Free ride on US defence must stop
Defence expert Richard Armitage says Australia assumes the US will always be there to defend it. Photo: AAP
CHRISTOPHER JOYE
Former United States deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has criticised Australia for appeasing China in a toned-down Defence white paper and warned Australia can’t continue “free riding” off its alliance with the US.
The comments will fuel the debate over defence spending and national security, which so far has been ignored in the election campaign.
Mr Armitage told The Australian Financial Review he had read the latest 2013 Defence white paper “in its entirety” and was unimpressed Australia had “chosen to trim her sails simply because China was grumpy after the publication of the 2009 defence white paper”.
“The Chinese said Australia would ‘suffer consequences’ in 2009 and the language in 2013 is certainly toned down,’’ he said.
Mr Armitage said Australia’s national security approach seemed to rely on the US maximising co-operation with China and minimising competition, and assumed the US would always be there to defend Australia.
He said that “one of the many things America’s rebalancing in the Indo-Pacific is not an opportunity for countries to free ride off US taxpayers.
“I think that people who automatically expect the US to be there to defend Australia and want to free ride but are not willing to sacrifice appropriately are being totally unfair and selfish.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Armitage said China’s government could struggle for legitimacy in a lower growth environment, criticised America’s “rebalancing” back into Asia as “hurried, inarticulate and having raised more questions than it answered”, maintained America would be willing to offer Australia sensitive nuclear-powered submarines to replace the beleaguered Collins-class boats, which were a “disaster”, slammed President Barrack Obama for not “bearding” Russia for giving the fugitive leaker, Edward Snowden, asylum, and revealed his main fears are the impact of cyber warfare and nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan.
“At a time when we are having our own budget difficulties but still spending north of 4 per cent of our very considerable GDP on defence, it is only just to expect more from our partners,” he said, “particularly a partner like Australia, who has had over 20 straight years of pretty spectacular economic growth.”
Mark Thomson, an Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst, said Mr Armitage was “one of the most astute observers of Australian defence policy” and has “seen right through the sophistry of the 2013 defence white paper and called it for what it is”.
The Lowy Institute’s Rory Medcalf said Mr Armitage was a “friend of the alliance” who was “right in pointing out that Australian governments are being too clever by half when it comes to cutting defence spending at a time of growing strategic tension in the Indo-Pacific”.
MORE EQUITABLE COSTS
Mr Armitage served in numerous senior diplomatic and Defence roles under presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W Bush, including deputy secretary of state and assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs.
He said there needed to be a more equitable distribution of defence costs across alliance members, and warned if Asian tensions escalated, the spotlight would turn to the large gap between Australian and American defence spending per capita.
“If there was any future neuralgia in the Indo-Pacific, then the US would start looking at Australia and ask, “What’s up with that – you’re spending 1.56 per cent of GDP? You expect America to be there for you on defence, but you have to be there for yourself as well.”
The opposition spokesman on defence, David Johnston, said “Labor has treated the defence portfolio like an ATM, taking $25 billion out through deferments, cuts, delays and cancellations” to fill its fiscal holes.
“The 2013-14 budget will reduce the share of GDP being spent on defence to just 1.49 per cent, the lowest since 1938,” he said.
Dr Thomson said Mr Armitage was “absolutely correct that Australia is ‘free riding’ on US security efforts in Asia – but we’ve been doing so since the end of the Second World War”.
He noted that other US allies did the same and said that for a middle power like Australia, “the logic of free riding is compelling”.
This was because without changes in Australia’s position on major military investments, “nothing we can do is likely to make an enduring difference to the overall balance of power in Asia”.
Dr Thomson said this situation would “change completely” if the US decided to “play a less active role in the region” and that this was a “risk we need to keep an eye on”.
Major-General Jim Molan, who led Australia’s contribution to the Iraq war, vehemently disagrees.
He said free riding off the US alliance was “a very dangerous strategy” as increasingly isolationist US policies implied “the US may not want or, given its parlous economy, be able to come to the aid of even deserving allies”.
THE NEED TO ACQUIRE OUR OWN STRATEGIC WEIGHT
While both political parties agree Australia should be spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence in the long run, the nation is currently committing one-quarter less than this amount.
“Despite the wishes of the strategically blind, it is not possible to effectively provide for the defence of Australia with just 1.5 per cent of GDP,” Major-General Molan said.
