The Quad is hobbled in its current configuration as a diplomatic partnership that deliberately eschews defence cooperation as part of its agenda. It’s time to test the waters with a meeting of Quad defence ministers.
While the navies of the four Quad members—Australia, India, Japan and the United States—hold regular joint training in a quadrilateral format through the annual Exercise Malabar, officially these drills are separate to the Quad. That is despite the fact that Malabar is described by participating countries much as they describe the Quad, as part of a ‘shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific’.
It is increasingly awkward, if not absurd, to insist, as Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does, that the Quad ‘is a diplomatic, not security, partnership’ but at the same time focuses on maritime security, cyber security and health security.
Some analysts maintain that the Quad’s quiescence stems from India’s ‘differing world view’ and limited strategic appetite. This assumption should be tested. The headquarters of India’s defence staff said on 9 October that the latest Exercise Malabar was an example of ‘interoperability between navies of Quad nations’. So much for Indian reticence about describing Malabar as a Quad activity.
Japan’s political willingness to explore defence cooperation through the Quad is also worth re-examining in light of former defence minister Ishiba Shigeru’s rise to the prime ministership and his reported interest in strengthening Asia’s multilateral defence structures. While an Asian NATO might be out of sight, a Quad that does defence is perfectly realisable.
The other argument commonly heard for keeping defence out of the Quad is that Southeast Asian countries are presumed to be neuralgically opposed to any expansion of its activities into the military realm. This may apply to the more cautiously non-aligned members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but certainly not all of them. Again, this is an assumption that deserves to be tested. And deference to ASEAN’s widely assumed skittishness about the Quad is not a sufficiently weighty reason to prevent the members from legitimately discussing defence issues with each other. This is especially so at a time when the deteriorating strategic situation in the Indo-Pacific demands closer collaboration among likeminded countries with meaningful defence capabilities.
Diplomats from the Quad countries reflexively defer to the centrality of ASEAN. But a strategic vacuum at the core of this vaunted centrality was laid bare by failure at ASEAN’s summit this month to make meaningful progress on South China Sea disputes and by the inability of the associated East Asia Summit to yield even a leaders’ statement. If Quad countries wish to maintain regional stability, they will need to do more of the hard-power lifting themselves.
One suggestion for testing the waters for defence cooperation within the Quad is for the defence ministers to meet on the sidelines of a regional security summit. The ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus), to be held in Laos in late November 2024, presents a timely opportunity. The ADMM-Plus agenda should be conducive, since it is restricted to non-warlike activities, such as maritime security and military medicine. It can provide an uncontroversial foundation that Quad defence cooperation could build on while staying within the diplomatic edifice of providing public goods for the Indo-Pacific region.
The fact that the ADMM-Plus is an ASEAN-hosted gathering presents some diplomatic sensitivity: ASEAN would not want to set such a precedent for other impromptu sideline meetings. But this sensitivity can be mitigated by hosting the meeting discreetly within one of the Quad embassies.
The 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue also presents a follow-up meeting opportunity. Since it is not institutionally tied to ASEAN, Quad defence ministers have less reason to be discreet and should publicise any meeting they hold on that occasion.
Eventually, the Quad should aim for a formal defence ministers meeting, not just to restore a much-needed component to discussions about regional trends but to generate a concrete policy agenda beyond holding quadrilateral military exercises.
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The shire of Burdekin is the capital of north Queensland’s sugar industry and also the centre of a revolution Australian cane growers call the bioproducts race. They’re looking to convert waste (called bagasse) that’s left after the milling of sugar cane into bio-based goods. They call it a race because this is a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to reap the economic rewards of replacing petrochemicals with bio-based alternatives.
To take advantage of this opportunity, one conglomerate of growers in Burdekin is seeking to build a refinery that turns bagasse into chemicals such as monoethylene and monopropylene glycols, for plastics and fibres as well as sustainable aviation fuel.
Meanwhile, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, packaging firm Yasha Pakka converts bagasse into compostable tableware in a bid to replace single-use plastic. Though yet to turn a profit, Yash Pakka is running the same race as Australian sugar mills, turning sugarcane waste into bio-based alternatives to petrochemical products.
While the crop is similar in Australia and India, the conditions for production couldn’t be more different. Australia is one of the few countries with high wages that’s a major producer of sugar. Its operation is lean, all the way down the chain from cultivation to harvesting, transportation, milling, and export. According to the Australian Sugar Milling Council, 4500 people work in the industry to produce 4.4 million tonnes of raw sugar annually, most for export.
By contrast, India’s industry is built on cheap labour: 500,000 people work in sugar mills to produce 36 million tons of sugar, mostly for domestic consumption. The government subsidises cane and sugar production and protects its domestic industry through tariffs and import restrictions.
In one sense, India and Australia are competitors. They are both major sugar producers seeking to lead in the bioproducts race.
But the two countries export to different markets, due to the protectionism of the Indian industry. And the different capabilities between the two industries mean they are looking to lead in different types of bioproduct. There is also so much potential for alternatives to petrochemical and plastic goods that the market is a long way short of saturation, and the competition is diffused by numerous others countries also looking to make their mark.
