The dust has settled on the Defence Department's white paper issued on May 2. Perhaps this allows us to examine it less passionately even if it struck all the right chords.
The work comes in a very plain package but conveys a certain amount of urgency, even in its title: Defending Australia in the Asian Pacific Century: Force 2030.
For many, the most striking aspects of the white paper were the planned acquisition of 12 submarines and, partially in justification of this, the suggestion that the United States would focus considerably less on the Pacific.
In response, two episodes, a geographic reminder and a question come to mind.
The first episode: Canada commits itself to buying 12 British nuclear subs. This is not fiction. The Canadian government actually planned to purchase up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines in response to a military review that it could not ensure sovereignty, especially in the Arctic. The announcement came in 1987.
At first, Canada mooted obtaining fewer subs from the US. But the US would not sell its most sensitive sonar technology perhaps because one of the stated objectives of the fleet was to detect intrusions of friend or foe below Arctic ice.
The plans were eventually abandoned. For one reason, the government had let its debt rise beyond 50per cent of GDP by 1990. There simply was not any money in the bank.
A change of government in 1993 and a further five years down the road, finally Canada bought its submarines in 1998 sort of. It was offered four mothballed British diesel-electric subs for the bargain-basement price of $C750 million.
Even with this minimalist fix, the fleet encountered excessive cost overruns and time to refit. In October 2004, the last of the subs to be re-commissioned, scarcely out on its maiden voyage, caught fire. An officer died and several other of its crew were injured. The boat still is not in service and, during 2009, just one of the other three will be sailing.
The entire episode would make an excellent parable if it was not true. This could not happen in Australia? Well, the Collins class submarines are home-grown and certainly had their teething problems. But, the principal obstacle for Australia is crewing its six vessels. Currently, it can only fully crew three of its submarines.
The other episode involves a country called ''Red'' in future games played by the US Air Force in 1998 and 1999. The games assumed that Red had acquired the power of excluding another country, ''Blue'', from activity within 1200 miles of its shores. Obviously, if the US was Blue and China was Red, this would present major problems for the US's defence of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. The games assumed 2020 as the date of the scenario.
A lot was learned from these games. However, two points stand out. First, the US had to greatly enhance its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. This entailed, above all else, more satellites monitoring China. Second, it meant the development of greater bomber, as opposed to fighter, capability. Fighters, with a range of around 500 miles, would simply be sitting ducks if China enjoyed a 1200-mile exclusionary zone.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have slowed down the US response to the scenario. But, progress is significant, especially in the air force and the navy. The latter has even pursued ''sea basing'' as against overreliance on fixed ports in friendly countries. More important, the US is ''out'' about the emergence of China as a near-peer competitor as reflected by defence secretary Robert M. Gate's emphasis of it as one of the key concerns for security in the future in a recent article in Foreign Affairs.
This brings us to the geography reminder: the US is as much a Pacific nation as Australia. Yet, the white paper suggests that it might have less time for this region. It alleges that there might be a ''diminution in the willingness or capacity of the United States to act as a stabilising force''. In the Pacific, this would mean that it ''might find itself preoccupied and stretched in some parts of the world such that its ability to shift attention and project power into other regions, when it needs to, is constrained.'' As a result, its Pacific allies, including Australia, would have to carry a heavier load.
Just consult a map. We will forget about Hawaii, which is equidistant from both Beijing and Sydney (just under 8200km). Think of two cities closest to Beijing in the frontiers of the US or Australia. In the first instance, Anchorage rests 6448km away. At 5942km, Darwin is just over 500km closer. The same applies for large metropolitan centres on either side of the Pacific coast. For instance, Seattle (3.2 million) is 8755km while Sydney (4.3 million) is 8887km from Beijing. In fact, the total number of Americans living in states on the Pacific coast is around 50 million. One can quickly see why the US after the bombing of Pearl Harbor fought so single-mindedly to gain control of the Pacific. Geography has not changed even if the threat is China rather than Japan.
And finally, the question: how will this be paid for? In the US Air Force, the saying about future plans is, ''If it isn't in a fiscally constrained program, it ain't.'' Yet, the white paper sets this caveat aside almost completely. The one overture toward fiscal constraint is the promise of a Strategic Reform Program which will find $20 billion of savings. But, the white paper remains mostly mute about how long it will take, how it will relate to programs that have a history of cost overruns, and, most important, how it expects to wring out $20 billion from a department that has undergone incessant economy drives since the beginning of management reforms in 1984. The vague statement that ''Reforms of the magnitude envisaged will take several years to implement'' simply does not cut it.
Colin Campbell is the Canada research chair for US government and politics at the University of British Columbia and visiting professor of US studies at the University of Sydney. He is co-author of an award-winning book on future planning in the US Air Force.
Email a friend