Update: AK-103 exports to Libya

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by N.R. Jenzen-Jones

As discussed in this earlier piece, Kalashnikov AK-103s have been sighted in the hands of both pro-Qadhafi forces, and the rebels/National Transitional Council in Libya recently. I had advanced a theory that the rifles had either been sent from Russia, as pre-production samples related to this arms deal, or been manufactured in Libya for the same reasons. Nicholas Marsh, from the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT) picked up the story and has since been keeping an eye on it.

As Marsh points out in a recent post, an August 31st photo in the New York Times (detail of which is above) shows AK-103s resting in a crate bearing some interesting shipping information. Most notable is the supplier, ‘Rosoboronexport’, the Russian state-owned arms exporter. The customer is listed as ‘Procurement Department, Tripoli, Libya’. The ports of origin and arrival are consistent with what would be expected. There appear to be ten rifles in the crate, the standard shipping number, and what appears to be wax paper can be seen at right.

The crate pictured is numbered as #6524 out of 11380. Working on 10 rifles per crate, that equates to 113,800 from this particular contract.

Of course, to be certain that these assault rifles were actually contained within the crate shown we would need some more information from someone on the ground. Ideally, we could match the contract number on the crate to the relevant paperwork, and see what the crates originally contained. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. I have sent an email to Rosoboronexport seeking further details, but it is highly unlikely I will receive a response.

But, as Marsh rightly points out, for the purposes of providing a pointer to where further research is required, this photo is enough for us to assume the rifles were sent to Libya under an authorised export deal with Russia.

Australia’s spend on counterterrorism: how much is enough?

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Over the weekend, the Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith, made a poor defence of the Government’s purported spend of $30 billion on security since 9/11 during his appearance on ABC’s Insiders (view here). Several analysts, including Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Mark Thomson, arrived at the figure by examining expenditure on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, domestic counterterrorism and boosts to intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The question posed to the Minister was, has this been worth it? His answer:

I haven’t tried to test that Barrie. What I do know is that our annual Defence expenditure for the Department that I’m responsible for on the civilian and military side is $26 to $27 billion. So I haven’t done the tally but I’d make this very simple point: When we are in the sure and certain knowledge that we are in the face of an international terrorist threat, it’s not the money that we spend, it’s the preventative measures that we take and the effectiveness of those measures. So it may well be a very large amount of money. The key thing is, are we better prepared, are we doing better and has that money been well spent? And I think we are much better prepared.

The Minister does not state why the figure of $30 billion dollars is justified. He simply states that it is. But it is not enough to shrug one’s shoulders and state being better prepared is your measure of success. For instance, could the Government have spent $10 billion to achieve the same outcome?

Counterterrorism should be costed with a system of accountability for expenditure, otherwise the Government can effectively write itself a blank cheque. If any level of spending on counterterrorism is justified because the measure of success is the absence of terrorist incident, by that logic, any amount is enough. The challenge, therefore, is discerning how much expenditure, especially what minimum amount, is actually required to achieve this state; that is, a sense of feeling secure.

But the Government has no system to measure whether the amount of $30 billion dollars is justified in achieving either a sense of security or actual security.

Unlike Defence’s 2009 white paper (PDF), which outlines strategic aims, capability projects and projected costs through to 2030, the 2010 Counter-Terrorism White Paper (PDF) provides no projected costs to meet the strategy outlined therein. It would be possible to disaggregate some of the costs by examining the contribution of departments such as Defence and agencies such as the AFP, but the Government does not even attempt to provide such figures.

It is difficult to measure the benefit derived from activities like counterradicalisation but that does not mean other areas of counterterrorism cannot be costed. The costs of related capability and equipment, upgrades to intelligence agencies, recruitment, and facilities can be determined and provide part of an assessment of whether the costs are commensurate with security dividends.

If analysts like Mark Thomson are able to cost Australia’s national security then the Government has an obligation, if it chooses to not refute that amount, to break down and justify the spend of taxpayers’ money.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Devar.

Security Scholar Forum: What is a Civilian Strategist?

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By Natalie Sambhi & Nic R. Jenzen-Jones

As part of a new initiative, Security Scholar is now hosting monthly online forums on security, strategy and military-related issues, bringing scholars, practitioners and commentators together for debate and discussion. It was our pleasure to host the first of these on 25 August on the topic of “What is a civilian strategist?”, an issue that has grown out of a series of blog posts and comments (started on the Lowy’s Interpreter and continued on Security Scholar, Rethinking Security and Pnyx), driven by the observed disjuncture between the development of strategy and implementation of policy and what role civilian strategists play in that interface.

