Australia, ANZUS and regional order (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-anzus-regional-order/

Strategic policy, ANZUS and dealing with Trump (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/strategic-policy-anzus-dealing-trump/

The Indo-Pacific and the nature of conjoinment (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

Let’s cut to the chase. Few strategic assessments have ever recommended the deleting of a hyphen in favour of a dash as a principal policy recommendation. So Andrew Phillips’ recent ASPI Strategy paper, From Hollywood to Bollywood?, is distinctive on those grounds alone. But much more importantly, it’s a nicely-weighted exploration of the concept of the Indo-Pacific in Australian strategic thinking. Underlying Andrew’s claim—that we’d be better off emphasising Indo/Pacific differentiation rather than Indo-Pacific aggregation—is an argument about the important strategic differences between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the practical difficulties of conjoinment in an increasingly interconnected world.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/indo-pacific-nature-conjoinment/

US strategic policy and public opinion (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

In the wake of the first presidential debate, we’ve settled into the political trivia season: did Trump have the sniffles? But there are much larger questions at stake. For example, are we about to see a prolonged period when ‘America First’ dominates US strategic policy, regardless of who wins on 8 November? I’m trying not to use the i-word here, because America First needn’t actually mean ‘isolationism’. But I’m concerned that the positions Trump’s retailing reflect a longer-term and more substantial shift in the US electorate’s thinking about America’s role in the world.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/us-strategic-policy-public-opinion/

A shifting Asian nuclear order (Rod Lyon, ASPI)

https://www.aspi.org.au/publications/a-shifting-asian-nuclear-order

Nuclear weapons: are we creeping closer to a ban? (Ashleigh Sharp, Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/nuclear-weapons-creeping-closer-ban/

The intelligence jigsaw (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

I’d like to add a different perspective to the post on the limitations of intelligence that was offered by my colleague, John Coyne. I write as someone who worked at the Office of National Assessments for over 11 years, although I left ONA in late 1996, and have no personal or specific knowledge to offer on the character of the supposed ‘flawed intelligence’ about Iraqi WMD that’s said to have provided the basis for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-intelligence-jigsaw/

Agenda for Change 2016: foreign policy (Rod Lyon, Lisa Sharland, David Lang, Amelia Long, Lachlan Wilson, ASPI The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/agenda-change-2016-foreign-policy/

Australia, concentric circles and strategic priorities (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

The issue of setting strategic priorities is one that’s dogged Australian defence white papers since their inception in the mid-1970s. History, culture, strategic commitments and global power balances pull Australian priorities outwards. British settlement of Australia initially tied our fate to that of the British empire; our Western cultural roots made us more comfortable dealing with states and societies founded on similar values; our ties to great and powerful friends encouraged us to paint on a broader canvas; and our distance from key global power balances meant that if we wanted to be a force for good in the world we’d have to be expansive in our strategic priority-setting.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-concentric-circles-and-strategic-priorities/

US grand strategy, alliances and Trump (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

Donald Trump’s recent statements about US foreign policy—see the transcript of his exchange with The New York Times—serve to open up a point of electoral differentiation between the candidates. But they also raise a deeper, more fundamental question: are we entering a new era of US grand strategy, one in which America relies less upon its traditional alliances? Given the way Washington has thought about its allies since the early 1990s, it’s a fair question.

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Rod Lyon is a fellow at ASPI.

Australian strategy in an age of coyness (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

Readers of Australia’s DWP 2016 might well think themselves sold short in relation to one key concept: Australian strategy. The White Paper’s awash with money and equipment, but somewhat less clear about why power and force matter in the modern world. Kim Beazleyand Hugh White have already bemoaned the sharp turn away from the idea of self-reliance in the defence of Australia, a priority that previously helped to determine force structure and strategic focus. But readers are also misled about Australia’s interests in broader global power balances by the constant over-selling of a relatively soft strategic concept: ‘the rules-based global order’.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australian-strategy-in-an-age-of-coyness/

US nuclear modernisation and assurance of allies (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/us-nuclear-modernisation-and-assurance-of-allies/