So it makes sense for India and Australia to cooperate. Producing bio-based goods from sugarcane in an economically viable manner, competing against cheap petrochemical products, remains a daunting challenge for both countries. They can both get ahead in the race by working together immediately on the following three areas:
—Efficiencies in milling and farming. Australia is the best in the world in this area, and has expertise to share that would benefit the highly protected Indian industry.
—Sugarcane crop research. As bagasse becomes more valuable, certain crop traits may be identified as particularly desirable, and both countries would benefit from such discoveries.
—Adapting equipment for bagasse-to-bioproduct conversion. Off-the-shelf technologies currently used in the processes need to be adapted. For example, sugarcane selected for bioproduct conversion tends to keep its top and base, so the equipment needs to be adapted to suit the larger size. India and Australia can collaborate on research and development.
In addition, an India-Australia bioproducts fund should be established. It could be attached to the existing Australia-India Strategic Research Fund to minimise setup costs. The new funding should be delivered quickly to businesses, universities and other institutions such as genebanks and CSIRO.
Longer term, Australia and India should start a collaboration on agricultural technology, a surprisingly underexplored area. It’s a field in which both countries are strong. India still prioritises the United States for tech collaboration. Between 2011 and 2020, 31.2 percent of India’s internationally collaborated publications were with the United States, and only 7.6 percent with Australia. In agricultural research, the United States was top with 25.6 percent and Australia second with 9.6 percent. A boosted collaboration on agritech could include a formal Australian agritech week at one of India’s big tech summits.
With a collaboration like this, agricultural areas in both countries, like Burdekin and Uttar Pradesh, can transform into key producers of bio-based goods. It would give the India-Australia relationship—and the bioproducts industry—a real sugar hit.
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Australia, France and India ought to be cooperating more closely in the surveillance of the Indian Ocean through their valuably located islands, enhancing the awareness of each of country without additional cost.
They should first share information that they’re already collecting, then move as soon as possible to coordinate their patrols, mostly by aircraft. Finally, they should share access to runways on their territories that together provide excellent access to the Indian Ocean.
The activities that they will most want to watch would include the entry into the ocean by Chinese surveillance vessels masquerading as research vessels, and they’d keep an eye on pirates, maritime terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal and unregulated fishing.
Ensuring maritime safety and security is already a part of the trilateral agreement signed by the three democracies in 2020, but progress in putting that pact into effect has been very slow.
Combining and compressing vital information to build a common coherent maritime picture is already taking place at the Information Fusion Centre—Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR). That role is played by liaison officers stationed in Gurugram, India, but more can be done in that regard.
The next step must be coordinated patrolling and surveillance of the region through the three nations’ extended territories located in the north, east and west of the Indian Ocean.
France has Reunion and Mayotte in the west, Australia has the Cocos (Keeling) Islands towards the east, and India has Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar islands on the western and eastern sides of its mainland. Between them, they overlook the entire Indian Ocean.
The islands’ significance is boosted by their strategic location astride key choke-points: Reunion is near the Suez Canal, the Cocos Islands are adjacent to Australia’s major trade routes, and the Andaman and Nicobar islands are near the Malacca Strait.
Ultimately, the three countries can maximise the use of the islands by allowing each other to routinely use the runways on them. Then the surveillance of any one part of the ocean wouldn’t be limited by the immediate availability of aircraft for any one of the countries.
Being clear-sighted and observant over the trade routes is immensely significant, as normalising the entry of surveillance vessels as research vessels has appeared as a new Chinese ploy in the Indian Ocean. Those vessels, some mapping the seabed probably for economic resources such as polymetallic nodules, have pointed to China’s long-term intentions in the Indian Ocean.
Data on the depth and surface of the ocean floor, oxygen levels and chlorophyll levels is useful not only for placing China’s submarines but can be used to track those of others. Further, it seems that the entry and exit of Chinese vessels has a set purpose and schedule. For example, in March 2024, the Chinese ship Xiang Yang Hong 01 entered the Bay of Bengal just before India conducted tests of its Agni V ballistic missile from its east coast. Repeated instances of intentional Chinese presence in the area where India has conducted missile tests have provoke immense concern and caution.
It must be admitted, however, that Western nations, especially the United States, take a close interest in Chinese missile tests.
India and France have been conducting joint surveillance missions from Reunion in the southwest. Work is underway to enlarge the airstrip in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to accommodate large surveillance aircraft, such as P-8 Poseidons, which India and Australia both use. Last month, a P-8A of the Royal Australian Air Force made an inaugural visit to Reunion, demonstrating not only the crew’s proficiency but also showing emerging cooperation between Australian and French forces. Thus, the dyads of India–France, India–Australia and Australia–France are already engaged in joint surveillance and reconnaissance in the Indian Ocean. Those arrangements must now be operationalised as a triad using the Indian Ocean island territories of the three countries.
As all three democracies seek to revisit, reimagine and recalibrate their collective vision of a free and open Indian Ocean, their collaborative partnership in surveillance and reconnaissance will form the bedrock for a strong and stable security apparatus. A joint exercise of this kind will multiply the synergy and interoperability between their forces.
Lastly, engaging in such a collaborative and cohesive exercise will demonstrate the commitment of each of the three players to building and maintaining the security architecture of the Indian Ocean.