Our aim has been not only to extend discussion beyond defining ‘civilian strategist’, but also to unpack a key area of civil-military relations (comparing the systems of three liberal democracies) and reach consensus on the function and utility of civilian strategists.

The hour-long forum, held over Google+, hosted guests from Australia, the US and the UK, from academia, the blogosphere and the Twitterverse, moderated by the Security Scholar team. Several points emerged from the debate.

First, what struck us was the interest in this topic; this has been an issue that has generated similar levels of concern amongst our US and UK contemporaries, as it has here in Australia. There was general consensus among participants that the role of civilian strategists was crucial in interpreting and implementing government’s intent into operational-level action.

Second, when compared to the blog exchanges, there was the shift in the online discussion towards whole-of-government/interagency issues. While the lexicon between international participants differed, it was clear that we all identified the interagency nature of contemporary security issues and appreciated that the increased involvement of non-military actors dictated that the role of civilian strategists was indispensable.

Third, we quickly agreed that the meaning of ‘civilian strategist’ depended entirely upon what level of decision-making we were are addressing; that is, at the higher levels of national security, decision-making was seen to be exercised predominantly by civilian rather than military strategists, whereas at lower levels, the ratio tips in favour of military strategists. Professor Samuel Liles pointed out the crucial role played by civilians in the National Security Council Deputies Committee in determining issues national security in the United States. Moreover, Samuel and Dr David Connery noted the role that their respective education institutions—the Information Resources Management College at the National Defense University and the National Security College at the Australian National University—played in creating and shaping civilian strategists (a considerable proportion in the case of NSC).

Whilst we did not come to a concrete definition of a ‘civilian strategist’, there are a few key characteristics we feel all parties agreed upon. All participants agreed that such a person must be a civilian (that is, not a currently serving member of a nation’s armed forces). They must also either make, or directly influence, strategic level decisions (although there was some discussion about the various ‘levels’ of strategy). While the distinction was made between those who are strategists and those who are policy makers, what is less clear is the distinction in practice between strategy and policy. Such confusion has led to a misunderstanding not only of who civilian strategists are (given rise to the debate in the first instance) but also what they do.

Overall, we were delighted to be able to host thinkers from around the world, and we hope that some of the points that have been raised will continue to stimulate discussion. Ultimately, by lending legitimacy to the role of civilian strategists to help overcome mistrust and misunderstanding with uniformed peers, we can encourage greater cooperation and implementation of a holistic and cohesive national security strategy.

Participants:

Prof. Samuel Liles, Washington (National Defense University/Selil.com)
Dr David Connery, Canberra (National Security College)
Aaron Ellis, Liverpool (Thinking Strategically)
Dan Trombly, Washington (Slouching Towards Columbia)
Adam Elkus, Washington (Rethinking Security)
Matthew Hill, Ithaca (Pnyx)
Crispin Rovere, Canberra (Blogtime.org)
Sheryn Lee, Canberra (ANU)
Caitlin FitzGerald, Boston (The Children’s Illustrated Clausewitz) [by correspondence]

Convenors:

Nic R. Jenzen-Jones, Perth (Security Scholar)
Natalie Sambhi, Canberra (Security Scholar)


Excerpt from forum transcript:

Crispin Rovere: … I’m just sort of wondering what everyone else’s thoughts are on whether civilians are capable, or can, or should, be involved in operational matters as well.

Nic Jenzen-Jones: … When you say ‘operational matters’ are you referring to solely traditional military operations? Or are you talking cyber-operations and these sorts of things? Because there are certainly a lot of areas now where civilians are the norm, rather than the exception.

Sam Liles: You should bring up special operations, also.

David Connery: Or are you talking about procurement decisions and budgeting decisions? You really seem to range over a whole range of areas there… In some cases, civilians are better equipped to tell what’s the better fighter aircraft; they’re the engineers that have done that training, whereas the pilots can give opinions on which is better to fly, or to deploy.

Nic Jenzen-Jones: And I guess what always springs to mind for me, is that you’ve got law enforcement professionals in that spectrum as well. You’ve got FBI agents out there overseas, you’ve got DEA agents over in Afghanistan and so on, and you’ve got AFP all over our neck of the woods. They are obviously civilians, and are conducting operational-level thinking.

Matt Hill: Yeah, I think that’s a really important distinction to make here. I think this is where we can fall into a trap when we talk about civilian strategists, in that we make the civilian strategy divide such that we put the military at the ‘means’ point and the civilians at the ‘ends’ point. The reality is the military is one means amongst the national capabilities, and the vast majority of those capabilities are in fact civilian. There is actually a greater penetration of civilian involvement all the way down the spectrum, from strategy right down to the tactical level, which you’re not going to see necessarily from the military.

