Category: Defence

One response from a colleague to the contentious proposal by Professor Hugh White in his new book ‘How to Defend Australia’ that the government should seriously consider adopting a nuclear capability was the brief ‘Oh, for God’s Sake!.’  Underpinning such a comment is the prospect of the kind of dystopian nightmare that stalked the West’s Cold War MAD (mutually-assured destruction) containment doctrine. As Russia’s President Putin, among others, has suggested tersely, in a 21^st century nuclear war ‘no one would survive.’ (more…)

In his important new book How to Defend Australia, Hugh White has placed before us a very clear picture of the contemporary security challenges now confronting Australia. First and foremost is China’s re-emergence as a (or maybe the) major power in the Western Pacific. This challenge for Australia is heightened by the Trump administration’s confusing responses to Beijing’s assertiveness across the region. Moreover, the United States may not be all that interested in guaranteeing Australia’s security into the next three or four decades. And even if it were so inclined, will its military capabilities be able to easily counter those of a risen China? (more…)

Australian strategic thinking, like Dracula’s Transylvania, is very much troubled by the undead. Research undertaken 50 years ago by Ian Bellany, a nuclear physicist and predecessor of Hugh White in the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, wrestled with a remarkably similar Australian defence problematic – namely whether nuclear weapons might be a safeguard against a rising China and concluded that other options (military and diplomatic) were far more preferable. The times have changed, and with them, so it seems, the need to disinter the corpse if only to rebury it.   (more…)

Since the advent of Donald Trump as United States president, the certainties that are said to underpin Australia’s defence doctrine are less than ever convincing. Trump’s cynicism about alliances underlines the fact that ANZUS is no longer (if it ever was) a guarantee of American military assistance. Neither Prime Minister Morrison posing on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan during the latest Exercise Talisman Sabre in July 2019, nor the promise of a state dinner in Washington dispel the uncertainty, although they do increase pressure on Morrison to commit the ADF to join the US in a war against Iran or take a more robust stand against Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, if asked, as he is likely to be.

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The opinions to which we should pay most critical attention are those of commentators best placed to influence government. Peter Jennings, Executive Director of ASPI, is one. Now he is claiming a ‘new cold war with China is playing out in all but name’.

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Nuclear weapons have dubious operational utility and discarding treaty obligations would leave the stench of hypocrisy. (more…)

Australia’s options for defending itself are in the news with the release of Hugh White’s How to Defend Australia. Will it shake up thinking? Or is it too hard to change the way we do Australia’s defence because there is no appetite for change? (more…)

Professor Hugh White’s recent suggestion that Australia might need to consider nuclear weapons is highly provocative and dangerous. He is helping to legitimise these instruments of terror, and gives credence to the deeply flawed notion of nuclear “deterrence”. Australia must instead support global efforts for nuclear weapons elimination, especially the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (more…)

In How to Defend Australia, Hugh White has produced a work that removes much of the mystery surrounding Australian defence policy making. The historical experiences and institutional influences affecting Australia’s major past and present strategic policy positions are lucidly set out. His main objective though is to make the case for a significant boost to Australia’s defence spending based on his understanding of the strategic risks facing the nation. He would have us fighting a futile war in search of an illusory victory.

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Visiting Wellington in April 1996, I fell into conversation with a very wise and experienced New Zealand government official. We talked about the still-unfolding Taiwan Straits crisis, during which Washington had deployed a formidable array of naval power, including two aircraft carrier battle groups, to the waters around Taiwan. The aim was to compel China to abandon a series of missile firings near Taiwan intended to intimidate voters in forthcoming presidential elections. (more…)

There is nothing more beloved of apocalyptic thinkers, intelligence agencies, conservative politicians and general scare-mongers than the threat of some disaster. It is even better when the threat is insidious, little understood and able to be transformed into policies which actually have other purposes.

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General Angus Campbell’s presentation at ASPI’s conference War in 2015 was thoughtful and provocative. Some of the CDF’s views are germane and apt are others contestable. He opened by saying, ‘I sense a renewed concern in the world for the potential for state-on-state conflict’; however ‘political warfare’ was his main concern.

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ASPI’s relentless push for ever greater defence spending gets another iteration in Malcolm Davis’s Forward defence in depth for Australia . As a breathless list of ‘key horizon technologies’, Davis’s paper makes entertaining and informative reading. As a justification for putting Australia on a permanent war footing it is wanting.

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There have been reports that President Trump is less enthusiastic about attacking Iran than his advisers. For the moment, an unanticipated source of sanity. The current US posturing against Iran seems confected. It also seems mad. A US attack on Iran would be blatant and naked aggression. The knock on consequences could have strategic dimensions that are difficult to fully comprehend.

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As a young Army officer, watching Prime Minister John Howard’s announcement of the deployment of Australian military forces to Afghanistan in late 2001, I remember the extreme disappointment from both my soldiers and I that we would not be going to fight what would become known as the Global War on Terror.  (more…)

Nearly thirty-six years ago NATO carried out its annual Able Archer command post exercise designed to simulate an escalation in conflict with the USSR and the Warsaw Pact nations which culminated in a coordinated nuclear attack against the Soviet homeland. (more…)