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The mobile telecommunications industry has high entry barriers and is dominated by a few big companies—Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE, and Samsung. The RAN provides the last-mile connectivity for mobile networks and includes a network of cell towers (or base stations) and other equipment that transmit and receive radio signals to provide wireless coverage. When you make a call, send a text, or use mobile data, your mobile device communicates with the RAN to establish a connection and transmit data. This part of the network is estimated to account for at least 60% of the capital and operating expenses for the mobile network operators.
Open RAN is not a new technology but defines standardised interfaces that make components from different vendors work together. It makes it possible to have a plug-and-play installation of different components from multiple vendors. This allows smaller vendors to enter the market by building interoperable and modular components. It began as an initiative by network operators and aims to reduce entry barriers, promote competition, reduce costs and avoid vendor lock-in by disaggregating the RAN ecosystem. With bans on Chinese vendors by many states, the vendor pool has become even more concentrated, and amid concerns about supply chain resilience in something as critical as mobile communication networks, open RAN has become a means to nurture alternatives to the dominant vendors.
The major challenge with open RAN is the increased complexity and cost of multi-vendor deployments. Such infrastructure has traditionally been deployed from a single vendor offering an end-to-end solution. Opting for a single-vendor solution, even if it is open RAN compliant, undermines the core purpose of open RAN which is to promote vendor diversity. Operators traditionally have not been responsible for integrating components from multiple vendors, making this an exceptionally demanding endeavour. Additionally, security risks are also associated with integrating components from multiple vendors due to the increased threat surface of additional interfaces and the absence of a single entity responsible for securing the network. Markets left to themselves might not adequately solve the issue due to the market concentration in the supply chain and the significant initial hurdles in deploying open RAN. The Quad countries should address these challenges.
Open RAN deployments are more costly in the near term than conventional systems. The traditional RAN deployments are single-vendor end-to-end offerings, allowing vendors to cut down on marketing and distribution expenses, minimise inventory requirements, and enhance the overall value of orders. To overcome the cost deterrent, the Quad could help incentivise open RAN solutions for operators. The incentives should also promote multi-vendor open RAN deployments over single-vendor solutions. In June last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden reaffirmed technology’s defining role in deepening the strategic partnership between India and the US and lauded ongoing efforts through the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). This includes a 5G open RAN pilot with a leading Indian telecom operator using equipment from a US open RAN manufacturer.
More such deployments across other geographies backed by the Quad can demonstrate scalability and can build confidence and economies of scale to encourage wider adoption. Such initiatives also help telecommunications regulators build capacity to deal with the additional complexity of evaluating and authorising open RAN solutions and operators to cultivate the skills to operate and maintain such systems.
The Quad should also fund and support initiatives to screen open RAN components for malicious hardware or software and certify them as safe. The Telecom Infrastructure Project is one such initiative. It is a global engineering-focused collaboration between companies that evaluates, validates, and certifies open RAN components from different vendors. Such initiatives offer a means of addressing the security concerns of open RAN deployments. They also offer a pathway to take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of equipment provided by Chinese vendors while mitigating the potential national security risks. Selectively sourcing certified non-intelligent components from Chinese vendors would not pose a significant national security danger and would significantly reduce operators’ infrastructure costs.
Prevailing market trends suggest that Open RAN is here for the long term despite the slow uptake. Collaborative measures to build stakeholder capabilities, address security concerns and showcase real-world scalability can boost open RAN adoption and address the concerns around supply chain resilience in communication systems.
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The mobile telecommunications industry has high entry barriers and is dominated by a few big companies—Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE, and Samsung. The RAN provides the last-mile connectivity for mobile networks and includes a network of cell towers (or base stations) and other equipment that transmit and receive radio signals to provide wireless coverage. When you make a call, send a text, or use mobile data, your mobile device communicates with the RAN to establish a connection and transmit data. This part of the network is estimated to account for at least 60% of the capital and operating expenses for the mobile network operators.
Open RAN is not a new technology but defines standardised interfaces that make components from different vendors work together. It makes it possible to have a plug-and-play installation of different components from multiple vendors. This allows smaller vendors to enter the market by building interoperable and modular components. It began as an initiative by network operators and aims to reduce entry barriers, promote competition, reduce costs and avoid vendor lock-in by disaggregating the RAN ecosystem. With bans on Chinese vendors by many states, the vendor pool has become even more concentrated, and amid concerns about supply chain resilience in something as critical as mobile communication networks, open RAN has become a means to nurture alternatives to the dominant vendors.
The major challenge with open RAN is the increased complexity and cost of multi-vendor deployments. Such infrastructure has traditionally been deployed from a single vendor offering an end-to-end solution. Opting for a single-vendor solution, even if it is open RAN compliant, undermines the core purpose of open RAN which is to promote vendor diversity. Operators traditionally have not been responsible for integrating components from multiple vendors, making this an exceptionally demanding endeavour. Additionally, security risks are also associated with integrating components from multiple vendors due to the increased threat surface of additional interfaces and the absence of a single entity responsible for securing the network. Markets left to themselves might not adequately solve the issue due to the market concentration in the supply chain and the significant initial hurdles in deploying open RAN. The Quad countries should address these challenges.
