{"id":79135,"date":"2023-04-21T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T02:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=79135"},"modified":"2023-12-20T13:29:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T02:29:43","slug":"the-role-of-intelligence-in-australian-statecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-role-of-intelligence-in-australian-statecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"The role of intelligence in Australian statecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

As Melissa Conley-Tyler and Benjamin Day have noted<\/a>, \u2018statecraft\u2019 is increasingly the term of art when it comes to Australian policymaking\u2014and, as Will Leben has observed<\/a>, a welcome one.<\/p>\n

The increasing focus on statecraft in an Australian context has prompted ASPI to establish a program to ensure intelligence\u2019s role within it is better understood.<\/p>\n

In 2020 then prime minister Scott Morrison boldly declared<\/a> that Australia would use \u2018all elements of statecraft to shape the world we want to see\u2019.<\/p>\n

As shadow minister, Penny Wong suggested<\/a> Morrison\u2019s government \u2018neglected some of the drivers of statecraft, some of the capability that\u2019s required to navigate what is a much more challenging and risky world\u2019. By contrast<\/a> Labor would \u2018bring all the aspects of our statecraft together to protect and advance our interests\u2019. As Minister for Foreign Affairs she has described<\/a>\u2014in a speech in which she used \u2018statecraft\u2019 seven times\u2014how Australia\u2019s strategic circumstances require \u2018unprecedented coordination and ambition in our statecraft\u2019 and that this statecraft is composed of: \u2018Our economic security, our domestic resilience as a multicultural democracy and our international engagement\u2019.<\/p>\n

Last year defence minister Richard Marles cited statecraft thrice in one speech<\/a>, concluding that \u2018statecraft is only viable if it is underpinned by the ability to project force and power: to deter military threats, and defend Australia\u2019s national interests within our immediate region.\u2019 At this year\u2019s Avalon air show he told an industry dinner<\/a> \u2018it has never been more important for Australia to employ sober, responsible and clear-eyed statecraft\u2019.<\/p>\n

While \u2018statecraft\u2019 might be back in the political lexicon, analysis of its use in Australia reveals its various meanings. Although sometimes describing specific policy actions (as in coercive economic statecraft), two uses are more common. First, innate judgments and actions by governments or individuals, \u2018sound statecraft\u2019 for example. Second, the integration of powers and capabilities into a single, coherent, conscious and integrated approach to Australia in the world. This second usage is most relevant, with certain components of (Australian) national power readily identified. As the MP for Wills, Peter Khalil, succinctly described them<\/a>: \u2018the three Ds of statecraft\u2014nuanced diplomacy; development assistance; and defence\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here that we need to talk about spies, more precisely about the role of intelligence in Australian statecraft, why it\u2019s relatively unheralded, and why it\u2019s worth examination and discussion.<\/p>\n

The government and its agencies have explicitly linked the concept of statecraft and the work of intelligence.<\/p>\n

At its 75th<\/sup> anniversary last year the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) was described by the then government<\/a> as \u2018one of the most important arms of Australian statecraft\u2019, with then assistant minister Andrew Hastie adding that \u2018secrets of Australian statecraft … have been shielded from public view, as ASD operated in the shadows alongside cousins like ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) and ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Service)\u2019.<\/p>\n

The other agency with a significant birthday in 2022 was indeed ASIS whose then Director-General, Paul Symon, was plain<\/a> about its role and associated challenges:<\/p>\n

\u2018While [human intelligence work] remains a core component of statecraft, it must adapt to meet the extraordinary challenges arising from the interaction of a complex strategic environment, intensified counter-intelligence efforts, and emergent and emerging technologies.\u2019<\/p>\n

This significance of intelligence to Australian statecraft shouldn\u2019t be surprising. As Danielle Cave writes<\/a>: \u2018For as long as\u2014and perhaps even longer than\u2014there have been states, there have been spies\u2019. The principal institutions of Australian intelligence date to WWII\u2019s aftermath, or to the first Hope Royal Commission almost 50 years ago, as well as an important pre-history<\/a>. But the intelligence community\u2019s contribution remains under-examined, and lately National Intelligence Community (NIC) leaders have been increasingly open about the need to be\u2014albeit prudently\u2014more open.<\/p>\n

