FIRING LINE

Response to Correspondence

James Brown

By the start of the next decade Australia will commence acquiring armed drones. That fact alone is prompting a rethink of how we might go to war, and the systems required to ensure elected representatives exercise effective control over the military. Imagine, if you will, Helen Mirren’s Eye in the Sky played out with Australian faces around the table. We have, I am sure, considerable work yet to do on the institutions that might support such real-time decision-making. 

I wrote Firing Line intending it to be the first word, rather than the last, in a new conversation. If the correspondence on the essay is indicative of the prospects for reinvigorating the national conversation on Australia’s place in the world, the role of our military and the essential elements of national security, then I am very pleased and look forward to the conversation yet to unfold. There is much more to say. I said little on the role of international law in making decisions to go to war – a topic I think already receives a rare degree of nuanced coverage in our public debates. Nor, as several correspondents elsewhere have pointed out, did I discuss at all the ethics of going to war. I made almost no mention of terrorism and a range of other national security threats, such as cybersecurity. Discussing a topic as expansive as war in 25,000 words means moving quickly and making hard decisions on what to leave out. I wanted the essay to range broadly from the personal and tactical, through the military and political, all the way to grand and regional strategy, because all of these considerations are necessary to inform a decision to go to war. As Andrew Carr said to me, “What the ordinary soldier goes through and what Xi Jinping wants both matter in this discussion.”

The responses to Firing Line show a consensus that our public debate on defence and national security is underdone. Henry Reynolds notes we have just passed through a federal election in which defence and national security policy barely rated a mention. Indeed, the most prominent defence discussion during the campaign was on whether retired military officers running for office should be allowed to post photos of their previous uniformed career or not (for the record, they should, and I would be surprised if the defence department’s judgment on this passes legal review). Senator Whish-Wilson sees bipartisan consensus on defence as the major problem here, as well as misplaced parliamentary priorities: “Parliament dedicates an inordinate amount of time to scrutinising the details of where defence money is being spent,” he writes, but “Next to no time is given to examining whether this spending serves the aims of a particular strategy.” He worries, too, about “silent running” politicians who are “fearful of speaking out on defence issues” lest they be seen as uninformed. Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College in Canberra, confirms this impression of a “troubling lack of awareness of security issues among politicians.” Malcolm Garcia identifies one impediment to a more informed public and parliamentary debate: the instinctively secretive culture of the Australian Defence Organisation. Let me note another, articulated by Michael Ware during a discussion of the essay in Brisbane: there will only be a better public debate on security issues when the public demands one.

In the meantime, though, plenty of steps can be taken to improve the capacity of parliament to debate these matters. In addition to the measures I have suggested, Peter Leahy suggests a two-week course on strategic thinking for all parliamentarians. Given the newly elected parliament only gets two days to grapple with a century of parliamentary history and systems, two weeks is a big ask. But the idea of shorter sessions aimed at lifting strategic and defence knowledge among parliamentary staffers is worth pursuing. 

Three weeks after Firing Line was published, the Chilcot Inquiry handed down its report. From predictable Australian corners came calls for our own round of war-crimes trials: witch-hunts which would neither help Australia make decisions on war, nor for that matter be likely to succeed in their cause of putting decision-makers in jail. As the Chilcot report makes clear in its 2.6 million words, mistakes were made, rather than deliberate deceptions contrived. Senator Whish-Wilson would like a full and independent inquiry to be held in Australia, but I don’t think that’s likely. I would like to see more on the public record, though, particularly on two issues considered in depth by Chilcot. The first is the effectiveness of Australia’s military strategy in Iraq between 2003 and 2008–09. It was chilling to read of the lack of clarity about the United Kingdom’s military objectives for the Basra-based Multinational Division Southeast, whose headquarters controlled the movements of my unit deployed there in 2005. It was useful to read the analysis of the impact on the British Armed Forces of splitting focus between Afghanistan and Iraq from 2005–06. I have not yet seen a good analysis of how Australia managed the interaction of these two proximate but distinct military theatres. And finally, the examination of the United Kingdom’s ability to influence the United States during a time of crisis is the most illuminating part of the Chilcot report, in my view, with echoes for Australia then and now. 

