It`s been a long time coming, this next Defence White Paper from the Australian Coalition government. After initially pledging that another white paper would be produced, fully costed, 18 months after coming to office, political events transpired to delay the process at least three times. First, David Johnston made his ill-considered comments about the ASC and their ability to manufacture ships, which saw him replaced as Defence Minister by Kevin Andrews in December last year. Then the whole episode of who will build Australia`s next generation of submarines offset the writing process, with the government announcing a `Competitive Evaluation Process` (the first time many in defence had actually heard of such a term) to determine who should be granted the contract to manufacture subs in what will be the largest defence procurement in Australia`s history (to the sum of $50bn).
 
This certainly can`t have been envisaged by the white paper drafting committee in the DOD, who were forced to incorporate this new element into the paper and thus delayed the paper`s release yet again. In early August, concerns among South Australian MPs that they might suddenly be faced with electoral defeat at the next election promoted then PM Abbott to announce a plan for continuous ship building, with the idea that Australia, upon completion of the AWD project, would then branch out into manufacturing frigates to replace the ageing ANZAC class frigates. Not only this, Australia would be increasing its frigate fleet to 8 ships, together with 21 offshore patrol vessels (OPVs, namely corvettes), in addition to completing the construction of its three AWDs and the second of its LHD fleet (New Ship Adelaide, the sister ship to HMAS Canberra, not to mention the offshore build of 2 refuelling ships in Spain and South Korea). All of these vessels were envisaged to be operating by the mid to late 2020s (a plan described as “ambitious” by the navy’s maritime systems chief).
 
Although this announcement was warmly greeted in South Australia (unlike other defence manufacturing states such as Victoria and Western Australia, who thought too much emphasis was being placed on rescuing federal South Australian seats at the expense of their own industries), the sudden nature of the announcement meant that once again the white paper drafting committee had to go back and revise what was written, and incorporate new costings into the white paper itself, thus delaying the release of the white paper yet again.
 
Just when everybody thought that the release of the paper was imminent in late August,/early September, along came the change in leadership in the Coalition government. Despite protestations from Kevin Andrews that removing him as Defence Minister would again postpone the white paper release, he was given the boot and replaced by Marise Payne, Australia`s first female Defence Minister. Andrews, for his part, claimed that the paper was already completed and ready to be released, but clearly his removal and the installation of new members to the National Security Council of Cabinet meant that the paper could not be released until it was at least understood by both the Prime Minister and the new Defence Minister, both of whom might hold their own views about defence that differ from their predecessors.
 
So the expectations right now are that the white paper will be released some time between now to the end of this year. As to the content of the white paper, most analysis claims that the paper will mostly focus on expanding the role of the RAN in order to secure Australia`s vital sea trading routes to Asia and across to the Middle East. What the paper is envisioning is the largest ever build-up of Australian naval power, with a dramatic expansion in fleet capabilities and greater inter-operability with the US Navy to offset the growing capability of China to project its own naval power further into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, not to mention upgrades to naval bases.
 
Of course, singling out China as a potential threat to the region is not something that the white paper drafting committee wishes to do, certainly not after the experience of the 2009 white paper which specifically named China as a potentially destabiling force in the region. Then again, the committee will not want the next white paper to be as docile as the 2013 white paper was, which essentially avoided any concern about China`s intentions and claimed that economic relations within the region would offset any concerns about conflict. This concern about what China thinks has plagued the debate about Australia`s defence position since at least 2009, and has not done Australia any favours in helping to clarify just what Australia`s strategic interests actually are.
 
Defence analysts certainly appear to be in two minds about whether Australia needs to produce a white paper at this point in time. With most of the major acquisitions in defence already planned for (namely 72 JSF F-35 aircraft, 8 P-8 Poseidon aircraft, 10 C-27J Spartan short takeoff and landing aircraft, Triton surveillance UAVs (amount as yet unknown, with the possibility of 8 Reaper UAVs also being purchased), 10 C-17 Globemaster II heavy transport aircraft, 12 EA-18 Growler electronic attack aircraft, in additional to the naval acquisitions), it is obvious that Australia is planning to base its defence more on sea and airpower capabilities than land based forces, and a white paper doesn`t necessarily have to spell this out. This is a response to recent trends in the region, and the fact that Australian land forces are substantially smaller than those of other nations in the region, and so much be more specialised in their capabilities (hence the greater emphasis given in recent years to Australia`s special forces in deployments overseas).
 
