Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century PDF Download

Author: Australian Government - Department of Defence - Defence Publishing Service
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780642297020
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
This new Defence White Paper explains how the Government plans to strengthen the foundations of Australia's defence. It sets out the Government's plans for Defence for the next few years, and how it will achieve those plans. Most importantly, it provides an indication of the level of resources that the Government is planning to invest in Defence over coming years and what the Government, on behalf of the Australian people, expects in return from Defence. Ultimately, armed forces exist to provide Governments with the option to use force. Maintaining a credible defence capability is a crucial contributor to our security, as it can serve to deter potential adversaries from using force against us or our allies, partners and neighbours.

Author: Hugh White
Publisher: La Trobe University Press
ISBN: 1743820976
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A brilliant and important book about Australia’s future Can Australia defend itself in the Asian century? How seriously ought we take the risk of war? Do we want to remain a middle power? What kind of strategy, and what Australian Defence Force, do we need? In this groundbreaking book, Hugh White considers these questions and more. With exceptional clarity and frankness, he makes the case for a reconceived defence of Australia. Along the way he offers intriguing insights into history, technology and the Australian way of war. Hugh White is the country’s most provocative, revelatory and yet realistic commentator on Australia’s strategic and defence orientation. In an age of power politics and armed rivalry in Asia, it is time for fresh thinking. In this controversial and persuasive contribution, White sets new terms for one of the most crucial conversations Australia needs to have. ‘This book, by one of Australia’s leading defence policy thinkers, will be a very important contribution to our national discussion in coming years. Hugh White tackles many challenging issues and opens up the new debate that we need to have as Australia plots its course through a changing international environment.’—Robert O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the history of war, University of Oxford ‘Hugh White is among our most knowledgeable and practised strategists. While I am strongly supportive of the US alliance, How to Defend Australia is a serious work from a serious patriot that requires close reading. It deserves a wide audience.’—Kim Beazley

Author: Adam Lockyer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780522869316
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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No Marketing Blurb

Author: Adam Lockyer
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
ISBN: 0522869335
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
How would we know a good defence strategy if we saw one? The Asian Century is challenging many of the traditional assumptions at the heart of Australian defence policy and strategy. Defence scholars have risen to the challenge of these transformational times and have collectively produced a smorgasbord of alternatives for policy-makers. The problem is that these recommendations all point in very different directions. How should we evaluate these options? Adam Lockyer tackles this question and develops a novel conceptual framework for evaluating defence strategies. By doing so, this book breaks new theoretical ground and makes an important contribution to our understanding of strategy in general and defence strategy in particular. Lockyer then applies this analytical tool to the leading arguments in Australia’s defence debate and finds that there is still substantial work to be done. Lockyer concludes by proposing a new Australian defence strategy for a contested Asia that would pass the test for a ‘good’ defence strategy. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in strategy or the future of Australian defence policy.

Author: Desmond Ball
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760460141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Paul Dibb AM has had an extraordinary career. He enjoys an international scholarly reputation of the highest order, while at the same time he has done much distinguished public service. He was a pioneer in moving back and forth between posts in government departments, notably the Department of Defence, and academia. He began as a student of Soviet economic geography, and then spent nearly two decades in Australian Defence intelligence, including service as Head of the National Assessments Staff (NAS) in the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) from 1974 to 1978, Deputy Director of JIO in 1978–80, Director of JIO in 1986–88, and Deputy Secretary of Defence (Strategy and Intelligence) in 1988–91, before becoming a Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at The Australian National University (where he is now an Emeritus Professor). He has been quite happy to engage in vigorous public debate about important and controversial strategic and defence issues, giving him a high public profile. The contributors include two former Chancellors of ANU, one a former Minister of Defence, and the other a former Secretary of the Department of Defence, a former Chief of the Defence Force (CDF), and other former senior officials, as well as academic specialists in geography, international relations, and strategic and defence studies. ‘This would be a high-quality set of essays for any edited volume, but for a festschrift – a genre that sometimes generates uneven collections – this is an exceptional assembly. The individual pieces are very good; together, they have coherence and power.’ – Professor Ian Hall, Professor of International Relations, Griffith University

Author: Scott McDonald
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000326616
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The United States-Australia alliance has been an important component of the US-led system of alliances that has underpinned regional security in the Indo-Pacific since 1945. However, recent geostrategic developments, in particular the rise of the People’s Republic of China, have posed significant challenges to this US-led regional order. In turn, the growing strategic competition between these two great powers has generated challenges to the longstanding US-Australia alliance. Both the US and Australia are confronting a changing strategic environment, and, as a result, the alliance needs to respond to the challenges that they face. The US needs to understand the challenges and risks to this vital relationship, which is growing in importance, and take steps to manage it. On its part, Australia must clearly identify its core common interests with the US and start exploring what more it needs to do to attain its stated policy preferences. This book consists of chapters exploring US and Australian perspectives of the Indo-Pacific, the evolution of Australia-US strategic and defence cooperation, and the future of the relationship. Written by a joint US-Australia team, the volume is aimed at academics, analysts, students, and the security and business communities.

Author: Ronald Huisken
Publisher: Anu Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
The unravelling of the consensus on the 'defence of Australia' policy means that we must again undertake a balanced, long-term assessment of the nature of Australia's strategic interests.