I grappled with how best to incorporate Iraq into my essay, not wanting simply to rehash the debates of the last decade, but keen to acknowledge how large the decision to go to Baghdad looms in the Australian psyche, and also wanting to be upfront about the personal biases inherent in the way I look at that conflict. My shorthand for the impact of Iraq on Australian thinking about war – the Iraq template – clearly needs further elucidation. James Curran’s critique of this is like so many winter mornings spent at the Singleton military range: bracing, but useful. He rightly points out that the Australian government was not “‘coy’ about either the strategic environment or its objectives, especially regarding the implications of the commitment for the US alliance.” I have acknowledged elsewhere the extent of John Howard’s efforts to make the public case for war in Iraq, in the parliament and outside it, including an extensive speech with questions at the National Press Club. I was thinking more of the period after 2003, particularly the difficulty the Rudd and Gillard governments had in discussing Australian deployments to the Middle East, and the deferment of commissioning official histories of recent conflicts. And I acknowledge that alliance considerations were to the fore in calculations then of national interest. In 2016 we run the risk of forgetting the immense pressure that was brought to bear on alliance interests in 2003, and it is important to recall that such considerations led the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, and the Japanese parliament to vote to deploy troops to Iraq – overturning seven decades of pacifism.

Chilcot has led to renewed calls here for parliament to take a greater role in decisions on war, and the Greens have committed to reintroduce their War Powers Bill when the new parliament convenes. I remain unconvinced that a vote before any military deployment is the right course of action, for reasons of both principle and practicality. The executive must preserve the freedom to respond to events, or shape events, with the mandate handed to it by the electorate and should not be excessively hobbled from doing so. Some security crises require a response within days, if not hours – recalling parliament and briefing it on the case for and against deployments would often prove impractical. Judy Betts usefully points out that greater parliamentary involvement in 2003 would not have changed Australia’s response to Iraq, given that the government controlled the lower house of parliament. A joint sitting of the House and Senate, beyond increasing the logistical complexity of a vote on military deployments, would also seem to contravene an elected government’s mandate, and is only to be used on rare occasions to resolve impasse and deadlock. 

But the trend in New Zealand, Canada and particularly the United Kingdom is towards greater involvement of parliament in military deployments. There remains a need for a greater systemic role for parliament in decisions to go to war. James Curran asks what point a ninety-day parliamentary committee review of military deployments would serve, given the decision to send troops has already been made. It is a “cumbersome new process” full of red tape, he suggests. Parliamentary review would serve four purposes. First, it would make the review of military deployment automatic and certain: regularising close consideration of military issues and the alignment of military objectives with political strategy. Second, it would increase transparency of decision-making and likely increase confidence and trust among the public. Third, it would allow consideration of views on the deployment from experts and members of the public outside parliament. Last, there is the purpose of broadening an appreciation of what’s at stake in any deployment, and potentially sharpening military strategy through more extensive parliamentary consideration. In arguing for congressional approval of military action in the United States, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Senator Tim Kaine, goes further: “It would be the height of public immorality to order service members to risk their lives when the nation’s political leadership has not done the work to reach a consensus about the value of a mission.” Australia is out of step with other democracies on this issue. As Peter Leahy notes, even President Putin is required by law to consult the State Duma when he wishes to deploy the military overseas (though presumably not when little green men are deployed).

