Policy precedence: The power of bipartisanship in developing defence policy (Part 1)

Since Federation, Australia’s strategic policy, doctrine and corresponding defence industry development policy has been shaped by two significant contributing factors.

The primary external factor responsible for shaping the nation’s response to the complex and broad range of strategic capabilities required is the constantly evolving nature of the geo-political and strategic environment of Indo-Pacific Asia as it continues to solidify itself as the centre of the global power paradigm.

As emerging superpowers like China and India continue to develop as the economic, political and strategic powers at the core of Indo-Pacific Asia. Australia has witnessed the development of the region’s periphery powers including Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, each with competing priorities and objectives, which is serving to challenge the established geo-political, economic and strategic security and prosperity of the region.

This is particularly the case as both of Australia’s major political parties struggle to both individually or collaboratively develop a cohesive doctrine, force structure and as a result, domestic industry capability in response to the rapidly evolving strategic and geo-political environment, which will determine the nation’s continuing economic, political and strategic security and prosperity. 

As a result, it is critical that Australia’s political decision makers recognise the strategic, political and economic realities of Indo-Pacific Asia and the corresponding complex traditional and asymmetric challenges to national security to develop a definitive and comprehensive doctrine, force structure and industry development policy objective.  

The US and its post-Second World War history of strategic policy cohesiveness and stability presents an invaluable model from which Australian policy makers can draw policy and doctrinal directives and industry development objectives.

America's post-Cold War evolution

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America emerged from the Second World War as the world’s pre-eminent economic, political and military power replacing the British Empire, responsible for maintaining the post-war peace, security and economic order in the face of emerging Soviet aggression.

As the Cold War progressed, the division between East and West became more defined and the very real possibility of both conventional and nuclear conflict across the globe became more apparent, US strategic and political decision makers began the process of enhancing America’s strategic and defence doctrine of a two 'major theatre war' (MTW) or two 'major regional conflict' (MRC), first established in the late 19th century.

This strategic doctrine was further enhanced and developed into the 1930s as successive US strategic and political decision makers saw the rise of Imperial Japan in north-west Asia, the relative decline of the British Empire after the First World War and the seemingly unstoppable march of Nazism in Europe as major threats to the economic, political and strategic interests of the US around the world.

Concurrent major engagements in both Europe and the Pacific highlighted both the need and capability of the US to decisively engage in two major theatre contingencies. Wartime General and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower would maintain and enhance the doctrine to include nuclear weapons as the US responded to direct and proxy Soviet aggression throughout Europe and Asia. 

US strategic policy academic and author Daniel Goure explained the evolution of America's doctrine in light of Soviet pressure, saying, "The fundamental strategic problem of the era was deterring central conflict between the two superpowers and their alliances, while still dealing with regional conflicts against Soviet forces or regional proxies...The United States formulated the two-and-a-half war sizing construct. One conflict would be in Europe, the decisive theatre in the East-West standoff. A second would be in the Far East and could involve China or North Korea. The ‘half war’ was a major counterinsurgency operation against a Soviet proxy."

As the US began to face increased competition with the Soviet Union, communist China, North Korea and Vietnam, the Democratic Kennedy and Johnson administrations sought to enhance this US doctrine. As the Cold War progressed and the global geo-political and strategic environment evolved, particularly because of the Sino-Soviet split in the 1970s, America’s Republican President Richard Nixon and his Democratic successors began to scale back the nation’s strategic policy to embrace a 'one-and-a-half war' force structure.

However, as the Soviet Union began to modernise and enhance its conventional and nuclear capabilities throughout the 1970s, America’s position as the pre-eminent Western military power was placed in jeopardy. In response, the Republican Reagan administration began to revive America’s defence industry and wider strategic capability.

"The Reagan administration found it advisable to resurrect something akin to the old two-simultaneous-war standard. The Reagan Doctrine envisioned countering aggression by the Soviet Union or its proxies anywhere in the world," Goure explained. 

As the Soviet Union collapsed and the US emerged as the sole global superpower, American political and strategic decision makers faced a world with no credible counter balance to US supremacy and forced a major rethink of American strategic capability doctrine and corresponding engagement with the international community in the post-Cold War world.

Turn of the century and the new millennium 

It became apparent following the first Gulf War that smaller, regional conflicts would come to dominate the 1990s and the US as the world leader would have to play an active role within these contingencies, separate from the traditional concept of East-West competition and potential conflict.