Author: Ashley Townshend
Publisher: United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
ISBN: 1742104738
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
America no longer enjoys military primacy in the Indo-Pacific and its capacity to uphold a favourable balance of power is increasingly uncertain. The combined effect of ongoing wars in the Middle East, budget austerity, underinvestment in advanced military capabilities and the scale of America’s liberal order-building agenda has left the US armed forces ill-prepared for great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. America’s 2018 National Defense Strategy aims to address this crisis of strategic insolvency by tasking the Joint Force to prepare for one great power war, rather than multiple smaller conflicts, and urging the military to prioritise requirements for deterrence vis-à-vis China. Chinese counter-intervention systems have undermined America’s ability to project power into the Indo-Pacific, raising the risk that China could use limited force to achieve a fait accompli victory before America can respond; and challenging US security guarantees in the process. For America, denying this kind of aggression places a premium on advanced military assets, enhanced posture arrangements, new operational concepts and other costly changes. While the Pentagon is trying to focus on these challenges, an outdated superpower mindset in the foreign policy establishment is likely to limit Washington’s ability to scale back other global commitments or make the strategic trade-offs required to succeed in the Indo-Pacific. Over the next decade, the US defence budget is unlikely to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy owing to a combination of political, fiscal and internal pressures. The US defence budget has been subjected to nearly a decade of delayed and unpredictable funding. Repeated failures by Congress to pass regular and sustained budgets has hindered the Pentagon’s ability to effectively allocate resources and plan over the long term. Growing partisanship and ideological polarisation — within and between both major parties in Congress — will make consensus on federal spending priorities hard to achieve. Lawmakers are likely to continue reaching political compromises over America’s national defence at the expense of its strategic objectives. America faces growing deficits and rising levels of public debt; and political action to rectify these challenges has so far been sluggish. If current trends persist, a shrinking portion of the federal budget will be available for defence, constraining budget top lines into the future. Above-inflation growth in key accounts within the defence budget — such as operations and maintenance — will leave the Pentagon with fewer resources to grow the military and acquire new weapons systems. Every year it becomes more expensive to maintain the same sized military. America has an atrophying force that is not sufficiently ready, equipped or postured for great power competition in the Indo-Pacific — a challenge it is working hard to address. Twenty years of near-continuous combat and budget instability has eroded the readiness of key elements in the US Air Force, Navy, Army and Marine Corps. Military accidents have risen, aging equipment is being used beyond its lifespan and training has been cut. Some readiness levels across the Joint Force are improving, but structural challenges remain. Military platforms built in the 1980s are becoming harder and more costly to maintain; while many systems designed for great power conflict were curtailed in the 2000s to make way for the force requirements of Middle Eastern wars — leading to stretched capacity and overuse. The military is beginning to field and experiment with next-generation capabilities. But the deferment or cancellation of new weapons programs over the last few decades has created a backlog of simultaneous modernisation priorities that will likely outstrip budget capacity. Many US and allied operating bases in the Indo-Pacific are exposed to possible Chinese missile attack and lack hardened infrastructure. Forward deployed munitions and supplies are not set to wartime requirements and, concerningly, America’s logistics capability has steeply declined. New operational concepts and novel capabilities are being tested in the Indo-Pacific with an eye towards denying and blunting Chinese aggression. Some services, like the Marine Corps, plan extensive reforms away from counterinsurgency and towards sea control and denial. A strategy of collective defence is fast becoming necessary as a way of offsetting shortfalls in America’s regional military power and holding the line against rising Chinese strength. To advance this approach, Australia should: Pursue capability aggregation and collective deterrence with capable regional allies and partners, including the United States and Japan. Reform US-Australia alliance coordination mechanisms to focus on strengthening regional deterrence objectives. Rebalance Australian defence resources from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. Establish new, and expand existing, high-end military exercises with allies and partners to develop and demonstrate new operational concepts for Indo-Pacific contingencies. Acquire robust land-based strike and denial capabilities. Improve regional posture, infrastructure and networked logistics, including in northern Australia. Increase stockpiles and create sovereign capabilities in the storage and production of precision munitions, fuel and other materiel necessary for sustained high-end conflict. Establish an Indo-Pacific Security Workshop to drive US-allied joint operational concept development. Advance joint experimental research and development projects aimed at improving the cost-capability curve.

Author: Peter Dean
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 176046483X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In the first two decades of the Cold War, Australia fought in three conflicts and prepared to fight in a possible wider conflagration in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In Korea, Malaya and Borneo, Australian forces encountered new types of warfare, integrated new equipment and ideas, and were part of the longest continual overseas deployments in Australia’s history. Working closely with its allies, Australia also trained for a large conventional war in Southeast Asia, while a significant percentage of the defence force guarded the Papua New Guinea–Indonesian border. At home, the Defence organisation grappled with new threats and military expansion, while the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation defended the nation from domestic and foreign threats. This book examines this crucial part of Australia’s security history, so often overlooked as merely a precursor to the Vietnam War. It addresses key questions such as how did Australia achieve its security goals at home and in the region in this new Cold War environment? What were the experiences of the services, units and individuals serving in Southeast Asia? How did this period shape Australia’s defence for years to come?

Author: M. Taylor Fravel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691210330
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Since the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls strategic guidelines. What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals and how China sought to achieve them, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of change in military organizations. Drawing from diverse Chinese-language sources, including memoirs of leading generals, military histories, and document collections that have become available only in the last two decades, Fravel shows why transformations in military strategy were pursued at certain times and not others. He focuses on the military strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993 when the PLA was attempting to wage war in a new kind of way to show that China has pursued major change in its strategic guidelines when there has been a significant shift in the conduct of warfare in the international system and when China's Communist Party has been united. Delving into the security threats China has faced over the last seven decades, Active Defense offers a detailed investigation into how and why states alter their defense policies.