Category: Defence

  • MIKE SCRAFTON. Some possible implications for Australia’s strategic policy in Trump’s emergency

    President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over illegal immigration on the southern border of the US is destined to bring on a short term constitutional and political crisis in the US. The security of the US/Mexican border is not of direct interest to Australia but the longer term outcome of contest between the Executive and the Congress is something that bears close attention.

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  • CAVAN HOGUE. Comment on Hugh White’s response to Paul Dibb on ANZUS and Taiwan.

    Hugh White has made an effective rebuttal of Paul Dibb’s claim that we should join the US if China takes military action against Taiwan.

    It is important to stress that ANZUS does not require us to join with the USA in defending Taiwan.   (more…)

  • HUGH WHITE. The US shouldn’t go to war with China over Taiwan—and nor should Australia (ASPI: THE STRATEGIST, 13 Feb 2019)

    Paul Dibb, in his recent Strategist post, writes that America’s strategic position in Asia would be fatally undermined if it didn’t go to war with China if China attacked Taiwan, and that Australia’s alliance with America would be fatally undermined if we didn’t then go to war with China too. The conclusion he draws is that, in the event of an unprovoked Chinese attack on Taiwan, America should go to war with China, and so should Australia. (more…)

  • LINDSAY HUGHES. Saudi Arabia’s Ballistic Missile Programme: The Tip of the Iceberg.

    It was recently reported that Saudi Arabia could be working towards developing a nuclear-capable ballistic missile programme. The fact that the news came as a surprise was, arguably, the biggest surprise of all. Saudi Arabia had made it clear, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and ex-Foreign Minister Adel al–Jubeir, that it would acquire nuclear weapons if its regional rival, Iran, did. The issue now is not whether Riyadh wishes to acquire ballistic missiles – nuclear capable or not – but whether it has the technological expertise to manufacture them, or the ability to acquire them. The main question arising from this is how would Riyadh’s acquisition of ballistic missiles affect the regional security balance? (more…)

  • JOHN STAPLETON: Hakeem, the Australian Federal Police and a Truly Desperate Government

    Just how many own goals can one government make and still survive?

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  • The casual talk of war

    The casual talk of war heard today is of great concern. War is treated as if it’s a board game and the only pieces are military forces. The experiences of the twentieth-century, and to a lesser extent those of this century, have demonstrated the widespread destruction and death, social dislocation and economic collapse, political disruption and often revolution, or geopolitical realignment, that accompany major wars. War is an unreliable tool of statecraft and unpredictable pursuit.

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  • JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI. Just Peace: The only antidote to the age of violence – Part 1

    Endemic violence, the hallmark of the last hundred years, shows no sign of abating. The death toll resulting from war in the 20th century is 187 million and probably higher. The number of armed conflicts in the world has risen steadily since 1946 and now stands at 50 or more in any one year. In each case ‘just war’ rhetoric has been invoked to defend the indefensible. It is time to shift our thinking and public discourse from ‘just war’ to ‘just peace’.

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  • JOHN STAPLETON. Acknowledged Civilian Casualties Only Beginning of Defence Scandal

    The truth is military authorities have no idea how many civilians have been killed by Australian bombs in the medieval streets of Iraq and Syria.

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  • ERNST WILLHEIM. Secret Trials: The illegal bugging of the Timor Leste Cabinet and the extraordinary prosecution of Bernard Collaery and Witness K

    Australians reading about secret trials in foreign countries tend to content themselves in the belief that in Australia we have an open court system and an independent judiciary. After all, freedom of speech, the rule of law and an open and independent court system are basic bulwarks of our democracy. Aren’t they? This brief paper challenges that comfortable assumption. (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. A Guessing Game

    Trump’s extraordinary public attack on the whole of the US intelligence community has fuelled a guessing game: the well established one which questions the relationship between intelligence assessments and policy development; and, a current one, which questions whether Trump has any interest in policy having a factual basis. It’s anyone’s guess where the latter will lead.   (more…)

  • MIKE SCRAFTON. The Intelligent use of Intelligence

    The United States Intelligence Community presents an annual assessment of national security threats to Congress. President Trump and the US Intelligence agencies are at odds over the 2019 Report. Putting aside Trump’s simplistic and intuitive understanding and his disregard for any evidence that contradicts his preconceptions, the enthusiasm with which Trump’s antagonists have grasped the agencies’ judgements also raises an important question about the value and use of intelligence product.   (more…)

  • MIKE SCRAFTON. The fissures in NATO.

    NATO defence ministers will meet in Brussels over 13-14 February. Member states will struggle to find any accord in the face of an array strategic and political challenges from internal and external sources. Overshadowing all else will be the vagaries of American policy and the Administration’s undisguised lack of enthusiasm for NATO, or any multilateral arrangements.  (more…)

  • NICK DEANE. Unravelling the fabric of the Australia/US alliance.

