{"id":54437,"date":"2020-03-23T12:30:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T01:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=54437"},"modified":"2020-03-23T12:15:10","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T01:15:10","slug":"the-australian-defence-force-must-find-a-new-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-australian-defence-force-must-find-a-new-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Australian Defence Force must find a new balance"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s time to upend the idea of a \u2018balanced force\u2019 in Australian defence policy.<\/p>\n

Defence leaders have talked for decades about the 60,000-person ADF as a balanced force, with a \u00adlittle bit of something to do many things.<\/p>\n

Why break away from it now? Well, as economist Paul Samuelson said<\/a>, \u2018When events change, I change my mind.\u2019 Since the government\u2019s 2016 defence white paper, we\u2019ve seen events that change the balanced force equation.<\/p>\n

The national disaster that was our last bushfire season is one. Then there\u2019s the rise of an empowered and assertive Chinese state with growing military means and a willingness to use them. America is now in explicit strategic and economic competition with China and Russia, while also acting more transactionally and selfishly than at any time since World War II. And now the coronavirus pandemic is demonstrating vulnerabilities across national and global economies and supply chains, from toilet paper to supercars like McLarens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defence needs to play a much bigger role in responding to national and regional disasters and the ADF needs greater offensive firepower<\/a>, sooner than the future force in the white paper will eventually deliver.<\/p>\n

Wedded to the balanced force notion, Defence\u2019s instinct will be to minimise the impact that the prime minister\u2019s drive on disaster response capabilities<\/a> has on ADF plans and structures. The motive will be good\u2014the ADF does need to focus on warfighting, given our worsening strategic environment\u2014but the result will be perversely bad.<\/p>\n

Minimising change will just lead to Defence doing what it did this last fire season in a slightly better planned, better organised and smoother way and applying the same conceptual framework to other disasters, like the current pandemic. Because Defence will be central to what the Commonwealth does differently, the net effect will be a slightly better organised and planned but still disastrous national fire season in our near future. That\u2019s an outcome nobody can want.<\/p>\n

Seeking to minimise the impact of the twin new demands on Defence\u2014to be more central in domestic and regional disaster response, and to have more offensive power to be part of deterring Chinese military power\u2014simply sets the ADF up to fail in both tasks. The balanced force will deliver a \u2018reverse Goldilocks\u2019\u2014a force that is not too hot, not too cold, but unfortunately not just right.<\/p>\n

Worst of all, Defence people and equipment not trained in or designed for responding to bushfires or other natural disasters (like pandemics) may become part of the problem, not part of the solution. An example is the ADF\u2019s accidental sparking<\/a> of the giant fire in Namadgi National Park that threatened Canberra when a military helicopter was used in an unexpected role.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to break with the idea that our defence capabilities are \u2018structured for war, adapted for peace\u2019. Natural and man-made disasters\u2014whether fires, floods or epidemics\u2014will be more frequent and more damaging<\/a> in Australia, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Doing disaster response well requires organisation, training and focused capabilities. Volunteer and state and territory capabilities will remain key, but they will not be sufficient\u2014as we have seen. So, Defence has an enduring role to play in our domestic and regional future.<\/p>\n

Taking the decision, as ASPI\u2019s Peter Jennings has suggested<\/a>, to set up a disaster response command within Defence will start to provide the framework to contribute to the nation\u2019s ability to mitigate the damage of natural disasters. But it will need to bring some real capabilities along. There\u2019s an opportunity here demonstrated in the Pentagon\u2019s new budget plan<\/a>: some systems acquired for the previous strategic era are just not useful in our new era.<\/p>\n

The C-27J Spartan<\/a> is an example. Defence acquired 10 of these new aircraft as \u2018battlefield airlifters\u2019 to fly cargo and people into austere, difficult airstrips close to the fighting.<\/p>\n

But that time is over. They\u2019re built to go against the insurgent and terrorist adversaries or weak state militaries we\u2019ve seen in recent decades and are unlikely to survive in the dense threat environment of a conflict with a peer-level state military like China\u2019s. Trying to repurpose them for that sort of conflict would drive up their operating costs beyond what is sensible.<\/p>\n

Defence could avoid building and operating a \u2018strategic orphan\u2019 capability by offering up the Spartans as a core contribution to the domestic and regional disaster response. They could also be made available for Pacific step-up tasks. This positive contribution to the nation\u2019s needs and to the prime minister\u2019s agenda would cost less than the current plan for the C-27Js.<\/p>\n

Abandoning the ambition to deploy these aircraft into a military threat environment that would be difficult to survive will mean no longer having to invest in complex and expensive electronic warfare self-defence systems<\/a> or battlefield airlift training for crew. The political value to the government and Defence from such a clear move to step up disaster response capabilities would be significant, because the capability lift brought from this standing fleet would be immediate.<\/p>\n

Breaking the balanced force means structuring a small part of Defence for disaster response, and then ruthlessly prioritising the larger part of the organisation for warfighting. It will make it easier to argue the budget case for investment in new offensive power\u2014all the weapons that the ships, aircraft and land vehicles in the white paper don\u2019t yet have. And it will make it less likely that the warfighting force will be organ-harvested to pay for and do disaster response.<\/p>\n

Looked at with the blinkers of the balanced force removed, there will be other capabilities whose reason for being are now not clear. If they aren\u2019t useful for warfighting and can\u2019t be repurposed for disaster response, they should simply be let go.<\/p>\n

How far Defence\u2019s current review may go along this path isn\u2019t clear, but we\u2019ll probably see soon. It\u2019s a necessary shift and it will help Defence be a positive contributor to the domestic and regional security challenges we face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to upend the idea of a \u2018balanced force\u2019 in Australian defence policy. Defence leaders have talked for decades about the 60,000-person ADF as a balanced force, with a \u00adlittle bit of something to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":54440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,2425,1178],"class_list":["post-54437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-defence-force","tag-defence-capability","tag-natural-disaster"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Australian Defence Force must find a new balance | 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\/the-australian-defence-force-must-find-a-new-balance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Australian Defence Force must find a new balance | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s time to upend the idea of a \u2018balanced force\u2019 in Australian defence policy. Defence leaders have talked for decades about the 60,000-person ADF as a balanced force, with a \u00adlittle bit of something to ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-australian-defence-force-must-find-a-new-balance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-23T01:30:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-23T01:15:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/20200113raaf8540677_0077-e1584694608993.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"601\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Shoebridge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Shoebridge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-australian-defence-force-must-find-a-new-balance\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/20200113raaf8540677_0077-e1584694608993.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/20200113raaf8540677_0077-e1584694608993.jpg\",\"width\":900,\"height\":601,\"caption\":\"Defence personnel board the C-27J Spartan from RAAF Base East Sale to fly to RAAF Base Edinburgh, SA, in support of Operation Bushfire Assist 19-20. *** Local Caption *** The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has commenced Operation Bushfire Assist 19-20 and has stood up a Joint Task Force in New South Wales and Victoria to enhance Defence support following devastating bushfires in the South East of Australia. 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