The idea of a more integrated national security secretariat, in the form of a national security council (or office of national strategy, as some have suggested), has received a surprising degree of support in my discussions since Firing Line was published. Naturally, there has been some pushback in Canberra, with concerns voiced that current coordination efforts are not being appreciated, or that a new organisation might marginalise existing departments and agencies. Recent developments in Australia’s relationship with China, including the blocked sale of Ausgrid, make even more apparent the need for a better-coordinated approach to national security. It is odd that the necessarily reactive Foreign Investment Review Board has become the default body to meld security and economic assessments of the national interest. James Curran is concerned that a national security secretariat might become an echo chamber for the prime minister. Perhaps, but it is no more or less likely to become an echo chamber than a prime ministerial intelligence agency like the Office of National Assessments. Far more pressing is the question of where the strategists to staff this new office might come from: Malcolm Garcia suspects from the military, others have concluded from DFAT. For the most part, we will have to train them anew: policy expertise runs deep within government, strategy expertise less so. As Kim Beazley notes, “we have got out of the habit of this thinking.” The need to get back in the habit is pressing. 

It is a ticklish matter for me to assess the national security leadership of Tony Abbott, who was replaced as prime minister by my father-in-law. But I think the Abbott example is an important one and worth examining in detail. James Curran criticises my “sensational claims” that “the former prime minister suggested the dispatch of 1000 Australian troops to Ukraine in the wake of the shooting down of MH17, and that he wanted to send 3500 diggers into Iraq to combat ISIS,” and concludes that, “The most respected political journalists in the country have debunked both claims.” 

That is wrong. On the Ukraine deployment, Paul Kelly wrote: “Abbott’s every instinct is to deploy Australian military and police assets and he needs to be persuaded by his advisers from such options … In the early days of the crisis several weeks ago Abbott wanted to put 1000 Australian troops onto the crash site in conjunction with 1000 Dutch troops. Nothing better testifies to his outrage at the event and his keenness to deploy Australian assets in a cause that affected Australians. This option remained on the table for a few days.” 

Chris Uhlmann wrote: “Last August no one in the hierarchy rushed to deny a report in the Australian that said Mr Abbott wanted to put 1,000 troops into Ukraine, following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. That was because everyone agreed it was true.”

Abbott himself confirmed this in parliament in February 2015: “There was talk with the Dutch about a joint operation … This arose out of the most important and the most necessary discussions between the Dutch military and our own to uphold and defend our vital national interests and to do the right thing by the people of our country.”

The Iraq report is more contested. Prime Minister Abbott, along with defence chiefs, carefully refuted the notion that Australia was informally or formally planning unilateral action in Iraq, and reiterated that there were “no plans to put Australian combat troops on the ground.” Notably, though, the Australian did not issue a retraction of the story and Chris Uhlmann concluded that the possibility remained that “the idea of sending troops to Iraq was raised inside the bunker of the Prime Minister’s office.”

Since Firing Line was published, the Australian’s Cameron Stewart and Paul Maley have published a series of articles illuminating the Abbott cabinet’s deliberations on deploying the military to fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. One of their insights is that in the latter half of 2014, just before the above refutations were being issued, Abbott was actively exploring military options to send further teams of special forces into Iraq. Stewart and Maley report:

Attorney-General George Brandis said Abbott was “almost visibly frustrated” at the limits of Australian power … Abbott’s defence minister David Johnston said the prime minister’s frustration sometimes bordered on a desire for unilateralism. “He was quite unilateral in his proposition of what we could do and what we should do,” Johnston said. “I just kept right away from it. Whenever we had an NSC meeting I used to say, ‘We need to be very careful about doing things unilaterally.’”

The substantive issue here is what these episodes reveal about our national decision-making when it comes to military force, in particular the role of the prime minister. Curran concludes that this period shows the system works: the checks and balances of the national security committee of cabinet kept Abbott’s eagerness in check. I instead see this as the equivalent of an aviation near-miss. The conclusion Abbott voiced in parliament that Ukraine was a “vital national interest” of Australia is concerning, and the quantity of military (as well as intelligence) resources devoted was problematic. Curran is more sanguine about this than me: “After all, only a small number of special forces soldiers were sent to support police investigators in the Ukraine, and 200 were sent to Iraq.” But this misses the point. When you have only a small defence force, deploying such numbers is a risky overcommitment that leaves you exposed elsewhere. Roughly a third of Australia’s special forces were deployed to Iraq. Considering the numbers in training or on standby for domestic counter-terrorism, this left precious few to respond to any other crises. It’s one thing for a prime minister privately to canvass a range of military options behind doors; it’s another for the options canvassed to be outside the realms of reasonableness. And these crises unfolded over months in countries in which our vital national interests were not engaged. What would it have looked like were the issues to have played out over days, in parts of the world where our national interests were vitally engaged? Or in a strategic environment involving newer and more complex forms of warfare? Curran is satisfied that prime ministers and the national security system are up to the challenge. I hope he is right. 