Sam Liles: I’d like to add one thing. In the military lexicon, we have the DIME model – the Diplomacy, Intelligence, Military, Economic model – that’s discussed in depth. But there’s also another one, the MIDLIFE [AKA ‘DIMEFIL – ed.] model. That’s Military, Economic, Diplomacy, Law enforcement, Intelligence, Financial and so on it goes. That law enforcement piece is very important because often, at the diplomacy level, if you want to get a change made you need to take in something other than a military brew to act within another country’s borders. So an FBI, or DEA, or shared use case with a share concept of operations will be able to work in a way that a military wouldn’t. So when you’re talking about strategies, it doesn’t always have to come back to we’re going to blow something up, kill people, break things – it can also be in the order of “we’re going to help you guys arrest the bad guys and clean up the streets”. That’s still enacting a strategy, maybe by a civilian organisation.

David Connery: Yeah a great point there by Matt, ‘military strategist’ is really confusing the means with the ends, it’s making the means predominant. Picking up on Sam’s point there, truly national strategies employ instruments of national power; the DIME formulation is really far too narrow. I’m not sure, Sam, of the MIDLIFE model but I will google that pretty shortly. But yes, a strategist needs to understand how to employ every tool available to the nation – and beyond the state – including what’s available in the private sector, what’s available in the community sector, and what’s available from your allies overseas, to achieve your political goals. Now, the military is a fine tool, but in the National Security College, we have about 15% of our students are military officers. The rest are representing all of those other agencies that are tools that Sam mentioned. And in that way I think we driving towards a better understanding of ‘how do you implement national security strategy?’, and leave the application of military force to the professionals.

Nic Jenzen-Jones: I think looking outside the state is a really important point as well. We’ve got a pretty clear civil-military divide in Australia, for example, but a lot of countries have paramilitary groups, and even law-enforcement groups that border on the military. It might be a lot more black and white for us than it is in other countries.

David Connery: Yeah, although in terms of becoming blurred, when you look at the State police ‘STAR’ forces and the Australian Federal Police’s International Deployment Group, the distinctions between ‘civil’ and ‘military’ become a little blurred.

Crispin Rovere: Do you think, in certain circumstances, that we’re even bringing civilians more into military operations? I’m thinking here of the CIA drone strikes in Pakistan and it becomes so intensive that we are now at a point where David Petraeus, obviously a life-time general, has now been appointed the head of the CIA. Do we think that perhaps that the whole distinction of armed force, in terms of means, is now becoming increasingly civilian as well?

Nic Jenzen-Jones: I couldn’t agree more, mate. I think the Petraeus-Panetta shift is the example that’s on everyone’s mind right now, but even some of the stuff we were talking about before is a good example. These Law Enforcement teams, AFP, DEA, particularly FASTs in Afghanistan and Colombia and so on, are integrating into the local military or paramilitary and acting more or less in a military capacity, as well as integrating into the local law enforcement and mentoring in the traditional sense. And you’ve also got Private Military Contractors, of course. You’ve got huge armies of ex-military guys, who are very clearly now civilians, operating in country – not so much on the strategy level, but still affecting it. If you look at some of the larger companies, Blackwater, previously, and DynCorp and so on, some of the in-country managers are responsible for a large area and are in a sense involved in some strategy in that they are being consulted by civilian and military leaders in country. So these guys have a dialogue going with senior officers and civilian representatives of coalition nations.

David Connery: To follow on from Nic there, Private Military Contractors are even setting foreign policy in some circumstances. But Crispin makes an excellent point in ‘what is a military operation these days?’. I can’t think of a single operation that is a solely military activity. And I don’t think there will be again, short of a major international war, where you’ve got to impose the peace. If you think of World War Two as a continuum that lasts through from maybe 1930, to 1955 or 1960, one phase of it was the fighting, but what happened next was the rebuilding of Europe. And although it was military-led in the very early years, there was a transition out of it. So what’s a military operation? Great point.

Matt Hill: If I could just follow on that briefly, I think what we are basically seeing, at least thematically, in the problem of defining civilian strategists, is that if we take strategy as being the bridge between the means and the ends of society, we have seen two major dynamics, really, since World War Two. We’ve seen the means; and questions of the means, and in what situations and how the means are deployed has changed dramatically with these non-traditional directions, as well as the change within the military towards professionalization. And at the ends, we’ve seen changes within societies. Dramatic changes in how we operate in Western society. So there seems to be pulling at both ends of that bridge, and they are both hard to reconcile with traditional concepts of strategy. And I think that’s quite a stretch on the concept of civilian strategists, these two dynamics happening at both ends.

