Australia has not produced a Defence White Paper since 2000. I recently argued that we needed a new Defence White Paper as the 2003 Update and Defence Capability Plan were not sufficient enough to determine future defence doctrine. The United States military recently released the Quadrennial Defense Review Report [QDR] which acts as a similar statement on doctrine, capability and force planning as the Defence White Paper does in Australia. Since Australia adheres to the "Great and Powerful Friends" doctrine of foreign policy where Australian forces accept American leadership and the ADF is designed to slot in transparently into US forces, this will have an effect on Australian doctrine as well.

Quadrennial Defense Review

The document opens with a political statement of the military's challenges;

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, our Nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our Nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. This 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review is submitted in the fifth year of this long war.

The rhetoric of the long war is an indication that the military spending from the Cold War is no longer a state of exception, but now one of permanence . There will be no peace dividend; where money that flowed to the military to contain the Soviet Union can now serve as tax cuts, or be diverted to social programs. The United States is now on a permanent war footing as it was during the Cold War. This reflects Neo-conservative thinking, where political power is an extension of military power, and the military is used as a blunt instrument of political change. The industrial-military complex becomes the political-industrial-military.

September 11th was a case of central planning, one which sends fear through nation-states who are themselves very centralised in control and planning. But since then, rather than big centralised operations, or attempts to blow up dirty bombs in Baltimore, asymmetric warfare has taken a reductionist path, and has not needed to go beyond small bombs strapped to a person, or detonated remotely. Systems disruption which attacks the weaknesses in centralised structures has been sufficient enough to immobilise efforts.

The statement also includes that the military's focus will be global. A war without end and without limits. The statement carries the implication that success of the Nation in this war, and the freedom of the people of the globe, is dependent upon the state. The 2002 Fundamentals in Australian Aerospace Power manual notes the political change as to what determines security;

The concept of national security has changed. It has expanded to incorporate individual security as well as the earlier ideas of national defence.

This fits with the Neo-conservative foreign policy and statist domestic policies of the Bush Administration. The domestic security policies in Australia under the Howard government have followed a similar path. Gary Sauer-Thompson has called this domestic view of security the National Security State .

From Clash Of The Nation-States To ...

A nation's defence doctrine is determined by its vulnerabilities. These can be geographical, natural resources, political, economic or even social. From the document and the list of shifts in emphasis, it appears the Pentagon sees the current military structure of the United States military as a vulnerability. The shifts in emphasis include;

• From a peacetime tempo - to a wartime sense of urgency.
• From a time of reasonable predictability - to an era of surprise and uncertainty.
• From single-focused threats - to multiple, complex challenges.
• From conducting war against nations - to conducting war in countries we are not at war with (safe havens).
• From "one size fits all" deterrence - to tailored deterrence for rogue powers, terrorist networks and near-peer competitors.
• From responding after a crisis starts (reactive) - to preventive actions so problems do not become crises (proactive).
• From crisis response - to shaping the future.
• From threat-based planning - to capabilities based planning.
• From peacetime planning - to rapid adaptive planning.
• From a focus on kinetics - to a focus on effects.
• From 20th century processes - to 21st century integrated approaches.
• From static defense, garrison forces - to mobile, expeditionary operations.
• From under-resourced, standby forces (hollow units) - to fully-equipped and fully-manned forces (combat ready units).
• From a battle-ready force (peace) - to battlehardened forces (war).
• From large institutional forces (tail) - to more powerful operational capabilities (teeth).
• From major conventional combat operations - to multiple irregular, asymmetric operations.
• From separate military Service concepts of operation - to joint and combined operations.
• From forces that need to deconfl ict - to integrated, interdependent forces.
• From exposed forces forward - to reaching back to CONUS to support expeditionary forces.
• From an emphasis on ships, guns, tanks and planes - to focus on information, knowledge and timely, actionable intelligence.
• From massing forces - to massing effects.
• From set-piece maneuver and mass - to agility and precision.
• From single Service acquisition systems - to joint portfolio management.
• From broad-based industrial mobilization - to targeted commercial solutions.
• From Service and agency intelligence - to truly Joint Information Operations Centers.
• From vertical structures and processes (stovepipes) - to more transparent, horizontal integration (matrix).
• From moving the user to the data - to moving data to the user.
• From fragmented homeland assistance - to integrated homeland security.
• From static alliances - to dynamic partnerships.
• From predetermined force packages - to tailored, flexible forces.
• From the U.S. military performing tasks - to a focus on building partner capabilities.
• From static post-operations analysis - to dynamic diagnostics and real-time lessons learned.
• From focusing on inputs (effort) - to tracking outputs (results).
• From Department of Defense solutions - to interagency approaches.

