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Community Consultation Team Submission

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SUBMISSION
on
DEFENCE REVIEW 2000
Our Future Defence Force
by
THE AUSTRALIA DEFENCE ASSOCIATION
to
The Community Consultation Team

 

This submission follows the publication of the Association's own public discussion paper Defending Australia, a copy of which is provided with this submission. This paper was first published as the Autumn 2000 issue of Defender and can also be found here.

 

STRATEGIC CONTEXT

1. Military strategy and national objectives

2. The nature of conflict

3. Military strategy options

4. A strategic priority

FORCE CAPABILITIES

1. Specific proposals

2. Reserves

FUNDING

CONCLUSION

 

STRATEGIC CONTEXT

Military strategy and national objectives

1. The Association considers that attempts to formulate strategic policies without reference to national objectives are fundamentally flawed. National objectives are, of course, not just a matter for defence policy but defence policy must support them. The Defence Review 2000 document does not set out any such objectives and the Association suggests the following as a basis for discussion:

1. To live in a peaceful society and live peaceably with our neighbours;

2. Use all national means to promote peaceful and co-operative relations in the region;

3. Promote the emergence and maturity of democracy;

4. Promote the development and maintenance of human rights;

5. Promote the development and maturity of economic welfare and the freedom of trade;

6. Recognise that conflict will occur and be prepared to use the necessary combination of diplomatic, economic or military means to assist in resolving conflict;

7. Recognise that some conflicts are best resolved by the parties engaged, however, the good offices of Australia can be offered as a fair vehicle to conflict settlement; and

8. To achieve these:

   (i) Promote economic, political and military co-operation in our area of the Asia-Pacific;

   (ii) Increase military exchanges, training and joint operations with our neighbours and promote military transparency; and

   (iii) Promote joint measures to manage and protect the passage of trade through the Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs).

 

The nature of conflict

2. The document indicates a belief that war between states is not obsolete but, in the Association’s view, pays little attention to the real changes in international relations that effectively guarantee international intervention in such conflicts if they are strategically important. In this context, Australia is important as:

1. The world’s 13th largest economy;

2. One of the world’s most important trading nations and a source of strategically important food, fibre and minerals;

3. A stable democracy with a long history of support for the maintenance of global order; and

4. Occupying a strategically vital geographic position astride the junction of the Indian and Pacific oceans.

3. These are all important characteristics which define Australia and its place in the world. To that extent, they are significant in any assessment of whether Australia is likely to be attacked directly by another state. The Association also finds it extraordinary that no attention is paid in the document to the possible need to contribute to the protection of shared sea lines of communication in the Asia-Pacific region, one of the most important maritime trading regions in the world.

4. Insufficient attention is paid to internal conflicts which increasingly define the reality of armed conflict and which demand military intervention at short notice, often in response to substantial domestic as well as international political pressure. Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor are only recent examples of the reality as distinct from the theory.

5. Furthermore, insufficient attention is paid in the document to the emergence of organised criminal activities (piracy, people smuggling, narcotics trafficking etc.) which may demand a military response because police action cannot be effective. Such operations are likely to be off-shore in response to appeals for assistance from weak states dependent upon Australia or the international community at large but in the context of protecting Australia as the primary target of those criminal organisations.

 

Military strategic options

6. The Association considers that defence planning should be based upon three fundamental principles which are at odds with our somewhat rigid traditional practices and, to some extent, with Defence Review 2000. The three principles are:

1. Strategy should be flexible;

2. Capabilities should be adaptable; and

3. The force must be sustainable.

7. In the context of military strategy, Defence Review 2000 offers three options:

1. Direct defence of Australia including the ability to operate in the sea-air gap with a concurrent emphasis on the notion of self-reliance - clearly the authors' preference;

2. Regional military operations in high intensity conflict as far afield as Pakistan, Japan and Korea with the implication that such operations would be as part of an international coalition; or

3. Military operations other than war (MOOTW) as the inexpensive option.

8. In the Association’s view, the description of our region is flawed just as is the concept of the sea-air gap. The descriptions are vague and, on the one hand, ignore the vast strategic differences between the Asia-Pacific sub-regions while, on the other hand, tend to forget that the so-called sea-air gap contains significant land masses occupied by allies and friends.

