Episode Notes:

On Monday, Australia released its latest defence strategic review. Prime minister Anthony Albanese said the strategy would make the country “more self reliant, more prepared and more secure in the years ahead.”

Joining us to discuss the review is Mark Watson. Mark is the Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Office in Washington DC.

[:43] Context

[1:29] Implications

[3:55] What’s next

[5:55] China

[7:20] Political response

Episode Transcript

Nicholas Danforth: My name is Nicholas Danforth and I'm an editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to The WarCast, the members only podcast for what you need to know, now.

On Monday, Australia released its latest defense strategic review. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it would make the country more self-reliant, more prepared, and more secure in the years ahead. Joining us to discuss the review is Mark Watson. Mark is the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Office in Washington, D.C. Welcome to The WarCast.

Mark Watson: Thanks, Nick. Great to be here.

Nicholas Danforth: Start out by giving us an overview of the document that was just released.

Mark Watson: Well, this document was a very quick turnaround document commissioned by the Australian government just over six months ago. So they really undertook a major review into Australia's defense planning and its defense posture, its forces posture in a very short period of time as these things go, six months isn't long to do a root and branch review. It was really commissioned in response to what the government described and continues to describe as the most challenging set of strategic circumstances Australia has faced since World War II. So that was the backdrop to the document and it's now been accepted, I think pretty much in its entirety by the current government in Australia.

Nicholas Danforth: And what are some of the prescriptions, the recommendations that it lays out?

Mark Watson: Well, look for me, the four big takeaways are firstly the shift in emphasis away from the land domain to the maritime domain, which really reflects the broadest shift away from Australia fighting expeditionary wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and really coming back to our own neighborhood.

The second takeaway I'd say, is the integration of soft power within a defense planning document. So this isn't just about a particular weapon system, particular combatant craft or the like. It incorporates the concept of integrated planning across whole of government. Everything from trade to aid to diplomacy under a reinvigorated use of the word state craft. So I think that's significant.

Thirdly, the shift from what in previous defense doctrine in Australia has been called the Defense of Australia, and it's a shift from that defense of Australia to what is now called national defense. And the significance of that is previous documents, previous strategies have been built on the back of defending the mainland of Australia defense in depth to defend the mainland of Australia. This is now about recognizing that our future military risks and threats, certainly Australia will need to be able to project threat and project risk a lot further away from home than just the mainland.

That's resulted in yet another new concept, which is the turn from what was called a balanced force. That is you can do a little bit of everything because you're not sure what you're going to be asked to do towards what is now called in this document a focused force, meaning it's about addressing the number one or two priority military risks to the country.

And finally, I just say overarching all of those things is a sense of urgency in this document. The word itself is used repeatedly. They call it a focused sense of urgency, as I say, reflected in the short turnaround time for the document itself, but now it's about the next two years and getting things done in a way that defense frankly has in the past shown itself and incapable of doing, which is focusing on an outcome and just building a straight line from A to B to get there. That is a new focus as well.

Nicholas Danforth: So then what are those targeted goals for the next two years?

Mark Watson: Well, part of it is about, obviously some of these announcements predate the defense strategic review. I mean, under AUKUS Pillar One, of course Australia's going to acquire conventionally armed, but nuclear-powered submarines. And in fact, the maritime strategy in this document really is anchored on that acquisition because coming out of this review is another quick and dirty review of Australia's Royal Australian Navy structure. The idea being to ensure that the surface fleet is complimentary to this new capability, which is the SSN fleet that Australia's going to acquire one way or another. So I would expect to see changes in the acquisitions associated with the Australia's surface fleet. We already had some frigate programs in place that may be under threat. We had some offshore patrol vessels. I think it's 4 billion dollars worth of those we may need to look and reshape that. Plus, of course, under Pillar Two of AUKUS and more broadly unmanned submarine vehicles will be at front and center on shore.

The second thing is we've chopped a lot. We're planning on something like 450 plus infantry fighting vehicles for the army that's been cut by two thirds now to around, I think it's 129 or something like that. We're giving up second regiment of self-propelled howitzers, in favor of HIMARS systems, the sort of weapons systems that we're seeing every day in Ukraine being so effective. So there's some really fundamental reshaping of the land element of the Australian Defense Force and a fundamental reshaping of the maritime element of Australia's defense force. The Air Force kind of to me, and I'm no Air Force expert, but it looks like it's a bit more of the same.

Nicholas Danforth: Now, where does China fit into this document?

Mark Watson: Well, China's already said that it's based on a false assumption, which is that China presents a threat. The reality is the document actually calls out China by name only in a few places, but in enough places to make clear, when we talk about the strain, the changed strategic circumstances in our part of the world, we're really talking about China and its actions, whether it's in the South China Sea, whether it's in terms of its intimidation of neighbors. Or of course in Australia's case, not only have we been on the wrong end of targeted economic sanctions, both tariff and non-tariff restrictions on Australian trade and export to China.

But we've seen concrete examples of Chinese interference in Australia's domestic political system, all of which has added up to a very changed perception of the relationship between Australia and China and the potential risks and threats that China poses. But it's not surprising that China thinks this is wrong. It hates AUKUS, it hates the Five Eyes, it hates the Quad, which as one senior US defense official said to me, "If the Chinese hate AUKUS, we should love it. And I love AUKUS." So I think that gives a flavor.

Nicholas Danforth: A final question then. What has the domestic response been to the review? And I guess more broadly, what are public attitudes, political attitudes, how are they evolving vis-a-vis the threat posed by China?

Mark Watson: Well, I'll take the last question first because we can actually go to some data on that. The Lowy Institute in Australia is a think tank that runs an annual or maybe biannual review of attitudes in Australia to a whole range of things to do with international relations and our partnerships. And in 2018, if you looked at that review, you would've seen that like 80% of Australians saw China fundamentally as an economic partner, a country that had generated so much of our national wealth, which is true. Three years later, which isn't a long period of time that had almost flipped on its head and two-thirds of Australians, the general public saw China as a strategic threat, as a security problem, not as an economic plus for Australia. That's a really big turnaround in Australia's attitudes. And as I say, that's partly been fueled because there are concrete examples of Chinese interference in our domestic politics, but quite publicly cutting off our coal, our beef, our sorghum, our wine, et cetera, et cetera.

So that influenced the public. Look, I don't think the public has yet really, and may well not have much of a groundswell of response to a defense strategic review. It's still a bit of a dry document, and most of what's in here was trailed well in advance of the release of the document and the big headline stories around nuclear-propelled submarines, around cutting land forces in terms of, as I say, the howitzers and the infantry fighting vehicles in favor of an enhanced maritime, had all been in one way or another put out there into the space. So I don't think there's any huge surprises in here.

I think most people, and this is just me, my opinion, I don't have hard data, but I think most people are very positive about the way this government is attempting to integrate diplomacy and aid and people to people in our region, particularly in the Pacific as part of this overall, "How do we counter rising Chinese influence in the Pacific?" It can't just be about grave gray hold vessels and more troops on the ground. It has to be about hearts and minds, and I think overall, I would say Australian people are supporting the way this government is going about that.

Nicholas Danforth: Thank you so much for joining us on The WarCast.