This reflects practical pressures on the NIC, especially the need to grow and transform, a challenge shared with Defence and acknowledged by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the National Press Club<\/a>. To appreciate the scale of that task, consider that ASD\u2019s Project REDSPICE<\/a> is a $9.9 billion initiative over 10 years, involving more than 1900 new personnel. For any organisation this would be daunting\u2014for agencies with very particular security and skills needs it\u2019s truly extraordinary. And that\u2019s just one agency in a community of 10!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just this imperative that makes a more informed discourse on Australian intelligence valuable to government, agencies and public alike. Initiatives like REDSPICE are building off historically significant growth in NIC resources and responsibilities, tracing back to the turn of the century. From what was a curiosity (and an endangered one at that) in the post-Cold War 1990s, for over two decades Australian intelligence has been on a constant cycle of high tempo operations.<\/p>\n

For example, as the then Government noted in 2018<\/a>, \u2018successive governments have asked ASIS to do more in response to national security priorities and unfolding events, and to do so in new places and new circumstances unforeseen in 2001 or in 2004\u2019. ASIO and the AFP, with the rest of the NIC, have assiduously pursued the counter-terrorism mission and disrupted numerous threats.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much to be gained from reflection on those past experiences, and the organisational and methodological lessons for now emergent and emerging national security challenges, especially how collaboration across historical silos\u2014technical and human, foreign and domestic\u2014has served outcomes while preserving first principles enshrined since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also acknowledgement that a more robust social licence for Australian intelligence, by way of a better-informed public, is a force multiplier and hedge against future vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has summed this up<\/a> as the \u2018triple T\u2019s of Threat, Trust and Team\u2019. Burgess said he wanted to \u2018improve awareness of threats, enhance trust through transparency and build our team by recruiting the best and brightest.\u2019 ASD director-general Rachel Noble has noted<\/a> that to \u00a0protect knowledge of operational methods and capabilities: \u2018The how<\/em> must necessarily be kept a secret\u2019.<\/p>\n

ASPI\u2019s Statecraft and Intelligence Program aims to improve public knowledge of, and discourse on, intelligence matters (including through demystification and myth-busting); improve outcomes for the NIC and by extension Australian interests, and in turn ask more of the NIC itself, while equipping informed policymakers to collaborate with intelligence counterparts more effectively.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s linkage of intelligence with statecraft is deliberate. It situates intelligence within a purposeful policy context and helps move past espionage as entertainment or cliche. Furthermore, this approach expands the notion of intelligence beyond readier assumptions of counterterrorism and conduct of defence to the full range of Australia\u2019s levers and activities in the world. That\u2019s critical given the wrenching changes taking place in our strategic environment.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t wholly new territory for ASPI. In addition to ongoing and invaluable contributions made in analysing cyberespionage, information operations and disinformation, law enforcement and counterterrorism, to mention just a few, ASPI has contributed to past intelligence reviews and identified important lessons from international experience. Of note was 2021\u2019s Collaborative and Agile<\/em><\/a> report on intelligence community collaboration insights from the UK and US.<\/p>\n

Using unclassified resources (and leveraging historical case-studies and international comparisons), the ASPI program will canvass the challenges facing Australian intelligence\u2014cultural, organisational, technological and strategic\u2014as well as intelligence\u2019s place within liberal democracy, and the integration of intelligence capabilities into national strategy and effects.<\/p>\n

Importantly the program will also examine the finite limits of intelligence and its utility to statecraft. For, as Symon told ASPI<\/a> in 2020: \u2018We\u2019re not the silver bullet, and we don\u2019t pretend to be the silver bullet.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Melissa Conley-Tyler and Benjamin Day have noted, \u2018statecraft\u2019 is increasingly the term of art when it comes to Australian policymaking\u2014and, as Will Leben has observed, a welcome one. The increasing focus on statecraft in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1690,"featured_media":79139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[915,1031,1032,343,2323],"class_list":["post-79135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asd","tag-asio","tag-asis","tag-australian-intelligence-community","tag-penny-wong"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe role of intelligence in Australian statecraft | 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-role-of-intelligence-in-australian-statecraft\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The role of intelligence in Australian statecraft | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Melissa Conley-Tyler and Benjamin Day have noted, \u2018statecraft\u2019 is increasingly the term of art when it comes to Australian policymaking\u2014and, as Will Leben has observed, a welcome one. 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