Open RAN deployments are more costly in the near term than conventional systems. The traditional RAN deployments are single-vendor end-to-end offerings, allowing vendors to cut down on marketing and distribution expenses, minimise inventory requirements, and enhance the overall value of orders. To overcome the cost deterrent, the Quad could help incentivise open RAN solutions for operators. The incentives should also promote multi-vendor open RAN deployments over single-vendor solutions. In June last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden reaffirmed technology’s defining role in deepening the strategic partnership between India and the US and lauded ongoing efforts through the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). This includes a 5G open RAN pilot with a leading Indian telecom operator using equipment from a US open RAN manufacturer.
More such deployments across other geographies backed by the Quad can demonstrate scalability and can build confidence and economies of scale to encourage wider adoption. Such initiatives also help telecommunications regulators build capacity to deal with the additional complexity of evaluating and authorising open RAN solutions and operators to cultivate the skills to operate and maintain such systems.
The Quad should also fund and support initiatives to screen open RAN components for malicious hardware or software and certify them as safe. The Telecom Infrastructure Project is one such initiative. It is a global engineering-focused collaboration between companies that evaluates, validates, and certifies open RAN components from different vendors. Such initiatives offer a means of addressing the security concerns of open RAN deployments. They also offer a pathway to take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of equipment provided by Chinese vendors while mitigating the potential national security risks. Selectively sourcing certified non-intelligent components from Chinese vendors would not pose a significant national security danger and would significantly reduce operators’ infrastructure costs.
Prevailing market trends suggest that Open RAN is here for the long term despite the slow uptake. Collaborative measures to build stakeholder capabilities, address security concerns and showcase real-world scalability can boost open RAN adoption and address the concerns around supply chain resilience in communication systems.
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In the digital age, where technology governs nearly every aspect of our lives, a significant challenge looms over Australia—the shortage of critical and cyber technology skills. It poses a significant threat to the economy and has far-reaching implications for both national security and Indo-Pacific stability. The statistics are concerning. In its 2023 report, Towards a National Jobs and Skills Roadmap, Jobs and Skills Australia reveals that nearly 70% of ICT professional occupations in Australia face a shortage. There’s a national shortage in more than a third of all assessed occupations, with tech skills and jobs experiencing particularly acute deficits. The broader reality is that skill shortages in Australia are across the board and something as a nation we have not had to grapple with since the 1960s.
To understand the gravity of the situation, consider the growing demands of Australia’s professional, scientific, and technical services sectors. These fields are projected to grow by 116,900 people by 2028, and by 233,600 by 2033. Yet, alarmingly, only about 7,000 students are graduating each year in Australia with IT degrees. The most significant shortage is centered on software knowledge, a critical competency in the era of digitisation and automation.
An Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) survey reveals that skill shortages remain the single biggest inhibitor to business growth in Australia. One-half of Australian organisations are outsourcing IT roles offshore due to a lack of local skills, with AI and cybersecurity as the most outsourced skills. This report paints a concerning picture that our education system is underperforming in producing enough graduates with IT skills.
Australia’s national security is also challenged by tech skill shortages. Both government and industry need to recruit thousands of cyber security professional to meet workforce demand. The world has seen the devastating impact of cyber warfare. The Australia India Institute held a defence tech dialogue last year, providing experts a platform to discuss how both countries could significantly benefit from working together through defence technology sharing and supply.
Australia needs tech skills migration because with artificial intelligence and cybersecurity core components of our digital economy and security, Australian organisations are striving to remain competitive whilst the need for skilled professionals has never been greater. The Government’s commitment to the Tech Council of Australia’s target of reaching 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030 is a strong signal that as a nation we must meet this demand. However, achieving this goal necessitates not only the growth of the local talent pool but also access to international sources of skills.
Nearly half of India’s population is under 25 and it has the same number of 17-year-olds as Australia’s entire population. Its burgeoning young pool of tech talent scattered from Bengaluru’s ‘Electronic City’ to Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderbad and Delhi can play a crucial role in addressing Australia’s skills deficit. GitHub estimates that there are 11.4 million software developers in India, and this number is growing steadily. India’s drive to educate and skill up its youth and its recent changes to regulations for international institutions to set up campuses and work with partners gives Australian institutions a mutually beneficial opportunity to address its skills gap.
The AICCTP, with a $12.7 million budget, recognises the global importance of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), next generation telecommunications (5G/6G), quantum computing, synthetic biology, blockchain and big data and Internet of Things (IoT). MATES can serve as a powerful catalyst for the exchange of expertise between the two nations, fostering the mobility of skilled professionals, particularly in crucial areas of renewable energy, mining, engineering, and cutting-edge technologies like FinTech and AgriTech.
The recently signed Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), described as, ‘a watershed moment in bilateral relations’, by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also offers extended post-study work rights in STEM and ICT sectors, a significant advantage for Indian students wanting to study in Australia and the tech businesses in Australia who wish to employ them.
Despite these promising initiatives, successful execution is imperative. The skills shortage issue is a multifaceted one. International students, a potential source of talent, face difficulties securing employment. One in four migrants have reported working in jobs below their skill level. The urgency for a coordinated approach among international students, industry, education providers, and governments cannot be underestimated.
