A focused force: Australia's Defence priorities in the Asian century

The biggest questions for Australia’s defence white paper concern China. How does China's rise affect Australia's strategic situation and what does it mean for our defence needs? Just as Australia's strategic outlook has been dominated in past decades by American primacy in Asia, so in future it will be shaped more than anything else by what follows as America's primacy fades and China's grows. The biggest risk is not that China becomes a direct threat to Australia but that the erosion of American power unleashes strategic competition among Asia's strongest states, which in turn increases the risk that Australia could face a number of military threats to its interests, even its territorial security. The blunt truth is that our existing and planned forces will not be able to achieve the strategic objectives set for them over the past decade, let alone any wider objectives that may be set in future. To provide future Australian governments with genuine military options to protect Australia's strategic interests if Asia becomes more contested, our defence planning needs to focus on the capabilities that provide those options most cost-effectively. At sea, we should invest in a much bigger fleet of submarines, which are most cost-effective for maritime denial, and stop building highly vulnerable and extremely expensive surface ships for which there is no clear strategic purpose. In the air we need to ensure a robust air combat and strike capacity against the kinds of forces that major-power adversaries will have in the 2020s and '30s. That means aircraft at least as capable as the joint strike fighter, and many more of them than planned at present. To build a focused force to achieve Australia's long-term strategic objectives as they are now defined would need spending 2.5 per cent of GDP or more

Strategic Interests in Australian Defence Policy: Some Historical and Methodological Reflections

The first, and often the hardest, step in any defence policy is to define strategic objectives—what we want our armed forces to be able to do. This is especially hard for a country like Australia, because most of the circumstances in which we would rely on the Australian Defence Force most heavily are only credible if the international order in Asia were to have changed significantly. How can we decide what we would want our armed forces to do in a region very different from the one we know today? This problem has become more acute since the early 1990s, because the end of the Cold War and the rise of China have increased the probability of major systemic change in Asia. This essay explores an approach to identifying long-term strategic objectives in these circumstances. The approach it is based on a specific conception of strategic interests, defined as those factors in the international order that significantly affect the likelihood or seriousness of armed attack on Australia. This essay also describes how this approach was developed in the 1990s and applied in the 2000 White Paper, and considers its applicability in future defence policy

Keep calm and carry on: reflections on the Anglosphere

The Anglosphere—shorthand for the Anglo-American sphere of influence—established the concept and structure of the modern transnational community and remains salient in contemporary international relations.For Australia, the Anglosphere provides a framework for continued prosperity through strong trade and political favours between those within its fold.A vigorous discussion on its current shape and its relevance in the Asian century and to the current world order unfolded on ASPI\u27s blog, The Strategist. The valuable contributions have been collected in this paper.The introduction was prepared by ASPI\u27s Sarah Norgrove with pieces by Hugh White, Peter Jennings, Nic Stuart, Graeme Dobell, Andrew Smith and Andrew Davies

An Australian-Japan alliance?

This paper explores the potential and risks of an alliance between Japan and Australia. Japan is one of Australia\u27s most important economic partners, a close ally of the US and might be prepared to sell Australia a highly advanced submarine fleet. Yet, for all the overlap of values, Professor White cautions that there is not necessarily an overlap of interests. In particular the rise of China poses difficult questions for the long term potential for the relationship, and for Australia\u27s desire to avoid having to choose between the US and China. Key points: Australia and Japan seem to be moving towards an alliance. There is a strong convergence of values, economics and key allies. Yet the move, driven by the rise of China, carries significant risks. Australia needs to think carefully about the overlap of interests, not just values between Australia and Japan, before signing anything. Policy recomendation: Australia should push the pause button on the idea of a strategic alliance with Japan. For all the values and outlooks we share, Australia’s strategic interests are quite different from Japan’s, and the real risks to Australia far outweigh the potential benefits

Making it Rich and Personal: crafting an institutional personal learning environment

Many of the communities interested in learning and teaching technologies within higher education now accept the view that a conception of personal learning environments provides a the most realistic and workable perspective of learners’ interactions with and use of technology. This view may not be reflected in the behaviour of those parts of a university which normally purchase and deploy technology infrastructure. These departments or services are slow to change because they are typically, and understandably, risk-averse; the more so, because the consequences of expensive decisions about infrastructure will stay with the organisation for many years. Furthermore across the broader (less technically or educationally informed) academic community, the awareness of and familiarity with technologies in support of learning may be varied. In this context, work to innovate the learning environment will require considerable team effort and collective commitment. This paper presents a case study account of institutional processes harnessed to establish a universal personal learning environment fit for the 21st century. The challenges encountered were consequential of our working definition of a learning environment, which went beyond simple implementation. In our experience the requirements became summarised as “its more than a system, it’s a mindset”. As well as deploying technology ‘fit for purpose’ we were seeking to create an environment that could play an integral and catalytic part in the university’s role of enabling transformative education. Our ambitions and aspirations were derived from evidence in the literature. We also drew on evidence of recent and current performance in the university; gauged by institutional benchmarking and an extensive student survey. The paper presents and analyses this qualitative and quantitative data. We provide an account and analysis of our progress to achieve change, the methods we used, problems encountered and the decisions we made on the way

