors that have shaped the assumptions of our \u2018defence of Australia\u2019 strategies have changed substantially, and often deteriorated.<\/p>\n

In 1986, Australia was a long way from the global conflicts of the day. Of course, Russia made efforts to bring superpower competition to our region\u2014with its presence in the Pacific and Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam\u2014but failed. The Cold War between Russia and the US also fostered a comforting alliance of necessity between China and the West that lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Australia now finds competition and potentially conflict far closer to home, especially in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

While Russia was declining, China was rising. In 1990, China\u2019s GDP<\/a> was estimated at US$390 billion; in 2016, it was more than 30 times that amount (US$11,779 billion). In 1989, less than 5% of Australia\u2019s exports<\/a> were destined for China. By 2015, the proportion had grown to almost 30%, making China our number one trading partner.<\/p>\n

With its new-found wealth, China has been investing widely in its Belt and Road Initiative<\/a>, creating new levels of maritime, air and land connectivity. All the while, it has been increasing, and very often asserting, its influence across the Asia\u2013Pacific and Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, the defence technology advantages in the region that Australia once enjoyed have rapidly eroded. China continues to reform, build and modernise its military<\/a>, and it isn\u2019t the only one in our region doing so. Chinese efforts have also been backed by an ambitious research and development program.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s north has changed, too. In 1986, the Northern Territory had a population of 155,000; today it\u2019s 247,000<\/a>. Northern Australia\u2019s contribution to our economy is also rising. It is a major exporter of commodities ranging from gold to gas. According to Deloitte Access Economics, northern jurisdictions\u00a0will account for<\/a> nearly 42% of the Australian economy by 2040, up from 35% in 2011. The Northern Territory\u2019s LNG projects alone supply more than 10% of Japan\u2019s annual global gas imports. Arguably, infrastructure investment in the north hasn\u2019t always kept pace with this growth, which could in time affect future growth opportunities and national security.<\/p>\n

The emphasis on \u2018self-reliance\u2019 in the 1987 defence white paper<\/a> likely reflected the author\u2019s wariness of abandonment by our key allies. The UK\u2019s military withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1967, US President Richard Nixon\u2019s 1969 Guam Doctrine and the fall of South Vietnam loomed as large in defence strategists\u2019 minds then as the likely impacts of the Trump administration\u2019s \u2018America First\u2019 policy do today. Although the Australian Defence Force\u2019s presence in the north has increased, and further investments were foreshadowed in the 2016 defence white paper, the less favourable strategic circumstances still require new thinking.<\/p>\n

Traditional national security threats have intensified over recent years and non-traditional ones have broadened. Transnational serious and organised crime in the maritime domain (including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; piracy; and trafficking of weapons, drugs and people), terrorism and an increasingly assertive Chinese maritime strategy are generating further security complexity.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, official strategic guidance indicated that our defence planners would have \u2018at least 10 years\u2019 warning of a substantial military threat\u2019. That\u2019s clearly no longer the case. The 2016 defence white paper set a firm foundation for developing Australia\u2019s future defence capabilities; however, its projections of our strategic circumstances now look like wishful thinking. In 2019, Australia\u2019s strategic outlook<\/a> appears to be far more uncertain and susceptible to rapid changes with short warning.<\/p>\n

Northern Australia\u2019s dispersed critical infrastructure and primary resources remain vulnerable to traditional and non-traditional national security threats. Modern weapon systems put these resources within striking distance of conventional weapons, and they\u2019re also susceptible to hybrid warfare strategies like that used by Russia in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

While Australia has a long-term defence capability plan, we need to continue to test our assumptions about the defence of northern Australia and the north\u2019s significance to national security.<\/p>\n

In response to these changes, and with the support of the Northern Territory government, ASPI is establishing its latest research program, \u2018The north and Australia\u2019s security\u2019. The program will provide a sustained research focus on the security of Australia\u2019s north and the north\u2019s critical role in contributing to the broader security of Australia. The program will concentrate on:<\/p>\n