“That we provide inadequately is not alarmist, it is not a myth – it is a fact recognised by both political parties, but yet to impact on the Australian consciousness.”
The Lowy Institute’s Mr Medcalf said Mr Armitage's remarks were a “warning about the future health of the alliance – relying on America is no substitute for acquiring our own credible strategic weight”.
Mr Armitage told the Financial Review regional military conflicts in Asia over the next 15 to 30 years were “quite likely”. “History suggests there are very few times where you can go for even a decade without outbreaks of major violence in a region,” he said. “And I think that is a very real possibility given the historic animosities in Asia.”
Although Mr Armitage does not think “we have to return to the traumas that existed during the Cold War”, he avers “we could find ourselves back in that situation” given that dislocations inevitably emerge when incumbent major powers have to accommodate rivals.
Mr Armitage said that the “possibility of violence – as we have seen in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea in the last few years – is being exacerbated by the inability of China to explain the motivations for her military activities in the region”.
Uncertainty regarding China’s intent meant the risk of miscalculations was elevated. “China cannot even sign a code of conduct with ASEAN, for heaven’s sake,” he said.
“And she goes into the turtle position as soon as you say you want to talk about strategic arms control.”
Mr Armitage also worried about the potential for instability inside China. “I think China is, to some degree, afraid of her own people,” he said.
“In a very real way the legitimacy of the Communist Party for the last 34 years has rested on the fact that they have given spectacular economic growth to the people. The question is: will the party still be seen as legitimate in a lower-growth environment?”
Combined with corruption, environmental and health concerns, and Chinese state interference with private business, Mr Armitage thinks that the “task President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang face is enormous”.
Yet he is also critical of US policy in Asia. “The ‘rebalancing’ in the Indo-Pacific has been done in a very inarticulate and hurried manner and has raised more questions than it has answered, including in China’s mind,” he said.
“We have primarily focused on security elements and have not come with a full quiver of arrows, including foreign direct investment, education and political and cultural engagement with Asia’s nations.”
Mr Armitage eagerly weighed into the brewing submarine debate, which could become the biggest public works program in Australia’s history. Some analysts say the project to replace the Collins-class vessels could cost as much as $40 billion. Current maintenance and sustainment costs for Collins are running close to $1 billion a year.
Last week the University College London issued a 34-page “green-paper” that concluded building “a nuclear-powered submarine may present no greater challenge for Australia than its own uniquely modified conventional submarine.” It recommended Australia consider either the US-made Virginia class or UK Astute class nuclear-powered submarines as options to succeed Collins.
COLLINS SUBMARINE A ‘DISASTER’
Mr Armitage described Collins as a “disaster” and emphatically disagrees with local experts who say the US would never make this platform available to Australia.
“I certainly think the US government would agree to provide Australia with the Virginia-class technology, which would be very much in the US Navy’s interests,” he said.
Mr Armitage noted that agreements struck between the Howard and Bush governments in the 2000s on intelligence and technology sharing meant that Australia was “eligible for the highest level of military-grade technology exports”.
He said claims Australia could not staff the submarines were “facile” and that America would be “absolutely prepared to help Australia meet the submarine’s maintenance and sustainment requirements”.”. The UCL report published similar analysis.
ASPI’s Dr Thomson says “the impediments to buying the Virginia class are not anywhere as large as often stated – if they can be operated out of Guam, they can be operated out of Australia”.
“If Australia really wanted to play a serious strategic role in Asia, Virginia-class submarines would be the option to consider,” he says.
“It would be a quantum leap in capability above the conventional submarines and small surface combatants that are presently planned” and the “boldest strategic move Australia has made since the signing of the ANZUS alliance”.
But Dr Thomson warned that “the well connected vested interests that make up the local naval shipbuilding lobby will fight the option at every turn.”
Mr Armitage told the AFR his two biggest worries were the prospect of cyber warfare disabling western economies and the outbreak of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan.
“I can assure you with 100 per cent certainty that India cannot absorb another Mumbai type incident—India will incur in a rather major way into Pakistan,” he said.
“The ease and alacrity with which the senior political leadership in Pakistan and India talk about both the possession of and use of nuclear weapons on one another is completely out of step with any other nation in the world.”
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