RFID in the supply chain: lessons from European early adopters

Purpose Radio frequency identification (RFID) is increasingly being presented as a technology with the potential to improve supply chain performance, but empirical evidence from early adopters is sparse. This paper aims to rectify this scarcity and contribute to a more informed discussion in and between academic and practitioner communities. Design/Methodology/Approach The paper is based on a conceptual model of factors influencing the success of adoption efforts. It then reports the results of a survey of 612 European supply chain managers, focusing on the 128 respondents who have begun RFID trials. Findings A significant influence on operational deployment is the presence of mandates from key customers requiring the technology’s use. Customer mandates also impact the anticipated benefits of a faster sales cycle and of enhanced systems integration, though the relationships are complex. By contrast, greater cost reduction benefits are anticipated in two industries where mandates are less common – industrial goods and logistics. Perceived organizational innovativeness positively impacts anticipated ROI from RFID. Companies adopting a ‘slap and ship’ approach are less likely to anticipate pricing benefits than those integrating RFID into enterprise systems Research Limitations/Implications The limitations of the paper include the limited sample size of early adopters. In addition, qualitative research is needed into RFID supply chain applications and into different approaches to IS integration of RFID, to inform future survey work. Practical Implications This paper informs supply chain managers and senior decision makers who are examining the potential of RFID technology. It offers guidance on what issues to look for when adopting this technology, approaches to take and the benefits that might be accrued. Originality/Valuer This paper offers a major contribution to understanding the current status of the adoption of RFID in European supply chains. This understanding is put in the context of the wider literatures on supply chain management and the adoption of information systems and te

Computer scientists meet professional issues: blended learning for a persistent challenge

Teaching professional issues to computer scientists presents academics with the two challenges. Firstly there is the issue of motivating students whose primary driver is their technical specialism. Secondly; how to persuade learners who may have chosen their field of studies with the explicit preference to avoid anything which is textual or discursive. Biglan’s extensive study of disciplinary differences, work has been sustained and developed by a number of authors from a disciplinary and technology in learning perspective. He would have classified the approaches, content and epistemology of computer science as belonging predominantly to the ‘hard applied’ field of study, with a component of ‘hard pure’ which varies according to the particular specialism. By contrast, the curriculum of professional issues modules sit squarely in the ‘soft applied’ area. Understanding these differences, is, we believe, a powerful aid to integrating professional issues into the wider computing and technology curriculum. This challenge is not confined to computer science and is one which might find resonance with many involved in education in the STEM disciplines.This oral presentation will recount experiences from the first iteration of a newly redesigned first year professional issues module which has been radically redesigned to incorporate a mixture of face to face and online educational activities. The design seeks to preserve the active participative student-centred nature of the existing module which it replaces, and at the same time provide a sustainable and compelling resource-set to which students will be able and willing to use throughout their degree studies. The presentation will provide a detailed explanation of the rationale for these changes, alongside a discussion of the impact and implications of this type of change. It will also include analysis and interim evaluation of the impact and reception of the module by students. <br/

Rich and personal revisited: translating ambitions for an institutional personal learning environment into a reality

Is it possible to create an institutional personal learning environment? This question has triggered considerable debate amongst those concerned with implementing learning and teaching technologies within higher education, Rapid technological change is necessarily accompanied by matched evolution of individual practice amongst users. At universities, students arrive with a mix of sophisticated and naïve approaches to using technology in everyday life which can be shaped and harnessed to support learning. To respond to the changing capabilities and demands of available technology, the University of Southampton designed and is implementing a rich holistic learning environment radically different from the VLEs which gained widespread usage since the late 1990s. In the initial scoping of the environment, explanations of the proposed system were qualified: “its more than a system, it’s a mind-set”. The suggestion is that the power and value of the institutional personal learning environment resides in the ‘technology affordances’ which enable users to customise and personalise the system in a socially useful and educationally constructive manner. There are many different ways to remove the barriers to learning, some of which are not necessarily directly ‘educational’ or ‘instructional’. This paper considers the foundations and emergence of personal learning environments and the interplay of ambitions and requirements needed to support learning in a university context. It goes on to make a case for the creation of a seemingly paradoxical embodiment – an “Institutional Personal Learning Environment (iPLE). It considers emerging understandings of the role of ‘digital literacies’ and their associated challenges to universities - the role and challenges of ‘scholarly literacies in a digital age’. Presenting a case study of implementing the Southampton Learning Environment, this paper analyses the underlying rationale of the emerging system. It evaluates the architecture of the system to explain how it provides an institutional personal learning environment. It presents and reviews the first cycle implementation (due to go live in August 2011) from a pedagogic perspective assessing the technology affordances of the system. Finally it re-evaluates the evidence to consider whether it has indeed been possible to create an institutional learning environment that is also a personal learning environment