The Parkinson review of the migration system states that ‘Australia is not focused enough on capturing the best and brightest international students’. It says generous temporary work rights, unclear pathways to permanent residence, and variable support to succeed in our labour market lead to uncertainty amongst international students.
The growing tech skills gap in Australia will not be solved overnight and continues to pose significant challenges for businesses, government and our economic growth—and for national security. India’s growing highly skilled tech talent can not only help address Australia’s tech shortages, but through employment and mobility, can help both nations build a closer security pact to help create a safe and secure Indo-Pacific. As two trusted partners who together wish to help shape the peaceful and prosperous region we want to live in, the case for an Australia-India tech skills migration program grows stronger by the day. Existing agreements provide a strong foundation for collaboration, but innovative thinking that can deliver outcomes to meet this critical need in Australian tech sector jobs is urgent. The digital age we all live in demands it.
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In the public discussion on Australia’s defence relationship with India, Army-to-Army cooperation gets short shrift. That’s understandable, with maritime issues at the heart of both countries’ strategic interests. The Australian and Indian navies will naturally attract the spotlight.
But navies don’t operate in a vacuum. India’s army is by far its largest and most influential military service. It does more to shape New Delhi’s defence outlook—including in the maritime domain—than is often understood in Australia.
The Indian army is leading the charge on several issues Australia cares about. Not least of these is its position at the literal front of New Delhi’s responses to Beijing at India’s contested border with China. And importantly, the army’s size means it could wield serious regional influence, including in Southeast Asia.
Both countries could benefit from building on the Indian Army’s close defence engagement with Southeast Asia. By cooperating directly, or with separate, but complementary, regional initiatives.
The Indian Army’s size poses a dilemma for Canberra. Australia’s army can’t operate on the same scale. Even if its capacity doubled overnight, it’s not clear that its influence or interoperability with the Indian Army would grow accordingly.
Australia and India have responded to this thoughtfully. A decade ago, they were focused on building links at the most senior levels, and on placing officers in each other’s military educational institutions. When it came to exercises, they focused on building niche skills together, not practising large-scale manoeuvres.
Their cooperation has since grown in complexity. We shouldn’t be surprised if both sides’ interest in Southeast Asia and the Pacific leads them to deliver assistance or training packages together in those regions. Australia’s impending appointment of an army adviser at its high commission in New Delhi also signals more to come. But where to from here?
A guiding principle for Australia’s army engagement should be that ideas spread further than people and assets do. We have plenty of them to share. Our army’s modest size means it can generate, adopt and importantly, discard ideas quicker than larger organisations can.
Two examples illustrate this. The ADF is already pursuing the first: sharing lessons and mistakes from its decades-long journey toward a more ‘joint’ approach to military affairs.
The Indian army is evaluating how it can better integrate its capabilities with those of India’s navy and air force. The aim of a joint approach is to ensure that the military’s three services are stronger collectively than the sum of their parts.
To achieve this, India is establishing joint commands that will oversee the forces of two or more military services each. This represents more than a reshuffle. Done right, it will reflect an evolution of the republic’s intellectual approach to warfare.
The ADF has a hard-earned reputation for doing ‘joint’ well, though its members would be the first to attest they haven’t perfected it. Not every lesson the ADF has learned will apply well to India’s circumstance, but, having mistakes along the way, Australia should share its observations.
This year’s iteration of Exercise AUSTRAHIND—an Army-led activity—is the first that has substantially incorporated joint elements. The significance of this step for the defence relationship shouldn’t be understated.
The second area with potential for greater engagement is contemporary recruitment, inculcation, training and retention. An exchange of views on these topics may not create impressive headlines, but they’re crucial to military success.
New Delhi is using its new Agnipath military recruiting scheme to pursue multiple goals, one of which is to sharpen the army’s focus on potency over sheer size. The scheme allows the army to hire and fire personnel more flexibly than before in response to organisational demands.
That flexibility is one of the several reasons the Agnipath scheme has proved controversial. Most recruits under the scheme will only serve four years before leaving the military. As it’s comparable to many Australian soldiers’ own initial period of service, this might sound unremarkable to Australians, but the norm in India has been much longer, more like 10 to 14 years.
The prospect of having ‘short term’ soldiers rotate through the army concerns some insiders, who prize the ‘esprit-de-corps’ forged among soldiers as they progress through mature training pipelines alongside comrades from similar regions and cultural backgrounds.
For its part, the ADF is seeking to increase its own numbers by around 30% by 2040. The two armies have much to discuss in terms of how they train, inculcate and foster cohesion among recruits.
There are countless options for the Indian and Australian armies to explore. If Australia wants to position itself as a source of ideas, then now is the time. We can make a fantastic start by making more use of the recently concluded memorandum of understanding between the Australian Army Research Centre and India’s Centre for Land Warfare Studies, by exchanging papers and fellows each year in advance of formal Australia–India army-to-army staff talks.
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Our security depends more and more on space. Today’s militaries depend on space systems for operations on land or sea, in the air, or in many cases, in cyberspace. Space technologies are integral to our daily lives and to the functioning of global infrastructure making it imperative that the space domain is politically stable and accessible. The only way to ensure this is through strategic partnerships, and India and Australia have great potential to cooperate to advance their interests in several ways.