9. In our view, the Asia-Pacific region can be divided into at least three and possibly four sub-regions of strategic significance to Australia. These are:

1. North-East Asia including China, Japan, the Koreas and Taiwan. In effect, these are all the significant countries lying north of latitude 20 degrees North. These countries fit a pattern of heavily armed nations in a state of tension. Australia’s strategic interest is twofold, based upon our relationship with the United States which we expect will be active in containing armed conflict, and because of our substantial economic links.

2. South Asia principally focussed on the rivalry between India and Pakistan and of relatively limited strategic significance to Australia, although that may be growing.

3. South-East Asia being that region extending from the Australian territory of Cocos through Malaysia and the Southern Philippines. It is primarily a maritime region through which passes the greater volume of Australian trade.

4. South-West Pacific consisting of the island states extending from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. This is a region which features militarily weak and vulnerable states which tend to look to Australia to underwrite their security.

A strategic priority

10. The Association considers that the proper strategic priority for Australia (in descending order of importance) would be:

1. The ability to conduct military operations either independently or in conjunction with regional and/or global allies in the South-East Asian and South-West Pacific sub-regions described in para. 14 c. and d. above (the near-regional option);

2. The ability to contribute some forces, primarily naval and air, to coalition operations further afield as required by the government of the day. The nature of such conflicts would preclude Australia having any ability to provide useful ground forces without considerable warning (the distant option);

3. The ability to conduct military operations on Australian territory or its immediate environs should other strategies fail (the direct defence option). Implicit in this concept are two further considerations:

   1. The elementary strategic concept of trading space for time (not discussed in any place in Defence Review 2000. Australia’s strategic space encompasses the South-East Asian and South-West Pacific region as our geographic glacis and our Asia-Pacific trading relations which constitute an economic alliance which ensures that important trading partners are unlikely to be indifferent to attacks on Australia; and

   2. Our geography which ensures that a distant adversary must either bypass our geographic glacis with the inherent logistic penalties and vulnerabilities, or put pressure on those countries within the glacis to concede facilities for attacks on Australia. The latter situation is dealt with by the regional strategy described in option a. above.

4. The inherent ability in any armed force to conduct MOOTW which, in our view, should not define Australia’s military capabilities. Establishing this as Australia’s primary defence strategy (the New Zealand option) would, in our view, be profoundly destabilising.

11. The Association is disappointed that the strategic discussion in Defence Review 2000 is as unsophisticated as it is. In our view, it does not describe credible options but generates the suspicion that the authors have set out to lead the reader to agree to a preferred option which, itself, takes no account of a true range of options. Loose terminology is unhelpful - as in the meaning of ‘regional’ and also the use of the term ‘maritime’. In discussion, the authors use the latter term to mean ‘naval’ but a maritime strategy necessarily encompasses naval, air and ground forces. A maritime strategy describes the way in which such forces are used rather than the way in which they are constructed. Maritime strategy involves using the sea as the environment in which all forces are deployed and operated. This concept, well-known to strategists, seems to have escaped the authors.

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FORCE CAPABILITIES

12. Defence Review 2000 proposes a number of capability options although, in our view, most of these are essential for the near regional option and the direct defence option. The principal difference lies in the structure and readiness of Australia’s ground forces and the emphasis given to strategic mobility.

13. The Association suggests that capability development should be based fundamentally upon an agreed strategy rather than, as has been traditional in Australia, the outcome of bargaining between interest groups within the ADF and Defence Department in the context of constrained budgets. However, we note that a number of capabilities can be adapted to different operational environments.

 

Specific proposals

14. In our view, the capability for strategic strike should be excluded. Strategic strike requires not merely the capability represented by the F-111 force and Special Forces but the ignored and neglected support capabilities of strategic transport and intelligence. To some extent, Defence has become a prisoner of its own public relations. The F-111 has no true capacity for strategic strike without substantial tanker support. Defence Review 2000 notes that the F-111 has extreme range and the ability to deliver heavy weapons loads with great accuracy. Both claims are true but the aircraft cannot do both on the same mission.

15. Strategic strike also demands heavy investment in target intelligence and serious political costs arising from error and collateral damage. It is eminently likely that, in the context of the type of conflict that would affect Australia, the government of the day would not permit strategic strike operations.

16. A further consideration is that the weight of attack that could be sustained by the small F-111 force would be insufficient to achieve the strategic objectives. As with the submarines, the F-111 force is far more valuable for its capacity to interdict an enemy’s logistic ‘Achilles Heel’.