    John Menadue has articulated the problems with the Australia/US alliance very clearly. Those who are concerned to change its nature need a weak point at which to challenge it. To unravel the fabric of the alliance, start by opposing the presence of US marines in Darwin!  (more…)

  • HENRY REYNOLDS. When will it end?

    Three days after the Abbott government was sworn in on the 18th of September 2013 the new defence minister Senator David Johnston made a statement to the media. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that he wanted the military to be ‘battle ready for future conflicts in the unstable Middle East and south Asia.’ After 14 years of involvement in overseas conflicts the defence force had a ‘strong fighting momentum that should not be lost.’ He planned to maintain and ’augment our readiness for future fights in the unstable region stretching from Pakistan to the Middle East’. This was the area that’ we might need to go back into at some point in the future.’   (more…)

  • GEOFFREY MILLER. Intelligence and the function of government. (Australian Outlook 9.1.2019)

    “Intelligence and the Function of Government”, edited by Daniel Baldino and Rhys Crawley, contains a great deal of useful material on the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC), intelligence issues and intelligence in relation to government.

    It consists of 12 chapters, covering topics such as the history of the AIC, intelligence as an academic discipline and, very importantly, the dissemination of intelligence to and within the government.   (more…)

  • KAREN ELPHICK. United States Senate shows President a red light on war powers as Labor promises a war powers inquiry in Australia (Australia Parliamentary Blog 21.12.2018)

     

    For several years, Yemen has been in a state of civil war between a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni Government and Houthi forces. The US armed forces are not directly engaged in Yemen but have been supporting Saudi military efforts with aerial targeting and intelligence sharing.

    On 13 December 2018, the United States (US) Senate passed Resolution S.J. Res. 54 – 115th Congress (Res. 54) directing the US President to withdraw US Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Res. 54 provides (emphasis added):

    This joint resolution directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen within 30 days unless Congress authorizes a later withdrawal date, issues a declaration of war, or specifically authorizes the use of the Armed Forces. Prohibited activities include providing in-flight fueling for non-U.S. aircraft conducting missions as part of the conflict in Yemen. This joint resolution shall not affect any military operations directed at Al Qaeda.

    The President must submit to Congress, within 90 days, reports assessing the risks that would be posed: (1) if the United States were to cease supporting operations with respect to the conflict in Yemen, and (2) if Saudi Arabia were to cease sharing Yemen-related intelligence with the United States.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Our intelligence agencies are out of control -An edited repost

     It seems  likely that the prosecution by the Commonwealth Government  of former spy (Witness K ) and his lawyer Bernard Collaery will be heard in closed court. What a travesty of justice this is. Those who authorised the illegal bugging of the East Timorese Cabinet for the commercial benefit of Woodside Petroleum and those who subsequently covered up their activities have not been pursued.. Some of them have been promoted. 

    We need intelligence agencies that are both competent and accountable. We have neither at the moment. We have witnessed the abject failure of bank regulators.Regulatory failure in the intelligence sector is even more in plain sight.  

    There are particular problems for agencies which operate in secret and with few public checks. In an abuse of power ASIO and its collaborators have been campaigning  overtly and covertly to force a change in Government policy towards China.

    There is no effective supervision in the public interest of the Hastie/Lewis partnership . Here we have the parliamentary supervisor of ASIO (Hastie) and the head  of ASIO(Lewis) on a joint ticket. Old SAS colleagues. It is extra- ordinary and dangerous. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Joined at the hip to a very violent and dangerous ally . An update

    We are a nation in denial that we are ‘joined at the hip’ to a dangerous ally that is becoming even more dangerous with the increasing privatisation of the US ‘war complex’  The complex is less and less under civilian control. Arms companies in the US and particularly drone manufacturers have powerful interests and the means to keep the US perpetually at war.

    Retiring US Defence Secretary Mattis complains that President Trump should show more respect for allies. But the US shows most respect for allies that do what they are told or supinely comply.It has been thus for decades with one US mistake after another and one US President after another.

    Apart from brief isolationist periods, the US has been almost perpetually at war; wars that we have often foolishly been drawn into. The US has subverted and overthrown numerous governments over two centuries. It has a military and business complex, almost a ‘hidden state’, that depends on war for influence and enrichment. It believes in its ‘manifest destiny’ which brings with it an assumed moral superiority which it denies to others. The problems did not start with Trump. They are long-standing and deep rooted.

    Unfortunately, many of our political, bureaucratic, business and media elites have been so long on an American drip feed that they find it hard to think of the world without an American focus. We had a similar and dependent view of the UK in the past. That ended in tears in Singapore.  Conservatives rail about Chinese influence but we are immersed and dominated by all things American,including the Murdoch media. (more…)

  • ROBERT D KAPLAN. The case for leaving Afghanistan (The New York Times International Edition).