Space has become commercially competitive, with over two thirds of the approximately 8,500 operational satellites in orbit belonging to commercial entities. Most of those are US companies, making it hard for companies from other nations to compete.
The space domain is now a strategic domain politically and militarily contested. The most effective way to compromise an adversary’s eyes and ears is to target the space systems they depend upon. Threats to space systems come in various forms. The ability to interfere with any one of these technologies and the need to protect them leads to an escalatory trend in ‘counterspace technologies’. As more countries become active in space and seek to protect their assets, the space domain itself comes under threat.
The best way to respond to commercial and military contestation is to balance it with cooperation. Countries that cooperate in their space programs can leverage this to enhance their geopolitical influence. Australia and India have an underutilised potential as space partners, particularly when it comes to defence and security. As Australia and India become closer political, economic and security partners, there are many opportunities for cooperation on space technologies.
In addition, Australia’s International Space Investment (ISI) fund looks to bring Indian and Australian researchers and industry partners together with $20.69 million in funding over four years. While the Fund is primarily aimed at civil space partnerships, the dual use nature of most space applications means that there are immediate security benefits as well. Earth observation satellites, for example, contribute to disaster and climate response, water management, agricultural planning and decision-making in many sectors, and also have applications for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, maritime domain awareness and defence operations. High speed, secure satellite communications are critical for military operations and are integral to our national economies.
Our space capabilities can complement each other well. Australia has a strong heritage in space domain awareness (the ability to accurately track objects in orbit) and a workforce of defence space operators with experience in intelligence, communications and information warfare. Australia already has space data sharing agreements with the ‘Five Eyes Plus’ partners, which include France and Germany. Australia could offer its strengths to India as a reflection of our shared security interests in the region.
Laser communications are being developed in Australia through an optical ground station network to support Defence needs and NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon. Expanding this ground station network to India would provide secure, high-speed communications in the region, and strengthen the Defence partnership among our nations.
India has an outstanding launch capability and demonstrated its effectiveness with its recent Moon landing. This technological success expands India’s strategic influence. The Defence Space Research Agency has contributed to India’s rise as a space power, but both India and Australia need to better integrate their Defence and civil space agencies under national priorities. Australian Defence could be partnering with India on launch needs, and on developing robotics and AI needed for lunar activities, given the competition for lunar resources that will emerge in the next decade.
Greater space cooperation can also contribute to our shared regional interests and our ability to influence global security issues. There has, for example, been a deadlock on space arms control for decades. Australia and India could potentially play a role in bridging that gap.
In August, the UN Open Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats (OEWG) failed to produce a consensus report on norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviour because Russia and its supporting nations to failed to agree on it. While most states wanted to see concrete outcomes, some, like India, remain ambivalent. Australia could work with India towards an agreement. The OEWG has also led to 35 countries making binding unilateral commitments not to test direct ascent anti-satellite weapons. They included Australia and key space partners to both Australia and India, such as the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, but not India itself. A UN General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on such tests garnered further international support of 155 nations. Russia, China and their supporters voted against it. India chose a middle ground and abstained.
As a more multipolar global order evolves, middle and regional powers have ever greater influence in international affairs. If, for example, India were to support a moratorium, even without making a binding commitment not to undertake further tests, this would contribute enormously to greater space stability for the Indo-Pacific and the world.
While India’s civil and military space programmes are in many ways more advanced than Australia’s, neither nation can achieve their ambitions alone. By seeking to complement each other’s strengths in certain space technologies we can further our own interests and impact the policies, strategies and behaviours of other active space nations, and thus further influence regional stability.
This article was written as part of the Australia India Institute’s defence program undertaken with support from the Department of Defence.All views expressed in this article are those of the author only.
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Despite Australia’s hopes, the Indian military will not be participating in the Australian Defence Force’s multinational Exercise Talisman Sabre later this month. But that shouldn’t be taken as a reflection of the Australia–India defence relationship. This week several aircraft from India’s navy and air force made a groundbreaking visit to Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The visit represents an important step in the bilateral relationship as the two countries increasingly give each other access to their military facilities in the Indian Ocean.
Since 2022, Australian and Indian naval aircraft have been regularly hosted at each other’s facilities, making use of a mutual logistics support arrangement signed in 2020. This has included visits by Indian P-8I maritime patrol aircraft to Darwin and visits by Australian P-8A aircraft to Goa and (earlier this week) to Tamil Nadu in southern India. The use of each other’s facilities allows Australian and Indian aircraft to undertake coordinated operations right across the northern Indian Ocean, from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia.
This week’s visit by Indian Navy Dornier maritime patrol aircraft and a C-130 Hercules from the Indian Air Force effectively elevates the Cocos Islands as a staging point for Australian and Indian air surveillance of the maritime choke points through Southeast Asia and the entire eastern Indian Ocean.
For Australia, the visit should be seen as part of its efforts to develop a network of maritime security partnerships in the eastern Indian Ocean. For more than a decade, Australia has focused on strengthening its bilateral defence relationship with India, but its Indian Ocean focus is fast expanding to include other partners in the region, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives. This is an important step in building an Indian Ocean coalition that, while consistent with US interests, doesn’t necessarily rely on US capacity or capability.