There is another important factor here. Kim Beazley refers to Australia as having conducted “demonstrations” with its military. That’s an important military term; a demonstration does not rely on having a detailed plan – mission success is just showing up. There is an element of this in Australia’s deployments to the Middle East that Malcolm Garcia charts. It is intrinsic in the set-and-forget political culture around some of the ADF’s missions in the past decade. Operational and strategic considerations converge in Australian military decision-making: indeed, in a military of the size of Australia’s, it is debatable whether you can have an operational level where politics doesn’t matter and military commanders are left to make decisions freely. But it is clear that the Australian Defence Force being built right now is intended to do more than just conduct military demonstrations, and that is a step-change our political leaders will need to adjust to. 

The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling of early July has brought some of the security issues in Australia’s region to the fore with more force than expected. As I travelled around Australia speaking to audiences about this Quarterly Essay, I was surprised at how many were completely unaware of developments in the South China Sea before the PCA’s judgment. Kim Beazley has made, as you would expect, a sophisticated argument about how Australia should decide what to do next in the South China Sea, and has reminded us of our longstanding interests and presence in maritime Southeast Asia. Freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea are certainly an option to be kept in our security toolkit, but it is hard to see how an Australian frigate steaming within twelve nautical miles of Fiery Cross Reef would change the Chinese calculus on the costs of island-building and militarisation right now. It seems likely that these regional issues of maritime assertiveness will increasingly leach into the US–China strategic relationship, although in the long term both China and the United States are motivated to stabilise the relationship and avoid conflict. Australia has a part to play in resisting any move to assert an air defence identification zone in the South China Sea, and in encouraging peaceful resolution of overlapping territorial claims. But this is about more than freedom-of-navigation operations. The Australian public is getting wise to the issues at play in the South China Sea, and the wider strategic competition in Asia. The responses to Olympian Mack Horton’s comments, and to the Chinese newspaper Global Times urging “revenge” on Australia (“an ideal target for China to warn and strike”), have sharpened appreciated of some of the less palatable trends apparent in China’s rise. “Australia’s power means nothing compared to the security of China,” the Global Times warned. 

Henry Reynolds is more concerned with the power imbalance between the United States and Australia, and considers my reference to the alliance as a marriage as “a strange and troubling description.” He needn’t be concerned that I am a soppy alliance sentimentalist, but it is important to acknowledge that beyond the general alignment of Australian and American national interests, our two countries share social capital that should not be underestimated and which remains important to our foreign and defence policy. I am realistic about our ability to influence the course of affairs in Washington. I reject Reynolds’ slippery syllogism that “alliance means war – and wars that Australia would otherwise have avoided.” It’s true that one of Australia’s chief talking points in the alliance to date has been our reliability when it comes to fighting with America around the globe, but the path forward for Australia and America’s alliance involves more than “incessant military engagement.” I’m struck by the fact that Reynolds deems me a militarist too dismissive of the “other people’s wars” thesis, while James Curran suggests I’m an old-left radical nationalist who is embracing this notion. The contrast suggests Firing Line is on the right path to what Rory Medcalf has suggested could be a more inclusive conversation about security.

James Brown

James Brown is a former Australian Army officer, who commanded a cavalry troop in southern Iraq, served at the Australian taskforce headquarters in Baghdad and was attached to Special Forces in Afghanistan. He is the research director and an adjunct associate professor at the US Studies Centre, University of Sydney. He is the author of Anzac’s Long Shadow.