1966 Defence White Paper

Transcription

-Hugh White: Where we think that 2015 White Paper's going to take us? I guess is the first question. -Hugh White: Well, I made the point today that I don't, in terms, of the strategic environment, I don't think that it will be very different from the last Paper. There are some major strategic changes that have occurred, the behaviour Russia, the implosion in the Middle East, that are not the events that are going to result in significant change of policy or in terms of capability development. -Hugh White: Now look, I think, I think that's right. I think those very big and interesting events like in Russia and the Middle East and so on are important themselves but not very significant for what Australia thinks about its future defence capabilities. I guess my thought though would be about what's happening in Asia in particular the whole transformation of the major power relations, that that is going to have a big effect on our strategic environment. And that's probably the thing that we now need to be factoring into the way we think about our future defence capabilities and budgetary projections. -Robert Hill: Well, I'll just qualify that by saying that it's interesting that, you know, we're back in the Middle East. -Hugh White: Yes, yes. -Robert Hill: And we may be increasing our forces in the Middle East. So it's also important to design the force for the task that you're going to have rather than the task that you might, you might have. -Hugh White: Yes, although I'd, just to sort of turn that over, you know, we have been sending forces to the Middle East and achieving our strategic objectives in the Middle East, I would say, by drawing on the capabilities we've developed essentially for the defence of Australia over many decades now, and going all the way back to the first Iraq war in 91 and the various things we've done in the Middle East since then. I don't think we've ever found itself in a position where we couldn't do what government fell it needed to be able to do in order to achieve our strategic objectives in the Middle East from the forces we have developed for the defensive Australia. Whereas I think if Asia becomes more contested between major powers, we may find ourselves in a situation in which we can't do what governments think they'd want to be able to do. -Robert Hill: Well, just not wanting to argue the point, but what you say may be true in the historical sense, but if you look at the air capability that we've sent this time, it is a very modern capability, a self-supporting capability in ways that Australia never had in terms of the time. It can carry its own equipment, modern in-air refuellers, modern command-and-control aircraft. And that's really a capability that has been developed because of the belief that we may well be finding ourselves operating in an international force in issues such as this. But on Asia, yes? I don't think there's, there'd be much in the White Paper, that, well I think should qualify that. The White Paper will certainly, certainly recognize the territorial disputes that have heated up in recent years. It will express concerns that the nationalistic masculinity of China that is probably worrying will be, as far as the language will go. Having said all of that, in terms of response, I don't think it will lead to any significant change in policy or in capability. -Hugh White: Yeah, I suspect you're right. I think it probably should. But I but I don't think, but I doubt if it will. I mean guess, the other interesting angle is what it is or what it implies at least about Indonesia. We had Marty Natalegawa on the panel with us. So he was obviously a very fluent articulator of Indonesia views on these issues. But what do you, how do you think Indonesia's going to play out under the White Paper? Which things? -Robert Hill: I can't see anything that's likely to be in the White Paper that will be of any major concern to Indonesia. You know, we are going to upgrade our patrol boats. There's no secret about that. And they're really just replacing the ones that we have. We're upgrading our maritime surveillance aircraft, both to the P8s and probably the Triton unmanned -- Surveillance aircraft. But there won't be anything new in what they are actually doing. They'll just being a modern way of conducting surveillance of our EEZed area. -Hugh White: No, I'm sure, I'm sure that right. I think actually in a sense, just because some other issues a looming larger now than they did, in a sense, Indonesia looms less large now than it used to even they've been growing economically and, in the longer term I guess, will have bigger military capabilities as well. But I think in the longer term, there's likely to be a closer convergence of Indonesia and Australian strategic perspectives. In a sense the more contested the region becomes the stronger the issues in Australia and Indonesia have in common and further we're driven together. At least I hope that's what happens. -Robert Hill: I agree. I think that's a good thing and it was interesting that Marty picked it up. That we should think about ways in which we can help each other in terms out security needs. And, you know, we have done it in the past. Even in, even in my day, when I made the decision to re-engage Kopassus? in part because a capable Kopassus? was a security benefit to Australia who were then under threat of terrorist attack in Indonesia. And it sort of demonstrated to me that we've, we do have common, face common threats. And working together we can actually help each other. And I hope there's more of that in the future. -Hugh White: Yeah. That's right and often people look at the geographical proximity between Australia and Indonesia as a source of tensions in the relationship, and in a sense that's kind of obviously right. But it also is a sense of, it contributes to the converging strategic interests. Because we’re next-door neighbours, we both have an interest in the stability of the region which we share. And if there are threats to that, then that ought to be the basis for us to deepen our -- -Robert Hill: Yeah, so an Indonesia that succeeding, that's growing in a healthy way, the standards of living are rising, that is something that's in our interests. It's in our interest economically too because we've hardly scratched the potential for economic common benefit. So, you know, we've had some testy issues in recent times. But I hope that they'll be overtaken by time and we'll return to the trajectory that I think we were on a little while ago.