But the US military has been very effective in combat situations over the last four years. Afghanistan and Iraq were good examples of the dominance of the US Military. The organised insurgency in Afghanistan is now limited to Al Queda and Taliban operatives unable to penetrate far beyond the Afghan-Pakistan border. The limitation there is political, not military.

The US military is already exceptionally mobile. Force projection is rapid and global through the US Carrier fleets. The United States Marine Corp can bring great force to bear on the ground in a quick and sustainable manner. Not to mention the US logistical train which quickly brought 140,000 troops into the Middle East and has sustained that commitment and tempo for over three years. The US military is mobile, rapid and can maintain a large force indefinitely.

The bullet points do contain Neo-conservative thinking in them. For instance the; From crisis response - to shaping the future. This sums up the invasion of Iraq. The military were used as a political instrument. Much of the turgidity and failure of Iraq has been the lack of military goals once the Iraqi military was destroyed as a fighting force. Since then the political goals have moved constantly in response to the domestic American political climate. That is no way to run a military.

Political management of the media may be two-faced, fraught with deception and in perpetual policy motion, but this is not a suitable manner to guide military goals. The task of reconstructing Iraq and ensuring it is a safe and secure democracy is a civil task, not a military one. This is a limitation of Neo-conservative ideology.

Decentralised Strength

The report also notes the vulnerability of civil systems;

Non-state enemies could attempt to attack a wide range of targets including government facilities; commercial and financial systems; cultural and historical landmarks; food, water, and power supplies; and information, transport, and energy networks. They will employ unconventional means to penetrate homeland defenses and exploit the very nature of western societies - their openness - to attack their citizens, economic institutions, physical infrastructure and social fabric.

The main vulnerability is the centralised nature, and interdependence of western systems; energy, water, sewerage etc. These are largely artifacts of the economies of scale achieved in post World War II town planning. These are not military issues, as much of this mis-named war on terror, but instead civil problems.

Source: QDR 2006

There is a lot of science, technology and development of decentralised systems, but this is often thwarted by big centralised government enforcing its demands on the population and town planning. For instance a decentralised water/sewerage/timber system of town planning was envisaged by Sydney-sider P.A. Yeomans in the 1970s. Tasmanian Bill Mollison wrote in detail of decentralised food production in his Permaculture book .Big response statism has also led to the world's dryest continent being dependent on centralised water systems.

Unfortunately the terrorists of September 11th did not use unconventional means to penetrate the United States, or its domestic airline system. They used passports and drivers licenses. This is definitely not a weakness of western openness. Bot documents are a fact of life in participating, rental cars require driver's licenses, drinking requires verification etc etc.

Blunting Asymmetric Warfare

The report sees the increase of Special Forces as a means to defeat terrorism. The number Special Operations Forces will increase by 15% and the Special Forces Battalions by one third. This places them around the fifty thousand mark. Almost double Australia's Army, and approximately ten percent of the US's Army.