17. Provided it is properly constructed, the naval surface force has the important quality of versatility or adaptability. It can carry out a wide range of military and non-military tasks and is well-adapted to inter-operability with allied forces. The Association would urge that the wide range of represented by the DDGs be replaced and that the ANZAC frigates be upgraded to a full war-fighting capability as designed.

18. For the Army, the designation of formations as mechanised, light infantry and motorised infantry is unhelpful. Formations which lack firepower, protection and mobility will not be useable in all circumstances. In our view, the combat elements of the Army should, depending upon the level of readiness required, have a balanced mix of these qualities as well as the ability to move by sea in the amphibious force. We believe that the Army should continue to maintain two high readiness brigades modelled upon the US Marine Corps for their equipment, mobility and readiness.

 

Reserves

19. Australia invests heavily in reserve forces, especially for the Army. There is some confusion over the proper role of the Army Reserve which, we believe, needs to be resolved. The ADF tends to see Reserve units as a pool of individual reinforcements or specialists to flesh out full-time units. On the other hand, traditional leaders in the Reserve tend to see it and its units as a mobilisation base for large-scale warfare.

20. In our view, the Army Reserve should be structured as part of the sustainment capability of the force-in-being. Reserve units should be designated as reliefs for Regular units and called out for full-time duty in sufficient time to gain combat readiness before deployment. It follows, of course, that any Reserve unit that cannot be brought to operational readiness within, say, three months has no utility for a modern defence force.

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FUNDING

21. The discussion of funding issues in Defence Review 2000 is superficial and unsophisticated. It will be of little assistance to the community which is expected to pay for defence and may indeed encourage a preference for the New Zealand option.

22. The document notes that Australians spend around $600 per capita. What it fails to point out is that, in real terms, per capita outlays have barely changed over the past 20 years. The current per capita outlay is at the low end of the scale of the past 20 years. Yet, over the same period, real personnel and equipment costs have increased substantially, leading to a significant reduction in purchasing power.

23. Over the past decade, defence budgets have been tightly constrained, leading in turn to the sharp 23 per cent reduction in personnel numbers from 71,700 full time equivalents in 1990 to 55,250 full time equivalents in 2000. Although asserted to be the result of outsourcing of many tasks, the opportunity was not taken to provide adequately for combat forces.

24. The discussion on funding notes that regional powers spend much less on defence than Australia but are modernising at a greater rate without explaining the apparent contradiction. This of course arises from the much lower per capita cost of military personnel in the region. Indonesian personnel costs for example are approximately one-thirtieth of Australia’s.

25. The document does not point out that Singapore spends four times per capita Australia’s outlays while the United States per capita outlays are three times ours. Japan spends about the same as Australia per capita but, because it has a much larger population, can pay for armed forces more than four times greater than Australia’s. The obvious conclusion is that countries with small populations need to spend more per capita than larger countries, all other things being equal.

26. So inadequate is the document that it devotes no little effort to showing Australia’s outlays as a percentage of GDP but then notes - very properly - that such a measure is unhelpful. So, why do it?

27. When discussing the defence share of total Federal outlays, the document gives a one year snapshot of the breakdown but fails to provide an historical comparison which shows that the defence share declined from 9.6 per cent in 1981 to 6.7 per cent in 1998 but is beginning to grow slightly again.

28. The Association has pursued a consistent policy in recent years that funding increases need to be tied to management reform in the ADF Headquarters and Department of Defence. These have been pursued in recent years with a marked degree of failure. At the same time, the urgency of providing for a credible defence force with a high degree of current capability as well as adequate investment for the future can no longer be ignored. Furthermore, as we have pointed out persistently in recent years the current real growth in the economy creates  the opportunity to provide for a more realistic base allocation to defence without much pain to other government programs.

 

CONCLUSION

29. The Association welcomes the government’s initiative in publishing a discussion paper as a means of gathering opinion from the wider community during the White Paper process. The community is the beneficiary of defence and also the source of funding. It has a inherent right to be consulted.

30. The Association is concerned however that the Defence Review 2000 document is significantly flawed in a number of areas. For whatever reason, we do not believe that the choices have been put frankly and fully to the community and we urge the Community Consultation Team to ensure that the document does not limit the scope of the strategic, capability and funding options to be considered.

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