From Caitlin Fitz Gerald (by correspondence)

“I think the slipperiness of the definition of a ‘civilian strategist’ derives from the rarity of the breed. I see strategy as a main intersection of the civil and the military, taking input from both and ideally grounded in a strong grasp of concerns from the tactical to the political. However, military leaders tend to have far more focus on strategic training, but the civilian leaders are the ones with the power to implement. So, I see civilian strategists as something that should exist, but don’t always (and actually I would argue that strategy in general is something that should exist, but doesn’t always).”

Female exceptionalism and reconceptualising the field

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Feminist and UWA Honours Student (Political Science and International Relations), Jessica Hodder, provided a very considered reply to my original post on females in international relations. I have provided my reply by way of a separate post. These posts form part of a debate spurred by Rodger Shanahan on the Lowy Institute’s blog, The Interpreter.

Jessica,

Thanks for the reply. You raise some interesting socio-cultural/socio-economic points related to women in international relations, many of which I agree with. Couple of points, however, regarding under representation and “reconceptualisation”.

I think there is a related issue with under representation, that of female exceptionalism which goes some way to explaining why, although under represented (a point of Shanahan’s I do not exactly dispute), women are more visible than men in certain contexts. Female exceptionalism, to me, means that a female (and her work) garners attention simply on the basis that she is a female. The military is an example of such a context. The presence of women is treated as some sort of extraordinary and feted in a very specific way. The use of Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan is an example of this insofar as they are simultaneously promoted as important inclusion to the modern military but treated as an Other (I have written about Afghan female exceptionalism resulting from FETs in practice here). For the time being, it is not necessarily something that can be helped, but it is something to be aware of.

However, the more interesting point of yours I wish to engage concerns the meaning of “reconceptualisation”.

First, there is no inconsistency in my efforts to underscore the contribution of a small number of brilliant women in the field while simultaneously highlighting latent discrimination. These women have succeeded, at times, in spite of latent discrimination and female-unfriendly environments. Their participation goes some way in transforming the field but what I observe is that this transformation has not gone far enough to eliminate institutional and cultural inhibitors against greater female participation.

This relates to my second point; that, in this regard, “reconceptualisation” is not only necessary, but an inevitable and inherent development resulting from increased female participation. I’ll use an example to illustrate what I mean. The role of diplomat was historically dominated by men. At the very least, there was an expectation that a man could be posted overseas and dedicate his time uninterrupted to the role. Nowadays, there are many more women in diplomacy, many of whom do not, and should not, have to choose between children and career success. Recognising the changing nature of the field and its participants, foreign ministries have responded by reconceptualising the role of diplomats. The duties of a diplomat may not have changed by the ways in which they can be discharged encourages, rather than deters, women from assuming the role without sacrifice.

The best example of this (which I came across in 2009 while thinking about my own future choices) is the introduction of job-sharing between diplomats who were husband and wife. With both posted overseas, both are able to develop their careers and balance child-rearing. It is not a perfect system, but it is an example of recognition that, with greater female participation, the field must evolve (lest it lose valuable talent), and the idea of “diplomat” must somewhat be reconceptualised. This is not an aberration of the practice; it is one that is gaining greater currency, evidenced here, here and here. That said, there are many other institutional and cultural inhibitors repelling women that remain untouched.

I imagine we both mean and are after the same thing. Noting your final point, however, it will take more than merely “more women” in the right positions. It is about the right women, the right solutions, and ultimately, transformation of the system itself.

Natalie

Image courtesy of US Department of Defense.

Reader reply: Women in International Relations

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Feminist and University of Western Australia Honours Student (Political Science and International Relations), Jessica Hodder, provided a very considered reply to my original post on females in international relations. Given the detail of her response, I have published it as a separate post below. These posts form part of a debate spurred by Rodger Shanahan on the Lowy Institute’s blog, The Interpreter.

Natalie,

While I agree that there are a considerable number of outspoken women in the international relations field I tend to agree with Shanahan that we remain outnumbered by men in the more influential domain of public lecturing as well as in senior policy and advisory roles in government, think tanks, universities and the public sector (supported by a cursory search of Australian Universities’ IR staff lists). That being said, in my view many of the women who are in those positions are often more visible than the men (for example CSIS’s Africa Program Director Jennifer Cooke, who introduces most of the Africa progam’s podcasts and Samina Yasmeen, who organises more public events than the rest of UWA’s Politics and IR staff put together).

I think women’s under-representation in these areas is inseparable from women’s under-representation in senior management and executive roles in the private sector, the persistent gender pay gap, and the low numbers of women entering careers in science and engineering, all despite strong female performance in tertiary entrance exams and more women than men enrolling at university. These are serious issues for society, their causes are deeply rooted in our culture and social attitudes and therefore can’t be resolved without honest and open debate.