Australia has used its Special Forces domestically, one of the recurring images during the Sydney 2000 Olympics was black balaclavad SASR dropping from an Australian Army Blackhawk. The QDR also includes the capability for the military to become involved in domestic security;

To strengthen homeland defense and homeland security, the Department will fund a $1.5 billion initiative over the next five years to develop broad-spectrum medical countermeasures against the threat of genetically engineered bio-terror agents. Additional initiatives will include developing advanced detection and deterrent technologies and facilitating full-scale civil-military exercises to improve interagency planning for complex homeland security contingencies.

I question the utility of this approach. Terrorism is a civil issue, and the terrorist attacks in the last several years could have been stopped with the force that a citizen or policeman can bring to bear. The fourth aircraft on September 11th and the shoe-bomber are good examples of this. Recent catastrophes in the United States have also shown the resilience of the population and civil emergency structures, September 11th, the NY Black-out and Katrina Hurricane did not require a full scale military response.

In Australia's case the separation of civil and military responsibilities is important. Australia has volunteer civil structures like the State Emergency Services and the Bush Fire Brigade. It is far better to train agencies such as these than maintain the knowledge with specialists in the military. Not only is a knowledgeable population one, a ready one, but the volunteer nature means that know-how will disperse through the wider population.

Another reason to ensure a separation of military and civil forces, even in an emergency, is that unscrupulous political leaders will use the military to political advantage. To our near north, Suharto's Indonesia used the military to ensure civil order. Until recently Indonesia did not have a police force, its military supplied nearly half its number toward civil order. KOPASSUS was used as a political instrument domestically, as well as in Malaya, Thailand, East Timor and Irian Jira.

Seven years later the Indonesians are doing everything they can to eradicate the military influence in their government and economy, but remnants of the entwining of military and civil power still remain.

We Love Our Great and Powerful Friends

Australia's relationship with the US gets a mention;

The United States places great value on its unique relationships with the United Kingdom and Australia, whose forces stand with the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other operations. These close military relations are models for the breadth and depth of cooperation that the United States seeks to foster with other allies and partners around the world. Implementation of the QDR's agenda will serve to reinforce these enduring links.

The United States should be ticked off at us. For all our rhetoric, and flag-waving support, we have about 1,000 troops in Iraq. Approximately 0.66% of the American contingent. Richard Woolcott wrote in 2004 that ;

The reality is that Australia's presence, however capable and efficient our forces, can make no meaningful contribution to the two major objectives: the reconstruction of that country [Iraq] and the establishment of a viable democratic government there.

The Great and Powerful Friends doctrine is a passive one - we become dependent upon other nations, and other militaries for our success. We leave ourselves no control over the outcome, whether success or failure. The Australian involvement in Iraq has been no different.

Macro-weaponry

The United States still sees China as its next potential nation-state opponent. This poses projection problems for the United States. The report lays out plans to;

Develop a new land-based, penetrating long range strike capability to be fielded by 2018 while modernizing the current bomber force.

Restructure the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program and develop an unmanned longer-range carrier-based aircraft capable of being air-refueled to provide greater standoff capability, to expand payload and launch options, and to increase naval reach and persistence.

Nearly double UAV coverage capacity by accelerating the acquisition of Predator UAVs and Global Hawk.

The first item is interesting. Australia is retiring its long-range strike bomber early due to maintenance costs but it is leaving us with a drop in projection ability. Australia's geographic vulnerabilities are the North-West shelf, the Timor Sea and the Coral Sea. A land based strike bomber would increase Australia's capability and projection in that area.

If there is a Dreadnought in the US's armoury, it is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV]. I do not doubt that this technology will quickly commoditise and become available to all militaries, if not civil operators as well. UAVs actually carry higher operational costs than a standard manned fighter. The pilots rotate in three shifts, which increases labor costs beyond a manned aircraft. In addition the UAV requires all the ground based support that a manned aircraft does. UAVs are an area that Australia can re-establish its aerospace industry. We should pursue domestic development programs for this technology.

Australian technology also gets a mention in the QDR;

Source: QDR 2006

Which begs the question, why aren't our defence industries more involved in developing new technology - rather than just being integrators of American systems.

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