Refocusing the Australian Army

Recent operations have distracted the Army from being best postured for regional engagement.1 As the Afghanistan commitment winds down, the Army will need to overcome this neglect by shifting its primary focus to regional priorities, where geographic determinants and great power dynamics will feature. The maturation of defence infrastructure and capability projects dating back to the 1980s, coupled with capabilities entering service soon, means that the Australian Defence Force (ADF), and the Army in particular, has a strong foundation from which to refocus on engagement with regional forces, albeit with some exceptions. For instance, recent operations have demonstrated the need for sound intelligence support and a pool of language-trained and culturally-aware personnel, but regionally-oriented skills in these areas have atrophied. Beyond maintaining broad capabilities for a wide range of contingencies, the key to ensuring the Army‟s successful reorientation will be a regionally-focused reinvestment in intelligence, language and culture skills

Closer Australia-Canada defence cooperation?

This is the third and final paper in a series commissioned for a project that ASPI has been jointly running with Canada’s Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The project explores the rationale for and possible mechanisms of closer Australia–Canada defence and security cooperation in the Asia–Pacific. The paper is authored by John Blaxland. This paper examines the prospect and utility of closer defence cooperation for both Canada and Australia. It reflects on commonalities and like-mindedness, particularly as they concern regional security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Forward-looking measures are presented for Canadian and Australian defence policymakers to capitalise on each other’s strengthsand similarities. A visionary understanding of the two countries’ shared heritage and common interests is called for, but Canada has to demonstrate how serious it is about engagement in the region. Closer bilateral engagement should be considered in three areas: bolstering regional engagement, cost-saving measures and enhancing engagement with great powers

Game-changer in the Pacific: Surprising Options Open Up with the New Multi-purpose Maritime Capability

Compelling reasons for developing and maintaining a robust amphibious force as part of the ADF‟s suite of military capabilities are not hard to find. They are based on sound liberal and realist imperatives for Australian leadership in the Pacific and beyond to foster and maintain regional security and stability. Experience after the Indian Ocean Tsunami and repeated deployments off the coast of Fiji is instructive, but so is Australia‟s experience dating back for a century, considered briefly in this article. That experience suggests a robust amphibious capability could make a significant difference to Australia‟s regional diplomatic leverage, providing relatively significant hard power to complement the government‟s diplomatic soft power in support of the nation‟s humanitarian, liberal-democratic and realist instincts

IMAGINING SWEETER AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA RELATIONS

Australia’s relationship with Indonesia has been a bit like the board game “Snakes and Ladders”. Incremental progress in the relationship (up the ladder) is easily undone (down the snake) over a range of misunderstandings including issues like beef, boats, spies, clemency, Timor and Papua. Both countries have considerable overlapping interests. They both have to find a way to deepen and broaden the bilateral relationship to prevent this cycle from continuing to recur. In considering how to do that, understanding how they got here is important. Bilateral and multilateral engagement, on trade, education, and security including through IA-CEPA, links like the Ikahan network, additional New Colombo Plan engagement and a MANIS regional maritime cooperation forum may help make that happen

Myanmar: Time for Australian Defence Cooperation

Change is coming quickly in Myanmar and countries like the United States and Australia are edging towards closer and more meaningful engagement. A key institution needing reform is the Burmese military, the Tatmadaw, but to date this has been off-limits. To affect reform in Myanmar requires engagement with and understanding of the Tatmadaw. Where such engagement has been tried elsewhere in South East Asia through the Defence Cooperation Program it has produced modest and positive results. Meanwhile, other regional powers are recognising the geo-strategic significance of Myanmar, astride India and China, and are engaging the Tatmadaw accordingly. Australia is not so distant either and likewise has a vested interest in some modest and discrete engagement with the Tatmadaw

MANIS: Time for a new forum to sweeten regional cooperation

Manis is the Bahasa word for 'sweet'. It also could symbolise a visionary grouping of Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Singapore. Existing forums struggle reaching consensus and see only glacial progress on growing non-traditional security challenges. A smaller grouping like MANIS would see problem solving more achievable for pressing issues that require regional cooperation. But a range of challenges in fostering regional cooperation point to the need for modest expectations. The way ahead involves respectful, patient, collegial and yet determined engagement to sweeten regional ties, drawing in a range of government agencies and non-government institutions

A Geostrategic SWOT Analysis for Australia

A spectrum of potentially existential matters face the nation and the world: concerning great power contestation, the environment and governance. These range from environmental challenges, political economic and human security concerns, cyber security issues and a range of maritime, territorial and homeland security problems, including a prospect of a major war. Yet Australia is ill-prepared for the likely consequences, with limited sovereign capacity to respond appropriately

Organising an army: the Australian experience 1957-1965

Lieutenant Blaxland postulates that over the last two centuries, since the introduction of the concept of 'divisions' by Napoleon, armies have been shaped in response to the interaction of four main factors. These are: the nation's strategic outlook and perceived combat roles, the economic determinants of finance and manpower, the impact of technological developments on organisational theories, and the bureaucratic power play that goes on behind the scenes. The thesis examines three separate reorganisations that occurred in the Australian Army between 1957 and 1965, and the interplay of these four factors in the lead up to each organisational change. In brief, the changes involved the reduction in 1957 of the National Service Training Scheme (based on the Citizen Military Forces), its abandonment in 1960 and its resurrection in 1964 as a means to supplement the Regular Army (ARA). Simultaneously, the Regular Army Field Force was expanded from an under strength brigade to a significant force ready to fight in two or more theatres at one time. Central to the ascendancy of the ARA was the introduction in 1960 and the abandonment in December 1964 of the Australian pentropic organisation, based on the United States' short lived pentomic structure. The changes that occured during this period set the scene for Australia's military involvement in the Vietnam War, and provided a basic organisational structure for the Army's combat elements that remains today essentially the same as it was in 1965

Should Australia step up to rescue the Rohingya?

With the might of a Buddhist-dominated state and its military pitted against a dispossessed Muslim minority, the current catastrophe unfolding in Myanmar’s Rakhine State may well mark a watershed moment in the politics of modern Southeast Asia. The Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, has once again displayed its characteristic zeal for scorched-earth counter-insurgency tactics, which it has honed over decades in other minority regions of the country — such as Karen, Shan and Kachin. Visceral anti-Muslim sentiment throughout Myanmar has given the Tatmadaw an even more brutal edge today in Rakhine State. As its willful and excessive use of force against the stateless Rohingya pushes yet another exodus of tens of thousands of refugees into Bangladesh and excites passions across Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, the Tatmadaw has arguably emerged as a serious threat to regional cooperation and security