I welcome Shanahan raising this issue, although I think his attempt at a light-hearted tone was misplaced. I would take this as an opportunity to ask the hard questions that need to be asked, rather than call for a “reconceptualisation of female participation in international relations” in order to argue that women are indeed present. In my reading of Shanahan’s piece he makes a point (in the third paragraph) to emphasise the presence of women in the field and directs his argument mainly at their under-representation.

More broadly, and with respect to you Natalie, I read a strong defensive tone in your reply. This defensiveness, which I have also detected in other strong female commentators on ‘women’s issues’ is in my view inhibiting the development of a more open public discourse on these issues. In your 4th paragraph you briefly mention latent discrimination and female-unfriendly environments, however the main thrust of your argument appears to be that women are active and speaking out and shouldn’t have to conform to male expectations to be recognised. My view is that we shouldn’t be satisfied with unequal representation, a small number of brilliant women achieving success does not compensate for the absence of average or ordinary women throughout the system, women should not have to choose between children and career success, equality is’t about women becoming more like men or ‘reconceptualising’ what success or participation means for women…

Feminism used to be about securing rights for women; the right to vote, the right to equal opportunity, equal pay, the right to control our sexuality… Women today have all these rights and yet still lag behind men on many indicators. Worryingly we are catching up in some ways we’d rather not: such as higher rates of alcohol consumption among young women, higher rates of violent crime, convergence in smoking rates… Feminist ideas are still relevant today, but they need a rebranding. The legal battle has been won, the cultural battle is far from over.

The issues western society is now facing are inextricably linked to the roles of women. Fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels across the OECD, because women, now able to control their childbearing, are choosing to remain childless, delay childbearing (which often results in fewer children or unintentional childlessness) or have fewer children. Our aged care systems which are unprepared to face the coming onslaught of retiring baby boomers, have traditionally relied on low paid or unpaid female labour, our female dominated education systems have produced skills shortages leading to damaging structural unemployment… All this is indication that female social roles are undervalued, as a society we have failed to recognise their true importance and resource them accordingly. These social cues have been picked up, resulting in fewer babies, inadequate provision for aged care, lower quality teachers. Meanwhile, traditionally masculine fields have arguably been overvalued and over-resourced, notably investment banking which has been the source of some high profile problems in recent years.

Women’s status within society and the status of what has been traditionally regarded as women’s work is a serious issue for men and women worldwide. This ‘soft’ issue even has a real impact on ‘hard’ issues such as international security, because of the structural problems it can cause. Consider the potentially destabilising impact of the millions of young men in Asia who will never be able to find a wife.

Perhaps if there were more women in influential positions in the international relations field, the importance of the status of women in maintaining international stability and competitiveness would receive more attention.

Jessica Hodder
Feminist and UWA Honours Student (Political Science and International Relations)

Female commentators in IR: we’re here, on our terms

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Rodger Shanahan makes two dubious assertions in his post on the ‘forgotten sex’ in international relations (IR). First, that to be commentating and engaging publicly is to be present in the field of IR, and second, to be visible is to be present in the practice of IR. Both these observations are incorrect.

It is true that, due to the dominance of males in foreign policy and IR, and the gendering of issues such as hard power and violence, women do not appear as prominent. Still, the burden of proof should not fall to women to demonstrate our direct public engagement with the field. A cursory glance at the blogosphere and the Twitterverse should leave no doubt as to the presence of female commentators. Just because our presence is not noted on certain fora, does not mean we are unwilling to engage or, worse still, absent.

There are a number of women who regularly blog, comment, exchange, tweet and debate in IR. Most prominently, these include Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former director of Policy Planning for the US State Department and Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter; Australians bloggers and commenters, Leah Farrell (counter terrorism), Sheryn Lee (Southeast Asian politics), Nina Markovic (national affairs), Trish Jha (politics) and Danielle Chubb (North Korea), to name a few; on TV, Aussie journalists and presenters Leigh Sales, the fiesty Virginia Trioli, and Jenny Brockie; on international screens, the indomitable BBC anchor Zeinab Badawi, and countless others at think tanks, NGOs, academia and in the public service.

However, it is more than not looking in the right places to find women. There is a latent issue of discrimination in IR. My blogosphere colleague, Caitlin Fitzgerald, raises the point that our absence can be explained, in part, by the ‘old boys’ feel of foreign policy circles (also, h/t Matthew Hill) which can either be offputting for women or bar involvement. Particularly, in the subfields of international security and defence, this issue persists, and requires serious redress.