In response, the US Department of Defence established a force structure and sizing doctrine termed ‘Base Force’, which embraced the lessons learned following the scaling down of post-conflict operations since the Second World War and calibrated US force structure and capabilities to account contingencies in the style of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

This shift saw the two MRC force structure metric evolve throughout the course of the 1990s as the US maintained its position as the world’s pre-eminent military power, capable of projecting force and influence throughout the globe in response to any number of possible contingencies.

As part of this restructuring period, the terminology surrounding MRC was redefined to more adequately meet the expected operational requirements of the lower intensity, regional conflicts expected, while also accounting for any renewal in traditional state-based adversaries.

The Clinton administration’s ‘bottom-up-review’ of America’s strategic capabilities scaled back the nation’s abilities more in line with the capabilities of Nixon’s strategic reforms following the end of the Vietnam conflict, with the US taking advantage of the 'peace dividend' following the collapse of the Soviet Union and developing a ‘building block’ force

Clinton’s review actively endorsed the principle of maintaining a force capable of decisively winning two MRC/MTWs. The force structure described effectively established a force capable of only fighting and winning a single MRC/MTW. The Quadrennial Defence Review in 1997 sought to address these force reductions and highlighted the need for a sustained, stable two MRC/MTW capable force across the spectrum of expected operations against peer, near-peer and asymmetric threats in accordance with the strategic paradigm.

Finally, both the Bush and Obama administrations of the early 2000s and 2010s were faced with a number of factors impacting America’s strategic and defence capabilities, conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, mounting government debt and corresponding tightening defence budgets and finally the resurgence of Russia, the emerging peer-to-near-peer competitor in China and rogue nations including North Korea and Iran.

In the face of these challenges, America’s political and strategic decision makers needed to balance the nation’s capabilities against ongoing regional contingencies, with the emerging peer competitor threats. This resulted in the 2010 Quadrennial Defence Review, which argued for a force structure "that could be described as a two MRCs plus".

Despite administrations of both Democrat and Republican ilk, combined with the changing global strategic environment, having evolved over the past 60 years, America’s strategic policy and defence doctrine has remained relatively stable and been largely supported by the typically partisan political system as a result of the role the American defence industry plays in the political dynamics of the US. 

The influence of domestic policy makers and special interests on policy and industry

Successive reviews and force reductions by various administrations provided the American Defence Industrial Base the opportunity to capitalise upon large modernisation and capability development budgets for each of the various branches of America’s military, as the US sought to effectively balance the capabilities needed to maintain superiority over peer or near-peer competitors, while also being capable of engaging in smaller contingencies in a timely and cost-effective manner when defending the nation and its interests abroad. 

However, successive US administrations and strategic decision makers have recognised that there needs to be a clear understanding and financially viable, capable and standardised force structure as the nature of existing and possible opponents and their capabilities evolve in response to US capabilities. 

This is particularly the case as the US defence industry has been called upon to respond to both real and imagined threats from Russia, China and various rogue states that pose a threat to the US, its allies and interests around the world.

Mobilising America’s defence industry in response to both high end and low end capabilities, from new Soviet/Russian fighter aircraft in the MiG-25, MiG-23 and later the Su-27 and its variants, which resulted in the F-15 Eagle and later the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter and recent developments in the areas of area access denial systems in the DF-21 'Carrier Killer' ballistic missile, has resulted in renewed focus upon developing American ballistic missile defence systems across the Navy’s fleet of Aegis warships and resulted in the development of the troubled DDG-1000, Zumwalt Class stealth Guided Missile Destroyers.

In the face of these national and international developments, American political and strategic decision makers have recognised that "a 21st-century, two MRC/MTW standard will have some different characteristics than those in the past" and have correspondingly pushed for continued investment in a series of modernisation and key capability development programs supported by America’s broad defence industry base, despite repeated attempts at sequestration.

The history of the largely bipartisan-supported two MRC/MTW policy provides America’s strategic and political decision makers with a clear, concise understanding of the nation’s capabilities while also providing a degree of policy and doctrinal certainty.

This relative policy and doctrinal certainty provides increased direction and clear understanding of the operational and industry capability demands of America’s military, accordingly, America’s defence industry base, across the spectrum of the nation’s primary, secondary and tertiary suppliers, have a sustained project pipeline to maintain and enhance the skilled work force, promote industry innovation and long-term national economic outcomes. 

In the second part of this series, we will take a closer look at the evolution and nature of Canada's strategic policy and industry development programs, the impact of partisan and bipartisan politics and the lessons for Australia and its new role in Indo-Pacific Asia. 

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