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May 16, 2006
One perspective on defence strategy after the events of September 11 is that the threat to Australia is more likely than not to be unconventional or asymmetric. This holds that geography is not crucial, that Austalia is a powerful country with global concerns and that Australia is a deputy sheriff in the US empire. Australian forces operate around the world now in different circumstances and so they need to be properly equipped to meet the different tasks give to them by the government.
The ADF is increasingly likely to be deployed well beyond Australia due to the need to make a meaningful contribution to US-led coalition capabilities. That is where Australia's national interest lies and it implies the further integration of the ADF with the United States military. This will result in the protection of Australian interests under the security umbrella of the super-power.
This imperial “forward defence” position is seen as a counter position to the diminishing concentric circles around our coastline approach to national security. The concentric circles strategy was defined in terms of a conventional threat (invasion) to Australia and so the first responsibility is to defend Australia. Hence the strategy needed to think from mainland Australia outwards. This was deemed to be a flawed strategy since an attack on northern Australia by a hostile nation-state is highly unlikely.
Things are not that simple are they?
The historical background is that the Nixon Doctrine and withdrawal of United Kingdom forces from East of the Suez persuaded Australia to develop a more independent strategy, which attempts to develop regional balances of power and cooperative security agreements. Australia's defence forces are required to become self reliant, but within a framework of alliances. Although contemplated throughout the 1970s, this strategy was first articulated in 1986, and was most recently reinforced through the release of the 1994 Defence White Paper "Defending Australia." The dated "concentric circles" views on Australia's defence has been closely associated with strategic analysts Paul Dibb, Hugh White and Kim Beazley.
The strength of the concentric circle approach is that it focuses on the region---East Timor, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji, and the instability in Indonesia's Papua province and its ‘arc of instability’. Paul Dibb, wriitng in todays Australian, states this well:
In terms of priorities for the allocation of resources, closer is more important, something former defence minister Robert Hill seemed not to understand when he proclaimed that geography was no longer important. Guinea-Bissau in Africa will never be as crucial to our national interests as PNG.
The stability of the archipelago to our near north will be a central security preoccupation for Australia in the years ahead. Dibb states that the problem for Australia will arise if we face two important contingencies in our immediate neighbourhood simultaneously. But the way events are unfolding, we could soon be faced with two simultaneous crises on the ground in the Solomons and East Timor. He adds:
None of this is to argue against our modest deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is merely to observe that regional crises must by necessity command our first priority, particularly where the lives of Australians are at stake and the stability of democratically elected regional governments is threatened. We have more than enough troubles looming on our doorstep to keep us occupied for the indefinite future. No one else is going to look after our interests in our immediate neighbourhood for us. In terms of our strategic geography, closer is more important.
The stability of the archipelago to our near north will be a central security preoccupation for Australia in the years ahead.
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The asymmetric threat in our case turns out require a regional response. It is Indonesia that has been taking the hits for us in terror, and handling them well. So symmetric or asymmetric, regionalism is the right policy response in defence and security over an expeditionary policy.
Terrorism for Australia is a foreign policy issue, not a domestic security one; as the government has made out. By pursuing an expeditionary and domestic security policy they have got it wrong, twice.