Second is Shanahan’s conceptualisation of female participation in the international relations realm. In Shanahan’s view, events such as the Arab Spring have appeared to be a largely male affair. There were countless numbers of women working to achieve change in Arab states. It’s not about looking for as many Amazonian women as you can wielding AK-47s, rolling around in pickup trucks, getting their rebel-ution on. It’s not about taking up a male image of a ruthless, bloodthirsty autocrat that qualifies women as being present. It’s Shanahan’s narrow conceptualisation of “International Relations Woman” and his parameters of reference that merely serve to highlight his idea of their absence.

The point is, we are out there, we are participating, we are commenting, we are engaging publicly but we aren’t always doing it on Shanahan’s terms. As the field of international relations continues to evolve, so too will the markers of presence and participation. So, next time you have something to say about this, Rodger, come and write on my blog. Not the other way around.

Security Scholar Synopsis: Afghanistan’s National Interdiction Unit (NIU)

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By N.R. Jenzen-Jones

NIU raid drug lab in Nimruz, AFG

Introducing our new Security Scholar Synopsis (S3) series! Each brief in the series focuses on a particular military or law enforcement unit, or emerging operation, and provides an overview supported by research and links to primary and other sources for further reading. The first in our series covers the National Interdiction Unit (NIU), the premier narcotics interdiction force for the Counter Narcotics Police – Afghanistan (CNP-A). An extended version of this brief will appear as a blog post in the near future.

You can download the document using the Scribd controls below.


An extended version of this post is now available at the Small Wars Journal.

Strategy: a symphony, not a solo

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By ClosetIdealist

@ClosetIdealist is a security and risk advisor in the private sector, having previously served in the Australian Public Service and in the ADF. 

Since my last post, there have been several developments in the debate about ‘civilian strategists’, including a 15 August contribution from Professor Hugh White.  Hugh, with his conservative definition of strategy as the bridge “between the organised violence … and the political purpose”, has dragged our debate back to first principles.  Before we debate the finer points of what a ‘civilian strategist’ might be, we need to agree on strategy.

At the risk of opening a can of worms with a ‘grand strategy’ label, surely the modern experience of conflict has evolved strategy into something beyond Hugh’s restrictive definition (which I would call military strategy). Most people now instinctively conceive of strategy as implying a more general means-ends relationship.  Clausewitz once wrote that in some cases:

the political object will not provide a suitable military objective.  In that event, another military objective must be adopted that will serve the political purpose and symbolise it in the peace negotiations.

But in modern conflict the use of organised violence may not achieve certain political ends.  The political object might not be the surrender or battlefield defeat of an opposing nation; contemporary goals are more ambitious and require something beyond organised violence.  Liddell Hart wrote that the role of grand strategy is “to coordinate and direct all the resources of a nation, or a band of nations, towards the attainment of the political object of the war”. For the purposes of our debate, this serves as a useful, contemporary definition of strategy.

To slightly twist Rodger’s orchestra analogy, as political goals have become more ambitious the “orchestra” of means available to any given nation has also grown, requiring the team of composers (strategists) to exercise an interdisciplinary approach.  Military musicians once dominated the orchestra’s membership, but now there is a different range of measures that can augment, enhance or replace organised violence.  Progress towards political objects might now involve the application of diplomatic pressure to other nations, the use of aid to equip rebel groups or build infrastructure, the manipulation of economic markets or the conduct of cyber-attacks to cripple an adversary’s systems.  To touch briefly on another aspect of the debate, when civilian musicians were accepted into the orchestra, perhaps ‘civilian strategists’ were required to bridge the gap between their means and the political object ends.

To extend the analogy slightly, when governments set their requirements and request that a musical piece be written, they expect their strategists to compose a strategy that considers all of the means available to a nation; no listener would be satisfied if they expected to hear an orchestral piece, but instead were subjected only to a drum solo of organised violence!  In the modern era, strategic goals are pursued with “whole-of-nation” strategies, requiring the orchestra to contain musicians with experience in diplomacy, aid, economics, cyber-security, intelligence and perhaps even private business.   As anyone who has played music in a band or orchestra will tell you, teamwork is key – all of the instruments must play their part in time, each instrument must be played well and in a way that complements or enhances the overall performance.

Putting these arguments aside, Rodger is unsure as to whether “Australia’s political, diplomatic or security circumstances demand, or allow us to produce these types of people” (i.e. strategists).  This is a very scary thought.  Australia will very likely face a myriad of strategic challenges over the next half-century: the rise of China, shifting regional dynamics and power, global financial instability, the list goes on.  To suggest that we cannot produce the people required to respond to these challenges is the equivalent of throwing in the towel at a national level.

