Laird Joint by Design

The Evolution of Australian Defence Strategy
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-4287-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 330 Seiten

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, launched a new defense and security strategy for Australia. This strategy reset puts Australia on the path of enhanced defense capabilities. The change represents a serious shift in its policies towards China, and in reworking alliance relationships going forward. 'Joint by Design' is focused on Australian defence modernization and policy, but it is also about preparing liberal democracies around the world for the challenges of the future.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Laird, Robbin

Leseproben

Chapter One:
The Australian Defence and Security Strategy 2020 Reset

On 1 July 2020, the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honorable Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Defence, the Honorable Senator Linda Reynolds, launched the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the 2020 Force Structure Plan at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

The Defence Strategic Update sets out the government’s new defense strategy that has three core objectives: to shape Australia’s strategic environment, deter actions against Australia’s interests and respond with credible military force, when required.

In his speech announcing the next phase in Australian strategic development, Prime Minister Morrison highlighted the challenges of dealing with the new strategic situation and the importance of enhancing Australia’s ability to defend itself in an alliance context.

Launching the New Strategy

“This year, the ADF has provided crucial support to Australians during our Black Summer bushfires. And now a response to a once-in-a-century
pandemic . . .

“At the height of the Operation Bushfire Assist, led by Major General Justin—Jake, as he’s known—Elwood, six thousand five hundred ADF personnel provided support to state and territory fire and emergency services across our nation.

“It was a proud time for our defence forces, and in particular the unprecedented compulsory callout of three thousand ADF Reservists, who are proud at the best of times, but to be able to be serving as reservists in their own country at a time of great need. So many of them that I was able to meet around the country felt a great pride in being able to deliver that service. And I thank their employers once again for supporting them in their efforts.

“When we thought life was going to return to normal as the fires receded, of course it didn’t. The COVID-19 pandemic hit, and once again the ADF has responded with Operation COVID-19 Assist. At its peak, it has involved around two thousand two hundred personnel across Australia.

“In April, there was an outbreak of coronavirus in the north-west regional hospital in Burnie, an outbreak that included staff across the hospital. The ADF responded with a fifty-person deployment to assist the hospital. For two weeks, the ADF’s medical professionals treated and supported more than four hundred locals who entered the hospital’s doors. This support was not just practical, but it was a great confidence booster at a time of great anxiety in North Western Tasmania . . .

“Meanwhile, in Shepparton, engineer and maintenance specialists from the Army Logistical Training Centre and the Joint Logistics Unit worked on lifting vital PPE capacity at the Med-Con plant, and thanks to them, Med-Con surgical face mask production has an output capacity of 200 million masks per year.

“From contact tracing to quarantine support and isolation checking, the ADF has demonstrated again its capability, professionalism and adaptability . . .

“The enduring responsibility of government, though, is timeless—to protect Australia’s national interests, our sovereignty, our values and the security of the Australian people. This responsibility requires sustained commitment, focus, application. It requires strong economic management to support the necessary investment, and it demands tough and difficult choices.

“As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted in the 2012–13 Defence Budget Brief, just prior to our government’s 2013 election, the Defence Budget had fallen to 1.56 percent of GDP. That was the lowest level since 1938.

“Now, to illustrate the real-world implications of this, there were no major domestic naval shipbuilding projects commissioned in the six years that followed the end of the Howard Government in 2007 and the decisions they made to acquire the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and the Canberra-class LHDs. I want to assure the men and women of the ADF, who inherit a proud tradition and carry it, that our government—my Government—will not repeat those mistakes of the past.

“We will ensure, together, that you are always properly supported as you face the challenges of today, tomorrow, and you carry out the decisions that we make, that you undertake on our behalf and on behalf of the Australian people.

“Despite the many pressures on the budget—and, of course, during this COVID-19 recession, they have only accelerated—I reaffirm today that our government’s commitment is to properly fund defence with the certainty of a new ten-year funding model that goes beyond our achievement of reaching 2 percent of our economy of GDP this year.

“This simple truth is this: even as we stare down the COVID pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly.

“We have been a favoured isle, with many natural advantages for many decades, but we have not seen the conflation of global, economic and strategic uncertainty now being experienced here in Australia in our region since the existential threat we faced when the global and regional order collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s.

“That is a sobering thought, and it’s something I have reflected on quite a lot lately, as we’ve considered the dire economic circumstances we face.

“That period of the 1930s has been something I have been revisiting on a very regular basis, and when you connect both the economic challenges and the global uncertainty, it can be very haunting. But not overwhelming. It requires a response.

“Now, we must face that reality, understanding that we have moved into a new and less benign strategic area, one in which the institutions of patterns of cooperation that have benefited our prosperity and security for decades, are now under increasing—and I would suggest almost irreversible—strain.

“The Indo-Pacific is the epicentre of rising strategic competition. Our region will not only shape our future, increasingly though, it is the focus of the dominant global contest of our age. This is the setting for it.

“Tensions over territorial claims are rising across the Indo-Pacific region, as we have seen recently on the disputed border between India and China, and the South China Sea, and the East China Sea. The risk of miscalculation and even conflict is heightening. Regional military modernisation is occurring at an unprecedented rate. Capabilities and reach are expanding.

“Previous assumptions of enduring advantage and technological edge are no longer constants and cannot be relied upon. Coercive activities are rife. Disinformation and foreign interference have been enabled and accelerated by new and emerging technologies. And, of course, terrorism hasn’t gone away, and the evil ideologies that underpin it and they remain a tenacious threat.

“State sovereignty is under pressure, as are rules and norms and the stability that these provide.

“Relations between China and the United States are fractious at best, as they compete for political, economic and technological supremacy. But it’s important to acknowledge that they are not the only actors of consequence.

“The rest of the world, and Australia, are not just bystanders to this. It’s not just China and the United States that will determine whether our region stays on path for free and open trade, investment and cooperation that has underpinned stability and prosperity, the people-to-people relationships that bind our region together. Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, the countries of South-East Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Pacific all have agency, choices to make, parts to play and, of course, so does Australia.

“There is a new dynamic of strategic competition, and the largely benign security environment, as I’ve noted, that Australia has enjoyed, basically from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the global financial crisis, that’s gone.

“Since the government’s 2016 Defence White Paper was released, we have witnessed an acceleration of the strategic trends that were already underway. The pandemic has accelerated and accentuated many of those trends, and that is why today I’m launching the 2020 Defence Strategic Update. It represents a significant pivot. It outlines the shifts and challenges I’ve foreshadowed and mentioned. It makes clear the strategic environment we face, and this clarity will guide Australia’s actions. The update sees an evolution of strategic defence objectives in accord with our new strategic environment.

“The objectives outlined in the 2016 Defence White Paper saw an equal weighting across the three areas of Australia and its northern approach, South-East Asia and the Pacific and operations in support of the rules-based global order.

“In this update, the government has directed Defence to prioritise, to make choices, ADF’s geographical focus on our immediate region, the area ranging from the northeast Indian Ocean through maritime and mainland Southeast Asia to Papua New Guinea and the southwest Pacific.

“The government has set three new strategic objectives to guide all defence planning, including force structure, force generation, international engagement...