Of course, white papers cannot merely be about purchasing of equipment, but are also supposed to outline the nation`s defence posture and how its sees regional and global event impacting upon its defence environment in the future. On this point, analysts are again divided on what should be in the paper and what shouldn`t. Hugh White, the ANU academic who often likes to play devil`s advocate in potential defence scenarios, believes the white paper in its current form is probably far too influenced by Tony Abbott`s thinking, with little thought to how defence procurement might improve Australia’s strategic position and the pointless task of achieving 2% of GDP for defence spending. Nic Stuart of the Canberra Times/SMH believes that the paper probably is in keeping with the conservative mindset of its drafters – i.e., namely that there will be nothing controversial within it, it will merely recite bland statements, and that ultimately it will be forgotten almost as quickly as the 2013 paper was.
 
Recent statements by Defence Minister Marise Payne essentially reinforce the idea that there will be no major shift in Australia`s defence thinking from the Abbott to the Turnbull government – that Australia will continue to emphasise the pivotal role played by the US in the region, that China`s rise is welcome but not at the expense of the status quo and the peaceful resolution of disputes. On that point at least the white paper won`t need to be re-drafted. On questions of other defence relations, particularly the nascent relations shared between Australia and Japan and Australia and India, it`s a bit harder to tell at this stage, seeing that neither Malcolm Turnbull nor Payne have yet to visit either country. However the increased ties between both countries gives the impression that they would welcome further defence ties with either state, at the very least as part of a strategy of `hedging` against any possibility of conflict in the region.     

At the very outset of this post, I once more have to apologise for my recent reticence when it comes to making updates to this blog. Work commitments have kept me fairly busy lately, and that does have an impact on how regularly I can get new posts up here. That being said, I wanted to quickly look at statements made by PM Abe last week during his attendance of the UN General Assembly meeting. The first of these was a speech delivered on September 29, in which Abe outlined Japan’s planned aid distribution to the Middle East and Africa (US $1.5 billion) , and which also declared Abe’s intention to lobby for Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The speech itself was well received, with commentary noting Japan’s long-held ambition to be admitted into the UNSC as part of the G4 (Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan). Yet it was what was said after the speech during a press conference that garnered the most interest from both Japan’s domestic media and some of the global news organisations covering the event. During the conference, when asked whether Japan would admit some of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees into Japan under its humanitarian program, PM Abe stated that Japan had to first deal with its own domestic agenda before it could contemplate accepting refugees, adding “As an issue of demography, I would say that before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women, by elderly people and we must raise (the) birthrate. There are many things that we should do before accepting immigrants”, before also adding that Japan’s financial contributions would help in the push to alleviate the conditions that caused the exodus in the first place.

News organisations in Japan, which supportive of the sentiment towards assisting refugees, were left somewhat perplexed by Abe’s comments. While Japan has certainly been extraordinarily generous in its aid program, the low number of refugees taken in by Japan has been the source of debate both within Japan and in wider global organisations , and Abe’s comments won’t have alleviated some of the concerns that perhaps Japan needs to adopt a more open policy towards accepting refugees.

The other matter that I wanted to touch upon concerns comments from Ambassador Sumio Kusaka here in Australia on Japan’s bid for the Future Submarine Contract. In an exclusive interview given two weeks ago, Ambassador Kusaka laid out in detail Japan’s commitment to having each and every one of Australia’s future submarines built in Australia should the Turnbull government wish it so. This commentary, not surprisingly, was warmly greeted by the government, with Industry Minister Christopher Pyne stating that it was “music to my ears”.

Ambassador Kusaka’s commentary was an expansion on comments made in late August in Adelaide, in which Japanese submarine builders had said that they would be prepared to build in Australia as one of three options Japan was exploring (precisely the same conditions laid down by the DOD that both DCNS and TKMS have been operating under).  That message should resonate loudly and clearly, and is in keeping with what I have been saying about the potential for an Australia-Japanese submarine collaboration for the past two years – that it should be a shared project, with Japanese manufacturing practices taught to Australians in order for domestic skills to be upgraded and put to use building submarines here.
This issue is certainly going to be one dominating the dialogue between Australia and Japan for the next few months, and one that this blog may touch upon from time to time. These are exciting days folks, and things have only just begun!