Some of Australia’s strategic policy decisions in recent times have proved disappointing, while some have proven successful not due to skill, insight or forethought, but rather sheer dumb luck.  There are of course many challenges in generating a culture of strategic excellence, but surely these challenges do not excuse failure. For years we have been known as the lucky country and recent global events have surely reminded us of this fact, but will the adage of ‘better lucky than good’ continue to hold true for Australia?  If Rodger is correct – if we are unable to identify, train and position Australian strategists to confront these challenges – then we had better hope our luck holds out indefinitely.

Image courtesy of the United States Military Academy Band.

In defence of civilian strategists

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@ClosetIdealist is a security and risk advisor in the private sector, having previously served in the Australian Public Service and the ADF. 

I read Rodger Shanahan’s recent post with much interest and a little despair.  My background also crosses several disciplines, including a brief stint in the Australian Army.  A key principle in Rodger’s argument – that junior leaders in the ADF are expected ‘to take into account the strategic environment’ – doesn’t exactly accord with my experience in uniform.  Sure, training activities noted that in some circumstances things had to be done differently due to the ‘CNN test’ – the possibility that someone was filming you – but that was about it.  So let’s not pretend that section and platoon commanders are patrolling Oruzgan with a copy of Clausewitz in their day-pack or Evelyn Goh’s ‘omni-enmeshment’ theory at the front of their minds.  The better ones might be thinking about the practical application of COIN doctrine, but I’m not sure that this compares to strategy at the highest levels.

I’m also a ‘putative strategist’: I studied at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University and served in the Australian Public Service before moving to the private sector.  Interestingly, many of Rodger’s ‘putative strategists’ – often post-graduate qualified public servants or intelligence analysts – have keenly sought to serve Australia’s national interests in Afghanistan.  Many saw room for an expanded AusAid presence, one focussed not on Canberra’s goal of ‘spending the budget’ but on achieving results through integration with ADF operations.  When it became clear that an increased Australian presence was not politically feasible, some sought to work for the Americans in other areas of Afghanistan.  In my experience, these ‘putative strategists’ do not consider themselves as superior to those in uniform.  Many have expressed a willingness to serve their country in dangerous roles overseas, some have done so and still others have found their dreams frustrated by weak decision-making in Canberra.

I don’t think the ‘lack of mutual understanding’ is helped by the fact that some in the ADF feel that only those in uniform have the moral right and professional expertise to comment on Defence policy.  It’s forever humbling to remember that while I served in uniform I was a willing participant of this culture, where civilian commentators and strategists were routinely dismissed as ‘<expletive> civvies’.  It is certainly true that those in uniform have a unique and indispensible perspective, one rarely attained by non-combatants.  And I think the broader thrust of Rodger’s argument – that ‘civilian strategists’ should endeavour to understand the pressures and challenges faced by those who carry out the operations that achieve strategic priorities – is valid and worthwhile.

But the ADF has also reached a point where some painful, honest introspection might be beneficial.  Put simply: ADF members should remember that they, ultimately, do not define the Australian Government’s strategic goals.  Civilian decision-makers, hopefully in conjunction with senior ADF officers, will set strategic goals, identify risks and will indirectly determine, through this strategic planning process, what operations the ADF will conduct.  But those decision-makers probably won’t ever have crawled out of their sleeping bag – wet, cold and hungry – to do the graveyard shift of picket duty.  Nor will have they experienced the ‘two-way rifle range’.  So, it is the job of the senior military officers in any strategic planning process to ensure that the ‘ground-truths’ are not overlooked; that the operational objectives derived from strategic intent are realistic and achievable.

Importantly, it must be remembered that strategic intent drives the operational goals.  Rodger has commented that a well-regarded (civilian) scholar was ‘caught up in the emotion of the moment’ when writing a blog post, because the author showed ‘a complete lack of understanding of what motivates soldiers’. I think Rodger’s argument overlooks the fact that soldiers are employed to conduct operations, which in turn are meant to progress towards – and eventually achieve – strategic goals.  That some who argue for a withdrawal from Afghanistan choose to omit from their argument ‘the impact of such a suggestion on the tactical environment outside the wire’ does not automatically suggest a callous disregard for ADF members in Afghanistan, rather it implies that the strategic priorities of the Australian Government are more important that the feelings of those in uniform, a counterpoint noted (by a civilian) here.  This has always been the case and to suggest a reordering of priorities would be the equivalent of putting the operational cart before the strategic horse.

I chuckled when I read that Rodger is unsure as to what a ‘civilian strategist’ looks like.  Aside from some notable American exceptions, I am at a loss to identify what a modern-day ‘military strategist’ looks like!  Where is strategy taught to ADF officers?  At the Australian Command and Staff College?  Based on a recent round of job advertisements, it seems that someone in the ADF must hold the ANU’s ‘civilian strategists’ in high regard!  I fully agree with Rodger’s point that “’strategist’ is not a qualification – it is an appellation one can give oneself”, but we mustn’t forget that this sword cuts both ways, applying equally to both those in suits and those in uniform.  For effective strategic policy, Australia needs strategists in uniform, strategists wearing suits at Russell Offices, and strategists elected to Parliament.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia. The view from the Department of Defence, Russell Offices to Parliament House in Canberra.