The Indian Ocean is too big for any one country to monitor. To achieve an acceptable level of maritime domain awareness, Australia needs to build partnerships with key countries such as India and France, as well as others in the region. This will require a web of relationships among partners that can, in different ways, contribute maritime surveillance capabilities and necessary facilities.
Sri Lanka has long been seen as an important regional partner, although much of the focus over the past decade has been on combating people smuggling. Australia–Sri Lanka defence ties are in the process of being expanded with a broader focus on maritime security.
In 2019, as part of Indo-Pacific Endeavour, a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A patrol aircraft made a symbolically important visit to Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka, where a Chinese company controversially controls the nearby port. In May this year, Australia donated a Beechcraft KA350 twin-engine turboprop aircraft to the Sri Lankan Air Force to complement the 2014 gift of two Bay-class offshore patrol vessels to the Sri Lankan Navy. Further gifts should be expected. A broad-based security partnership with Sri Lanka will provide Australia with many new options in developing its presence in the Bay of Bengal.
Maldives is also a new regional security partner. In a major step, a RAAF P-8A patrol aircraft quietly visited Gan in southern Maldives in October 2022. Gan was a big British air and naval base until the mid-1970s and boasts an extended runway of 3,400 metres. Gan’s location in the central Indian Ocean, some 700 kilometres north of the joint US–UK base at Diego Garcia, makes it prime real estate—especially given the growing uncertainties about the future of that base.
As part of Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2023, RAAF aircraft will visit Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Those visits could potentially be expanded in 2024 to include Australian naval visits.
Regular visits by Australian ships and aircraft to India and other partners in the northeast Indian Ocean will be important in familiarising ADF personnel with those nations and their facilities, as well as further developing Australia’s maritime and surveillance presence in the eastern Indian Ocean.
Australia is also stepping up its assistance to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives in building their maritime domain awareness capabilities. It is very much in Australia’s interests to ensure that its neighbours have strong, sovereign capabilities to properly govern their maritime zones against a range of threats, such as illegal fishing, drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Both Australia and India remain focused on developing their defence partnership in new areas, including working with each other to build maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean. This task will require working with partners around the region to govern shared maritime spaces.
This article was written as part of the Australia India Institute’s defence program undertaken with the support of the Australian Department of Defence.All views expressed in this article are those of the authors only.
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Being Australia’s foreign minister and then defence minister over six years gave Stephen Smith an opportunity to see changes coming in the region, and to assess the risks and opportunities they’d bring.
Now high commissioner to the UK after co-authoring the 2023 defence strategic review, Smith was foreign minister from 2007 to 2010 and defence minister from 2010 to 2013.
In a video interview as part of ASPI’s ‘Lessons in leadership’ series, he tells former ASPI executive director Peter Jennings he’s proud of being the first minister to put into an official document the notion of the Indo-Pacific and reaching out to India, Indonesia and other countries to set the scene for it.
Smith attended six AUSMIN meetings, as foreign and defence minister. During his time at those high-level US-Australia consultations there were significant practical developments in the alliance that included, ultimately, the annual rotational presence of 2500 US marines in Darwin and the increased use of Australian bases by the US Air Force.
Smith says his strategic thinking evolved during his time as foreign minister and crystalised as defence minister. ‘We were living in a changing world, that the world was not just going to be about China and the US, and the extent to which that relationship was managed or not managed.’
Big geopolitical and geo-economic things were occurring with the rise of India and Indonesia as global influences. ‘In the blink of an eye, India would be the second or third largest economy, Indonesia, the fourth largest economy, so things were happening on our patch.’
Other ASEAN tigers, such as Vietnam, were on the move. ‘So, I came to the notion that we had to start looking at what we came to describe as the Indo-Pacific, and that culminated with the defence white paper in 2013, where for the first time, the notion of the Indo-Pacific was introduced into Australian strategic affairs.’ That continued with the Coalition’s 2017 foreign policy white paper and successive defence white papers.
‘At the time, we tried to argue, not just to the US, but to India, Japan, other countries, that this was a notion we should adopt.’ That was a struggle at the time, says Smith but now it seems everyone has taken on the concept—ASEAN, India, Japan the EU, France, Germany, and the UK.
‘We cracked that strategic notion which forced us to say, okay, when we look at our part of the world, it can’t just be the South Pacific. It also has to be what’s occurring in our northern and western approaches.’
The focus was on both prosperity and security.
The Australia-China relationship was very different a decade ago and the impression left by Xi Jinping when he came to Australia in 2014 was of China as a responsible stakeholder. ‘I think it’s all too easy to look back at those days with what we know now,’ Smith says.
The relationship changed dramatically as China became much more assertive and aggressive about the South China Sea and Hong Kong, and in its treatment of its Uyghur minority.
Australia’s biggest project now had to be diversification of its trade and economy and, on the security front, interweaving alliance relationships with nations such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
‘I brought the Vietnamese defence minister to Australia for the first time to try and grow our relationship with Vietnam,’ says Smith. Australia had a history with that country of 100 million people. ‘They perversely regard us well and they’re going to be an ASEAN tiger, so we need to grow both economically and strategically with them as well.’
