Australian Defence in a Broader Alliance Context
When considering how the ADF is being reworked through the Defence Strategic Review for the long-term and the ADF’s current force is is transforming, what is its broader impact on the region?
In my recent discussion with Professor Stephan Frühling, he focused on putting ADF and Australian actions in the larger regional context. Or in other words, what is the impact of Australian actions on broader alliance and partnership relationships in the region and beyond on deterrence of the authoritarian powers, notably China?
He started with the judgement that “the kinds of forces that we’re planning for only makes sense as part of a wider multilateral deterrence and defense construct.” The ADF that will result from the Defence Strategic Review will be focused on denial in Australia’s approaches, but it cannot do so on its own against China.
But what is that broader construct?
For Frühling, the contribution of the ADF and Australia more generally is best understood in terms of what their contribution can be to “horizontal escalation” within a broader alliance and partner deterrence construct. By which he means Australia’s ability to work with allies and partners across the region to bolster their national defences and ability to resist Chinese pressure on the region, and to work with partners beyond the region—especially in Europe—to encourage and facilitate their regular presence and signalling of support for a free and open Indi Pacfic.
In particular when considering the ADF and Australian defence and security focus, one should consider how to close “gaps” in broader Indo-Pacific defence. He underscored: “We need to start looking at what the seams are between what we’re doing and what other countries are doing in our region. And I think a near term focus needs to be upon identifying those seams or gaps in capability and how we collectively can address them. If we don’t address them, significant vulnerabilities are created which our adversaries will exploit.”
In a recent paper which he published with the Carnegie Endowment, he argued that the way ahead with regard to the core Australian alliance with the United States should follow such a path.
This is what he wrote: “Both allies should consider practical cooperation in areas that reflect Australia’s preparations for major war in its immediate neighborhood; that support multilateral deterrence by facilitating politically palatable horizontal, rather than vertical, escalation; and that help move force posture cooperation from enabling U.S. activities on Australian territory toward greater overall alignment of both countries’ defense preparations.”
He then when on to identify five foci that both allies should consider to provide greater focus, purpose, and direction to force posture and structure cooperation.
He started by considering how the United States and Australia might broaden their consideration of what cooperation is in both their interests going forward. As he put it:
“The United States and its Indo-Pacific allies have been grappling with how to best balance a rising China for years. Recently, they have often embraced the buzzy concept of integrated deterrence. Yet they have not coalesced on a shared concept of deterrence and escalation that would direct how they think about the coherence and complementarity of their respective national force structure and posture developments.”
But to do so it is better in his view to shape concrete steps ahead rather than vague policy declarations. He underscored: “There is little appetite in Canberra to embark on the development of a document akin to NATO’s Strategic Concept or the U.S.-Japan defense guidelines, which would only serve to foreground fundamental disagreements, both between the allies and within Canberra itself, on deterrence and alliance strategy. But one way for both allies to work toward narrowing differences and identifying shared tenets is by aiming to say a little more each time their ministers meet at their regular summits.”
Second, he highlighted focusing on mutual work on overlapping operational needs and challenges. He provided several examples such as this one: “The defence of the U.S. West Coast and Australia’s east and southeast present very similar challenges in terms of their geographic distance from adversary bases but increasing vulnerability to cruise missiles launched from SSNs or long-range bombers. While Australia is a similar size to the continental United States, the RAAF’s roughly one hundred fast jets lacks the home-defense squadrons that the United States maintains through its National Guard. Australia’s planned six NASAMS fire units will likely not just be inadequate for the number of facilities that need protection, but also are ostensibly being acquired to defend forward-based land forces rather than, for example, irreplaceable submarine and naval bases in Sydney and Perth. Joint examination of these issues, including drawing on the analytical work that underpins the U.S. homeland cruise missile defense program, could identify additional specific investments or preparations that would benefit both sides’ wider operational objectives.”
Third, the United States and Australia should also examine the overlap of their respective strategic and operational objectives in the South Pacific.
He gave this example: “In a major war, the southwest Pacific is significant for its geographic position along key sea lines of communication that would support the U.S. war effort, notably the lines between Hawaii and Townsville (where the great circle route passes through the Solomon Islands) and Townsville to Manus (and on to Guam or Palau), which passes east of the Papua New Guinea mainland. As in World War II, North Queensland would likely become the key staging area for U.S. operations from Australia, which is reflected in plans to move the combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise from its initial location in Victoria to a future “Logistics Support Area” in Queensland.
“U.S. convoys passing through the southwest Pacific would need protection against overt and covert Chinese lodgments in the islands. Australia would have an interest in playing a major role in this, not least because U.S. rules of engagement may well be more tolerant of collateral damage to South Pacific nations and their local shipping than Australia would be comfortable with. Hence, examining the relationship between U.S. plans and concepts for strategic sea transport and force protection and Australia’s increased focus on littoral operations in the same region would be a worthwhile area for joint planning and force posture cooperation. As convoys would also require protection against Chinese SSNs further into the central Pacific, there is scope for including New Zealand and France in broader discussions as well.”
Fourth, he argued for encouraging European participation in the broader deterrence equation in the Pacific. Such participation has notably been increasing in recent years, and he believe such participation is important in policy signalling with regard to China in the region.
One could underscore the importance of Europe following similar policies as Australia with regard to China rather than providing Chinese policy end arounds. And the kind of policy signalling with European engagement can be important in supporting a broader Western deterrence policy towards China.
And in our discussion, he indicated a couple of examples of what could be of significant value in case of conflict in the Pacific region. One would be setting up a tanker air bridge to support Australia and any forces deploying from Australia. The second would be part of the broader arsenal of democracy. Here he mentioned what to my mind is an obvious way ahead, namely Australia buying into European developed and made missiles, which clearly has begun with Konigsberg. It seems clear that in a major war, Australia will be scrambling for any modern missiles it can get its hands on. Hence, why not start the work to integrate, for example, European Meteor on F-35 or F-18 now?
Fifth, he argued that UK involvement in Australian defence has a number of side benefits not often considered when talking in AUKUS terms.
This is how he put it: “One, often underappreciated, benefit of including the UK in AUKUS is that it has significant experience with the creation of multinational integrated military capability, including the kind of mixed crewing envisaged as part of the AUKUS optimal pathway. Such experience does not always transfer easily within the U.S. military and policy system and its relatively separate Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific policy communities. formations including NATO’s Standing Naval Forces and the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force….
“While British deployments to Australia in a crisis would be much smaller than those from the United States, involving the UK in, for example, discussions about the combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise would enable deeper consideration of how to support and facilitate the deployment of other countries’ forces. From a purely Australian perspective, a greater understanding of the UK’s decades-long and seemingly quite complex experience with U.S. nuclear and conventional bombers operating from its territory would also be useful in developing political and policy mechanisms to facilitate such deployments in Australia.”
In short, Frühling’s approach highlights to importance of linking any enhanced capabilities added to the ADF to a much broader defence and deterrence equation: what impact does it have in an alliance and partnership context? How does it close gaps and seams in Pacific defence? How does it enhance the credibility of the broader self-defence activities of Australia’s partners in the region? How does it mesh with and influence U.S. actions and policies in the region?
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