North Korea: waiting out the tortoise? (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

North Korea’s latest satellite launch helps expose the paucity of the international community’s options for responding against a determined proliferator. The UN huddles to agree on new sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s regime. China counsels all parties to act calmly and with deliberation, clearly still believing that the present regime in Pyongyang is preferable to an uncertain future on the peninsula. The Obama administration clings tenaciously to its policy of strategic patience—a policy that makes sense only on the condition that we can wait out North Korean radicalism.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/north-korea-waiting-out-the-tortoise/

Walking after midnight: thinking beyond the Doomsday Clock (Rod Lyon, ASPI The Strategist)

In 2016 we live in a comparatively peaceful world. No great power is at war with another. Even middle-power conflict is absent: no Iran–Iraq war with chemical weapons being tossed about, for example. Wars can certainly be found, primarily in the broken states of the Middle East. But most of those don’t appear to be a harbinger of doomsday. In brief, while the world’s strategic environment probably can’t be described as benign, it does seem to be manageable. We’re not standing on the brink of an abyss.

But watchers of the Doomsday Clock would be hard pressed to find much evidence of that manageable global order. The clock is meant to symbolise the countdown to global catastrophe—predominantly from nuclear war but nowadays encompassing threats from climate change and new biological technologies. Those crises are described as ‘existential’—as threatening the very existence of civilisation. Keepers of the clock, theBulletin of Atomic Scientists, recently made their latest determination to leave the hands unchanged. That means it remains set at three minutes to midnight. Newsweek covered the event with an article titled ‘Apocalypse soon’. And visitors to the Bulletin’s website are invited to cast their votes on whether the clock should be adjusted by a minute or two in either direction.

The clock’s been around since 1947. For much of the 1950s it was set at two minutes to midnight, while the US and the USSR raced to build nuclear arsenals and engaged in a competition to see who could build the biggest hydrogen bomb. And for a few years in the mid-1980s, the clock was set at three minutes to midnight, symbolising the tensions in the superpower nuclear balance. The immediate post-Cold War years saw the clock wound back to 17 minutes to midnight, but adjustments since have, by and large, been towards smaller numbers. Obviously, it’s difficult to sustain a sense of urgency if the hands are even a quarter of an hour from midnight.

At this point, it’s hard to know what might see a major resetting of the clock. Nuclear disarmament might see it set back a few minutes, I suppose. But realistically you’d have to make allowance for the possibility of reconstitution of nuclear arsenals during a crisis—which I think could easily be more dangerous territory than where we are now. For one thing, there’s no guarantee that reconstitution would occur at an even, balanced rate across key geopolitical fulcra. Repeated crossing of the bridge between a nuclear and a non-nuclear world is a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one. Still, that’s not where we are now.

At least in relation to current nuclear dangers, I’m puzzled by what it is that’s supposed to happen at midnight? Do we reach midnight with the first nuclear detonation in a war? If so, what does 1am look like? Some of the most interesting and neglected questions in nuclear strategy concern what happens after deterrence fails. But a failure of deterrence needn’t mean ‘doomsday’—or, at least, not doomsday in the sense that films and computer games often suggest.

Naturally, we should be interested in slowing, halting and reversing any slide towards the use of nuclear weapons. But if we do end up crossing the threshold, the answer’s not to throw up our hands and resign ourselves to extinction. Rather, we need to have a meaningful set of strategic choices after midnight—including options for slowing, halting and reversing further nuclear use on the day after. Obsessing about midnight doesn’t help us develop those.

Last year graphic designer Michael Bierut described the Doomsday Clock as ‘the most powerful piece of information design of the 20th century’. Visually, the clock’s simple and arresting—albeit an analogue image in a digital age. (Future generations might struggle to read it, just as they now struggle to comprehend pounds, shillings and pence.) But I’m dubious about how much ‘information’ it actually conveys. I’m not convinced we’re on the verge of extinction, and the idea that ‘the end is nigh’ is neither new nor especially useful. The clock’s best days now lie behind it. I vote for turning it off.

Rod Lyon is a fellow at ASPI