The Americans were doing a global force posture review, so Smith asked Defence ‘where’s ours?’ The results fed into the 2013 white paper. The Australians had a very strong view that they had to keep the US engaged in this part of the world to ensure that the prosperity and security since World War II continued. The US was considering pivoting some if its resources from the Atlantic and Europe to support its hub-and-spoke alliance relationships in the Pacific.
Then followed long and detailed conversations to encourage the US to enhance its operational measures in this region to reflect the notion of the Indo-Pacific on the rise. Eventually, that resulted in the marines rotations in Darwin, greater US utilisation of RAAF ‘bare bases’ in the north and a plan for a US and UK nuclear-powered submarine presence in Western Australia’s HMAS Stirling naval base.
Smith and Dennis Richardson, who was Defence Department secretary after being secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, worked on this for a long time with Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta and Kurt Campbell. They had to persuade the Americans that this had to be done on Australian terms.
‘I had any number of conversations where I was saying, “we don’t have US bases in Australia, we have joint facilities, and if we’re going to do this, it’s got to be done on a rotational basis, which is fit for purpose”,’ says Smith.
‘That took a bit of effort with the Americans, but to his credit, when it was all over, Kurt Campbell came to me and said: “that went very well. You were right, we were wrong”.’
Smith recalls having to increase ADF capability with a reduced budget after the Global Financial Crisis when he was both the defence minister who oversaw the 2013 defence white paper and a member of Cabinet’s Expenditure Review Committee.
He was aware that Defence would be targeted for funding cuts and concluded that if he and Defence leaders were left alone to manage that situation they’d be able to protect the things that needed protecting.
‘The last thing I wanted was Treasury and Finance trampling all over Defence in a reducing budget environment.’ On the advice of Smith’s predecessor, John Faulkner, they ‘ring fenced’ operations in Afghanistan and prioritised the most urgently needed capabilities including doubling the RAAF’s fleet of massive C-17 transport aircraft and acquiring Super Hornets and Growler electronic attack aircraft.
The Navy got its air warfare destroyers and landing ships, which were ordered by the previous government, and replacement supply ships, and frigate upgrades continued. There was a dramatic improvement in sustainment of the Collins class submarines that saw an increase in availability from no boats or one boat to four of the six. That was world class for a submarine fleet.
Smith made three trips to Sweden to lock up the intellectual property for the Swedish-designed submarines with a view to ultimately replacing them with an evolved version, a ‘son or daughter of Collins’. ‘It was of some surprise to me that that option was effectively excluded from the subsequent government’s consideration of future submarines,’ he says.
He and Richardson set the scene for what is now the Australian Signals Directorate to be a statutory authority in its own right under the Defence portfolio. ‘I was very pleased with the way in which we made our commitment in Afghanistan, made our contribution, and then essentially got out with dignity.’ That allowed Australia to grow its relationship with NATO and the European Union.
Smith says being minister of foreign affairs and defence, and a member of the National Security Committee of Cabinet changed his life. ‘I didn’t envisage that when I entered parliament. I didn’t envisage it when I entered the ministry. But, as you can see from the backdrop, it’s something that I carry with me for the rest of my academic career and life generally.’
‘There are not many colleagues who you can go to. You can go to your predecessors, you can go to the foreign minister, but there’s not a wide circle of confidants you can have, as you can have in a domestic portfolio.’
Smith says the same is true in a sense of foreign affairs. ‘But foreign affairs is overall an easier portfolio in terms of the things that you have to deal with. Sure, you have the occasional consular crisis and people are in trouble overseas, but they’re in a sense intermittent. The overriding thing about Defence is it’s ever present, and it’s always different and difficult.’
He recalls Labor appointing former coalition defence minister Brendan Nelson ambassador to NATO. ‘That was very important,’ says Smith. ‘He was very good, his defence experience helped us a lot in terms of what we were doing in NATO.’
Smith says senior Defence officials understood the difficulties an incoming minister would confront. In the covering letter to him with the incoming government brief they said: ‘Minister, there will be surprises. minister, we will let you down. Minister, there will be times when it’s very difficult’.
There were terrible capability failures for whom no one ever seemed to be accountable. But it was not as though someone was trying to ‘stuff them up’. Everyone had the best of intentions. ‘It’s just the different silos, the different perspectives, and putting a big unwieldy beast into a manageable compartment. They tend to be the issues.’
Asked what advice he’d give a new defence minister, Smith says: ‘You should speak to all of your predecessors because they’ll all have a conversation with you, and you should just learn from them some of the challenges that you’re going to have—and there are some early lessons to be learned. ‘You’ve got to be assiduous. You have to be fastidious. It’ll take over your life for the period of time, but you also have to be clear sighted. Don’t let the volume of detail get in the way of the strategic outcome that’s required here? What are the things that we need to do?’
If a new minister arrives with five things written on the palm of their hand and gets three of them done, they’ve done well, says Smith.
‘Best advice I can give is that you’ve got to go into it with your eyes open. There is a comradery, which, if you’re a member of the former defence minister’s club, can be very helpful to future ministers.’
‘You need to understand, there’ll be surprises, you will be let down, but you’ve just got to work through those issues and get to the strategic outcomes that protect and defend our national interests.’
ASPI’s ‘Lessons in leadership’ series is produced with the support of Lockheed Martin Australia.
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