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The sovereign nation-state with legitimate, centralised responsible government and bureaucratic organisations to enact policy, is the basic political unit of the existing international order. The state is legally sovereign as it recognises no higher external authority, nor domestic equal. Internationally, a states pursuit and promotion of its national interests, in competition with other similar political units, remains the fundamental driver of government policy and actions, irrespective of political ideology or governance model. The foremost duty of responsible government is the safety, well being and security of its citizenry within the geographical confines of its borders; the national interest. In this respect defence of the state against external military aggression is the most important task of any responsible government. It is for this reason that the Australian Federal Government maintains a defence policy and defence force as international diplomatic influence and political credibility is based on latent military force.

The defence policy as espoused by the government is based “on the principle of self-reliance in the direct defence of Australia and in relation to our unique strategic interests, but with a capacity to do more when required, consistent with those strategic interests that we might share with others, and within the limits of our resources.”

This policy continues the earlier strategic objectives as defined in the 1997 and 2000 white papers. However there is one significant addition, the concept of leading ‘military coalitions where we have shared strategic interests at stake with others, and in relation to which we would be willing to accept a leadership role, in part to compensate for the limited capacity or engagement of others’

This suggests that the government is prepared to act on the strategic necessity of promoting a secure and stable South East Asian region. The lessons of RAMSI and INTERFET have been acknowledged and absorbed at least in principle. Further the paper suggests that the notion of conducting operations in areas not directly associated with immediate threats to the national interest and beyond the scope of ADF capability is no longer valid and that the ADF ‘would do so only after the Government had satisfied itself that our forces have the necessary weapons, protection, logistic support, training, combat readiness and force preparation to ensure successful operations with the least risk to our deployed forces’

The faithful lockstep with the Bush Doctrine that defined much of the Howard government’s defence policy and practices has been broken, superseded by a pragmatic and realistic paradigm promoting Australian strategic interests before that of the US. This is a welcome breath of fresh air.

One concept that is unseen within the paper is that of peacekeeping or peacemaking, beyond veiled references that ‘The ADF has to be prepared to contribute to military contingencies in the rest of the world, in support of efforts by the international community to uphold global security and a rules-based international order, where our interests align and where we have the capacity to do so.’ Given that the capability of the ADF is to be primarily based on a maritime strategy, it is reasonable to assume that any future involvement in peace-ops with UN sanction, requiring the deployment of ground forces, would be minimal and tokenistic.

This is not an abandonment of liberal ideology but more a reprioritising of realist based aspirations of national security against the limited resources and force structure capabilities available to the ADF and government. While not eschewing the desire to maintain good international citizenship, the policy does accept that there is only so much the ADF should be tasked for and that it needs to maintain focus on the more immediate priority providing a unilateral defence for Australia as opposed to more multilateral political goals.

The basis for strategic guidance is the stated belief that ‘It would be premature to judge that war among states, including the major powers, has been eliminated as a feature of the international system…and.. that the main role of the ADF should continue to be an ability to engage in conventional combat against other armed forces.’

The driving factor for such guidance is the perception that China will possess the most potent and, potentially, destabilising military capability within the region up to and including 2030. Similarly
‘A major power of China's stature can be expected to develop a globally significant military capability befitting its size... particularly as the modernisation appears potentially to be beyond the scope of what would be required for a conflict over Taiwan.’

The policy suggests that tensions between China and the US over regional supremacy cannot be excluded and that North East Asia could well present the prospect of regional conflict between the major powers.

The paper does, however, present a somewhat paradoxical quandary concerning the future role of the US in Asian power relations. That ‘The United States will remain the most powerful and influential strategic actor over the period to 2030’ is counterbalanced by the later statement ‘China by 2030 will become a major driver of economic activity both in the region and globally, and will have strategic influence beyond East Asia...and...Has the potential to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy around 2020.’ It is within this paradox that the paper seeks to locate the ADF’s future force structure and capability.

The strategic guidance of the policy proposes a predominately maritime strategy to secure Australia’s SLOC to deny potentially hostile nations the ability to attack Australia, either directly or through the use of forward basing, by use of forward deployment of the ADF to independently disrupt and destroy any adversarial conventional forces at a time and choosing of the ADF command, without reliance on alliance partners. To facilitate this strategy the RAN is to be the prime beneficiary of defence appropriation with a requirement for 12 SSK and 8 advanced FFH to replace the in service Collins and ANZAC class SSK and FFH respectively and to equip the navy with cruise missiles for long range strike. Remarkably the paper also raises the possibility of incorporating a fleet of 20 Air-capable Offshore Combat Vessels to fulfil the roles of mine-warfare, border protection and hydrography with a displacement not in excess of 2000 GRT and using modular design. This is an, at best, optimistic concept fraught with risky design and development issues that would, in all probability, exceed both specifications and budget outlays. Beyond these acquisitions, the paper proposes no new capital programs than those already being undertaken and proposes that remediation of in service assets to enable the strategy will suffice.

This is a reasonable and achievable goal, with the caveat that funding levels are adequate to provide the ADF with the required force structure and capabilities. Disturbingly this is not the case with a mere 1½ pages devoted to the budget allocations which remain in the realms of 3% GDP per annum until 2018 and 2.5% thereafter, a point at which funding levels will be required to exceed 3% to maintain any semblance of achieving a viable and sustainable force structure. The whole policy, which is quite reasonable and achievable, is left hanging in the realms of fantasy due to the consistent and perennial bugbear of Australian defence policy, funding.