Defence Business: The security landscape | ADM March 2013

The last decade has been described as the 9/11 or national security decade, with Australia’s security posture defined by events which started that morning, New York time, on September 11, 2001.

Before the year was out, Australian troops were in Afghanistan, where they remain, although not for much longer. Just over a year after 9/11, 88 Australians died in the terror attack in Bali. Within 18 months Australian troops were in Iraq, not because Australia was so motivated by 9/11 or by Saddam’s non-existent WMDs but because our alliance partner, the US, was.

Now Prime Minister Julia Gillard has declared the 9/11 decade over, with the behaviour of states rather than non-state actors the most important driver of  Australia’s security thinking.

The key risks, she said, would be those traditional and familiar risks which, seemed to diminish during the 9/11 decade – plus some new ones. There’s state-based conflict and coercion, coupled with espionage and foreign interference, malicious cyber activity, WMD proliferation by nations such as North Korea and Iran plus instability in developing and fragile states.

Terrorism and violent extremism feature at the bottom of the list. As the PM noted in launching the new National Security Strategy, Osama Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda is degraded, Jemaah Islamiyah has been decimated and various plots for attacks in Australia have been disrupted and those involved prosecuted and jailed.

But as 9/11 demonstrated, terrorists have the capacity to surprise. As the PM was speaking, the terror attack on the Tigantourine gas plant in Algeria was winding up with considerable bloodshed, showing the terrorists still have a say in world affairs.

And that brings us to another observation – major Australian security statements and white papers have been routinely overtaken by events unforeseen by their authors and everyone else. The 1987 Defence White Paper was speedily eclipsed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Influenced by operations in Somalia and Cambodia, the 1994 Defence White Paper saw Australia’s defence interests on a broader horizon, although not so broad that the ADF didn’t need substantial remedial work in order to conduct its next big operation much closer to home in East Timor.

The 2000 Defence White Paper, influenced by East Timor and the looming prospect of more such missions, was followed by 9/11. The 2009 White Paper, with its commitment to an expanded and modernised Force 2030 was speedily followed by the global financial crisis.

The 2013 National Security Strategy follows the 2008 national security statement delivered to federal parliament by then PM Kevin Rudd.

One of those who attended the launch of the Gillard plan was Professor Paul Dibb, dean of Australia’s strategic academia who was generally positive, finding it commendably concise in its security proscriptions.

“It doesn’t do the sort of rather all-inclusive concept that Kevin Rudd went on with like human security, water security, food security and hugging trees,” he said.

So your correspondent went back to the 2008 statement for another look. This 41-page document is certainly no great departure from conventional strategic thought, although it did see national security in broad terms, touching on the security implications of climate and demographic change and energy security, as well as all the enduring conventional measures.

Rudd’s former life as a diplomat was apparent. The statement says Australia must advance national security policy through the agency of “creative middle power diplomacy”, a theme repeated throughout.

The significant concrete initiative of this statement was the creation of the position of national security adviser. The highly regarded Duncan Lewis, a former special forces CO and now ambassador to NATO, was chosen for this important job.

Unsurprisingly the coalition carped about the new national security strategy, declaring Labor had nil credibility on national security matters and that the new document said nothing about resources. The Greens were unhappy because it failed to recognise climate change as a clear and present danger to national security.

Matters of resources will no doubt be canvassed in further detail in the upcoming 2013 Defence White Paper.

Fundamentally the new strategy turns the focus back on this region, predicting ongoing low level regional instability and viewing the relationship between China and the US as the central determinant of regional temperature. Nation states will be the central driver of Australia’s security thinking. Non-state actors, including terror groups, NGOs and private companies will remain influential.

The strategy identifies terrorism and violent extremism as a clear risk and says there’s a need to remain vigilant. There’s a new focus on the threat of malicious cyber attack and a new cyber security centre will place all the main players under one roof at last.

There will also be a new emphasis on regional engagement. Defence, well aware that missions in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomons were coming to an end, is a year along this path. We can expect a range of initiatives to build linkages in places which weren’t especially prominent on the radar while there was shooting in Afghanistan.

But has the threat of Islamic terror sufficiently diminished? Tony Abbott didn’t seem to think so. In his preliminary comments, he said Islamist terrorism remained one of the most important security threats. With events unfolding in Mali and Algeria, it’s clear this peril hasn’t vanished and Australia, with a seat on the UN Security Council has to see the big picture.

As well as some financial aid for Mali, the government has left open the prospect of some peripheral military aid, most likely some C-17 missions to get African troops and equipment onto the ground. However, the C-17 fleet is currently heavily tasked withdrawing kit from Afghanistan.

But events in Mali and Algeria show the world has changed. A decade ago, the US would have been expected to intervene to stop the Islamist advance. Now France has stepped up to the plate and fair enough too as this is Francophone Africa.

Algeria’s response to the attack on the gas plant was brutal and only marginally competent by western standards. But it was also prompt, ending what would certainly have turned into a protracted hostage crisis which would likely have ended with the terrorists enriched through payment of ransoms, their cause on the front pages for months and just as many if not more dead foreign workers.