There is no justification for risking Australian lives in Afghanistan: a review

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On a chilly Thursday night, we descended upon Melbourne Town Hall to listen to our friend and colleague, Raoul Heinrichs, partake in the Wheeler Centre debate on Afghanistan. We came to hear whether the war effort would be savaged, whether Australian lives would be needlessly lost, whether there was hope for the Afghan people, or whether we, as a country, were wasting our time. We came to hear a lawyer, a scholar, a prominent feminist, a retired general, a young Afghan woman, and a philosopher. We came to hear their perspectives and experiences. We came to observe the public’s reactions; to hear how everyday people received and digested narratives of Afghanistan. I wanted to see whether people still remembered we were in war.

The topic of Thursday’s debate, “There is no justification for risking Australian lives in Afghanistan”, was always going to be hard to stick to. There was a sense of mission creep; a tendency for speakers to appeal to the broader merits of foreign intervention in Afghanistan, rather than centring on the specific risk to Australians (civilian and military) serving there. The affirmative team took the view that the intractability of the conflict dictated that no further Australian lives were worth risking. While each speaker had their own spin on this theme, they all concentrated on what they saw as the dire security situation on the ground, the lack of proper resourcing, and the lack of strategic interests beyond the ANZUS treaty (which, in Heinrichs’ view, we have already satisfied).

Central to the affirmative’s case was that the war in Afghanistan has been a debacle from the start. It lacked strategic direction and caused more problems than it sought to solve. Sadly, overlapping and slightly wayward directions by the first and third speakers undermined the overall coherence of their message, but in their moments, each speaker shone. In particular, lawyer Kellie Tranter impressed upon the audience that, in an environment of information shortages from the Department of Defence and Australian Government, it is difficult to appraise whether this war is worth our while. Strategist and scholar, Heinrichs, for his part, concentrated on the specific strategic interests to Australia in evaluating whether more lives lost in Afghanistan was worth the gain. Lastly, feminist Eva Cox’s gem was highlighting the disjuncture between our purported concern for the Afghan people and our treatment of Afghan asylum seekers with the recent Malaysia solution. While this was slightly off the mark, it nonetheless reflected the human complexities of the issue that the audience, no doubt, would react to.

On the negative side, MAJGEN (rtd) Jim Molan’s strong and authoritative introduction outlined the parameters of their case. The negative side would prove that there are sufficient strategic and moral imperatives for Australia to pursue in Afghanistan, and this was worth Australian lives. And indeed they did. Molan provided a frank assessment of the reasons why the strategic imperatives of regional stability and alliance management buttressed our cause there, but introduced more moral elements of the case. This latter theme dovetailed well with the impassioned and personal speech by Sonia Zaiee who reflected on her war-tainted childhood in Afghanistan. She contrasted these anguishing images with the hope of education and promise of reconstruction now possible from Australian presence, it seemed. Philosopher Peter Singer further ran with moral arguments for intervention, citing the plight of Afghan women, taking pains to stress that a vote for the motion signalled a ‘no’ for Australian aid workers in Afghanistan. While the negative team started on a strong note, the generalist approaches of the second and third speakers allowed the topic to stray away from the central element of the topic, namely “Why Australia?”

Overall, the debate represented the myriad views of the Australian public. And yet people have these divergent views about the conflict because of the piecemeal information and public narrative on offer. These opinions, coupled with questions from the audience, also highlighted, importantly, the lack of certainty with which we can say Australia’s presence there is a good or bad thing. There are indeed good things in Afghanistan for which Australian soldiers fight but there are inordinate and acute risks for what is a seemingly unclear overarching strategic interest.

And all while the debate continued, my live tweets of the event were punctuated with reports of an attack on Uruzgan province, the slice of Afghanistan for which Australia fights. The revelation of this attack, with its perfect timing, could have brought down the case of either side: for the affirmative, in support of a deteriorating security situation, and for the negative, in support of the need to maintain presence. For me, each side’s unwitting ignorance of the exact and immediate situation on the ground, with all its complexities, reflected the incomplete way in which we, the Australian public, seek to understand this conflict. And all the while, our theorising and arguing parallels another reality on the ground. Such is the nature of how this conflict plays out in the Australian psyche. Either way, the audience decided that the negative case had been the more compelling, and that there was justification for risking Australian lives in Afghanistan.