    America is spending beyond its means on a mission that might only be helping its strategic rivals. (more…)

  • MUJIB MASHAL. Afghan units led by C.I.A. leave trail of abuse .Victims and officials say raids are pushing people toward the Taliban (The New York Times International Edition).

    Razo Khan woke up suddenly to the sight of assault rifles pointed at his face, and demands that he get out of bed and onto the floor. Within minutes, the armed raiders had separated the men from the women and children. Then the shooting started. As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a bedroom that had been set on fire. (more…)

  • MACK WILLIAMS. Pine Gap: Cabinet Papers.

    Lost in the flurry of media comment on the Cabinet papers released on 1 January was an extremely important( if not the most) submission formerly highly classified and titled as “Establishment of a Joint Australia-United States Relay Ground Station at Pine Gap”. As of writing, seemingly only the ABC has picked up on the submission with the major print media choosing not to report it – for reasons one can only speculate about!  (more…)

  • HENRY REYNOLDS. The Best of 2018: Australia’s perpetual ‘war footing’.

    We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary. (more…)

  • CHRIS MILLS. Australian Defence Organisation Combats Climate Change Effects in Australia.

    The Mission of the Australian Defence Force is to defend Australia and its national interests. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018 Report assesses that climate change presents a global ‘risk to heath, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth’.  Australia, being the driest inhabited continent faces existential risk from climate change which is attacking Australia and adversely affecting national interests with extreme weather events such as droughts and fires, and the Great Barrier Reef is being cooked alive. The logical deduction is that the Australian Defence Organisation should exercise its Mission and participate in a campaign to combat climate change.

    An ironic canary in the Queensland coalmines contributing to climate change is the widespread and extended drought and the consequential wildfires burning over half a million hectares.  There are broadacre carbon farms in Queensland and the good these farms do in capturing and storing carbon is negated when forests burn across huge areas, releasing carbon-dioxide.  Project these early-warning signals and the future is bleak for Australian production of food and fibre to meet domestic and the world’s needs. (more…)

  • GREG LOCKHART. On the back of the great crime against humanity in Iraq.

    It was ‘a bloody mess’. So said one Iraq veteran heavily involved on the logistics side of things and quoted in Dr Albert Palazzo’s recently declassified studies The Australian Army and the War in Iraq 2002-2010 (572 pages, 2011) and Deploy, Sustain, Return: Australian Logistics and the War in Iraq (156 pages, 2008). But note well that therein the term ‘bloody’ was meant metaphorically. In Australia’s Iraq, there was very little fighting.   (more…)

  • CAVAN and ALEX HOGUE. Cyber legislation – the oldest trick in the book.

    The proposed legislation on cyber powers raises some questions that need to be answered.  The debate has been rhetorical and has not addressed the technical or legal aspects of the legislation in any detail. Has the implementation been thought through by all concerned? We don’t have  all the answers but wonder if the Government does either. The political debate is on the level of kindergarten abuse instead of dispassionate discussion of the issues. There are serious problems in implementing the legislation and it may well fail because it is impractical. (more…)

  • JACK WATERFORD. Why do crime-busters need ASIO-type powers?

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  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. The Occupation of the Australian Mind.

    Fear and apathy have taken up residence in the collective political consciousness of Australia. Indeed, it may be that they have achieved that most desirable of states for governments seeking to remain in power, or oppositions sensing their imminent ascendency to it: a state of collective unconsciousness that consents to its own increasing subservience and essential irrelevance while believing that it is being kept safe.   (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. War and the national Interest.

    Since the Korean War in the early 1950s, the US has committed a series of political and strategic misjudgements in its war decisions. Does this give us confidence about its future decisions and for a policy of going along with those decisions even when they do not directly involve our national interests? Nationalism and irrationality are on the rise, increasing the chances of conflict today  more than for decades. (more…)

  • BEVAN RAMSDEN. Caught in the middle of US-China contention, Australia sides with the US in their efforts to contain and keep China out of the Western Pacific.

    Australia is currently facing a major change in strategic circumstances and the argument for pursuing a truly independent foreign policy, for the economic benefit and security of the Australian people, has never been so great.  (more…)

  • DAVID STEPHENS. If the Australian War Memorial holds “the soul of the nation” why is the Memorial Council so full of brass?

    The Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, often tells us that in the Memorial can be found ‘the soul of the nation’.   The Prime Minister said the same thing, just the other day.  Accepting for the moment that this characterisation is correct, why is it that eight of the 13 members of the Memorial’s Council are serving or retired senior officers (Lieutenant Colonel/equivalent or above)?  Does our national soul, if such it is, need that much military brass?  Does a body containing that much brass make a particular sound?  Should the Council look more like the rest of us?  (more…)