{"id":74545,"date":"2022-08-17T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T20:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=74545"},"modified":"2022-08-16T18:35:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T08:35:56","slug":"marless-strategic-review-presents-an-exploding-suitcase-of-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/marless-strategic-review-presents-an-exploding-suitcase-of-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Marles\u2019s strategic review presents an exploding suitcase of challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"801\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-74548\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822-205x137.jpg 205w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/javelin160822-332x221.jpg 332w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>The Labor government\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defence.gov.au\/about\/reviews-inquiries\/defence-strategic-review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">defence strategic review<\/a> will explore how the Australian military is positioned and enabled to operate in our region as the security environment requires.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the review on 3 August and it\u2019s to report by March 2023. That\u2019s so that the government can make decisions at the same time as it decides on the path to give Australia eight nuclear-powered submarines within an AUKUS partnership that makes them safe and effective.<\/p>\n<p>The independent heads of the review, former foreign and defence minister Stephen Smith and former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, have an enormous amount to do and almost no time to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Before they even get to thinking about what their task requires\u2014\u2018to ensure Defence has the right capabilities to meet our growing strategic needs\u2019\u2014Smith and Houston will need to confront the ugly fact that Defence\u2019s current plans are already unaffordable despite the large and growing defence budget the Albanese government has committed to.<\/p>\n<p>Nasty choices and suboptimal trade-offs are needed before any new ideas that take money are even put forward; and the only megaproject not yet agreed that can provide potential savings is the $20\u201327 billion army plan to buy an additional 450 heavily armoured vehicles for purposes that aren\u2019t clearly connected to Australia\u2019s needs in our region. These purposes must now be made clear if this project is to proceed, in whatever form.<\/p>\n<p>But even that multibillion-dollar megaproject is a distraction to the real work. As my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/report\/marles-defence-strategic-review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new <em>Strategic Insight<\/em> paper<\/a> says, the review must give Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles what he needs to provide practical, urgent direction to Defence in four big areas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">climate change and the ADF\u2019s inescapable, but unwanted, role<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China\u2019s direct security challenge in Australia\u2019s near region\u2014which makes our strategic environment uncomfortably clear, not complex as we like to tell ourselves<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">new ways to increase Australian military capability quickly\u2014because no taxpayer is going to give Defence more funding if it can\u2019t show it has different, faster ways to increase the ADF\u2019s military power<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the danger of prioritising \u2018integration\u2019 in all things in pursuit of the military nirvana of \u2018every sensor a shooter and every shooter a sensor\u2019\u2014because that highly aspirational goal is the enemy of getting capabilities into the hands of our military fast.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since 2016, and even since the Morrison government\u2019s 2020 defence strategic update, we\u2019ve experienced a rolling maul of confronting developments for our security and for the collective security of our close allies and partners.<\/p>\n<p>They include the return of war to Europe with Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the nasty realisation that the strategic partnership between Putin\u2019s Russia and Xi Jinping\u2019s China is only strengthening as that war proceeds, and the demonstration of Xi\u2019s willingness to use China\u2019s military in increasingly belligerent and aggressive ways in the South China Sea, around Taiwan and near Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Add in the now present effects of climate change domestically and in our region and the disasters and dislocation that it\u2019s already causing. Then there\u2019s the shattering of confidence in the reliability of what, in the world of Covid-19, coercive trade measures and the fracturing effects of Putin\u2019s war, seem now to be quaintly called \u2018global supply chains\u2019 and global markets. That matters to Australia, and in particular to our defence organisation, because global\u2014or at least extended international\u2014supply chains are the basis for most of Defence\u2019s support arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>But, on top of all that, the most disturbing and dangerous development for Australia\u2019s security is China\u2019s now open strategic intent to play a direct and growing role in our near region, made concrete by the security pact Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed with Beijing earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>In the light of these changes, it\u2019s now obvious that, whatever security assistance Australia will get from the US and other partners in times of crisis, like Ukraine, we\u2019ll need our own means to act in our own defence as a precondition for assistance from others.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s true whether it\u2019s our key ally, the US, our other trusted partners such as the Quad\u2019s Japan and India, or our other AUKUS partner, the UK. So, the defence strategic review must set out the decisions for the government to make that will put real substance on the notion of \u2018self-reliance within an alliance construct\u2019. That hasn\u2019t been done seriously since the Dibb review in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Debates about whether or not to spend 2% of GDP on defence are already overtaken by events. The defence budget line committed to by the new government has the budget growing to well over 2% by 2030. That was calculated using much rosier predictions for Australia\u2019s rate of economic growth between now and 2030 than look likely in the darker international economic times we\u2019re already in. It was also calculated using much lower inflationary expectations than we\u2019re experiencing now.<\/p>\n<p>So, just to mark time and maintain real purchasing power, the defence budget needs to be increased.<\/p>\n<p>But Defence can\u2019t expect public support for an increased budget without showing that it will use new ways to increase the power of the ADF fast enough to matter.<\/p>\n<p>And the reviewers themselves have some rethinking to do. Each had his most intense exposure to the strategic situation, and to the arcane issues in our defence organisation, around the late 2000s and early 2010s. That\u2019s when the force structure plans that Defence is still implementing and still deeply attached to were made. That was also a time when China\u2019s aggressive trajectory was much less obvious, and before the fragility of global supply chains was revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Escaping from some of what they think they know from that earlier time is possible\u2014and essential if the review is to help the government and Defence make the changes our strategic environment demands. It\u2019s a case of channelling that line attributed to Winston Churchill when he was accused of hypocrisy: \u2018When the facts change, I change my mind.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Repacking the exploding suitcase that is the defence budget and wrapping all this up by March 2023 means the review is time poor. On this, the review reflects Australia\u2019s security situation: time is a precious resource to be used wisely in ways that rapidly increase our security and help to deter others from thinking that conflict is a smart choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Labor government\u2019s defence strategic review will explore how the Australian military is positioned and enabled to operate in our region as the security environment requires. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the review on 3 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":74548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,17,3337,38,279],"class_list":["post-74545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-defence-force","tag-australia","tag-defence-strategic-review","tag-department-of-defence","tag-force-structure","dinkus-defence-strategic-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Marles\u2019s strategic review presents an exploding suitcase of challenges | 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\/marless-strategic-review-presents-an-exploding-suitcase-of-challenges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marles\u2019s strategic review presents an exploding suitcase of challenges | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Labor government\u2019s defence strategic review will explore how the Australian military is positioned and enabled to operate in our region as the security environment requires. 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