Page 136 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019
P. 136

DEFENCE IN THE NORTH
STRATEGY
“Federal, state and territory
government investment
in Industry 4.0 capacity in northern Australia is needed.”
Working with parts of the US military, from the USN or Marines, northern Australia is used to multinationals in the mix.
criticality of northern Australia to defence in depth.
Following this work, the Australian Government invested billions of dollars in bases and bare-base infrastructure in the north, with a focus on the NT. RAAF Base Tindal became, and remains, a core base for Air Force fighter jet operations, and the Army took steps to create a func- tional and serious presence in the north. An arc of bare bases was constructed, in-
While references to northern Australia have increased over the past three Defence White paper cycles, the increase isn’t relat- ed to new defence thinking or strategy, but to continued investment in the DWP 87 conceptualisation of northern Australia.
DWP 16
DWP 2016 made it clear that northern Australia remained strategically impor- tant: Investment in our national defence
infrastructure—includ- ing the Army, Navy and Air Force bases in northern Australia, in- cluding in Townsville and Darwin, as well as the Air Force bases Tin- dal, Curtin, Scherger and Learmonth—will be a focus. It also pre- dicted that Defence’s
presence and investment in northern Aus- tralia would gradually increase.
While the planned investment in the north was welcomed, the synergies be- tween the north and Australia’s defence strategy were opaque in DWP 2016. That opaqueness may be a symptom of a dearth of northern Australia defence and nation- al security policy dialogue.
While DWP 2016 provided a long-term defence capability plan, it appears that long-held assumptions about the defence
of northern Australia and the north’s sig- nificance to national security haven’t been tested. Rather, the north continued to be viewed through strategic frameworks that are anchored in the 1980s ‘defence of Aus- tralia’ context.
It’s hardly surprising then that in Austra- lia’s new strategic environment the ADF, and its individual services, have at times departed from strategic guidance when raising, training and sustaining capabilities.
Despite a strong commitment to the north, Defence annual reports reveal that the number of personnel in the NT is al- ready at an 11-year low. The unchanged en- vironmental challenges of wet seasons have become, over recent years, a justification to move whole units and capabilities – such as the tanks of the 1st Armoured Regiment – south to Adelaide. It also seems likely that the 1st Brigade’s Land 400 vehicles will be based in Adelaide. There are also persis- tent rumours that 1 Aviation Unit will be moved to Townsville within the decade.
The changing strategic environment
By the early 2010s, the global strategic en- vironment had begun to change, and the momentum of that change has grown in velocity and intensity ever since. China’s emergence as a global power has created all-new economic and ideological compe- tition with the US.
cluding RAAF Base Scherger on Cape York and RAAF Base Learmonth in WA. Since 1987 it appears that policymaker
just accepted that northern Australia was important. It’s also clear that the decline of references to the north in subsequent defence policy documents closely tracks the decline of our thinking about Indo- nesia as a strategic risk to Australia. This is hardly surprising given the focus of defence thinking from the late 1960’s, until more recently, was defence from the region.
136 | October 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
DEFENCE


































































































   134   135   136   137   138