Helping regional countries build their own maritime surveillance and constabulary capability would assist them with border and food security. As well, cooperative efforts between countries of the South Pacific would help build a shared maritime security framework where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This hasn’t previously been possible, but we’ve identified some steps that could start the process.

The principal intention of providing patrol boats in the Pacific islands is to ensure good law and order at sea. Building basic onshore civil policing qualifies as development assistance, and so should building civil policing at sea. Assistance in developing and protecting the economic potential of regional countries’ large EEZs would be a significant contribution to poverty alleviation in the region.

The first step is making sure that their hardware is up to the task. The Pacific Patrol Boat Program (PDF) has involved the transfer of 22 boats to the Pacific island countries between 1987 and 1995. The program is the largest component of the Defence Cooperation Program. But the patrol boats are near the end of their economic lives and, given Defence’s tight budgetary outlook, there’s a real risk that Defence will propose a least-cost solution that won’t be in the best interests of either Australia or the Pacific island countries.

We think that, as maritime security assistance for the Pacific island countries is an important part of nation-building, it should be seen as a whole-of-government activity by Australian agencies and funded within our international aid program. By our reading, patrol boats would count as aid as the relevant OECD guidelines state that whether spending qualifies as aid depends on the development intention underpinning assistance.

Under this mechanism AusAID could fund a Pacific air surveillance program and coastal patrol vessels. Defence might fund larger offshore patrol vessels to undertake regular patrols through the high seas and EEZs of the island countries and a regional maritime coordination centre.

And it’s not just about policing. Australia has a robust maritime scientific research community and is well placed to help developing countries to building their capacity in fields such as responding to climate change and managing coastal zones.

A dedicated focus in Australian aid across the spectrum of ocean management and development would support our aid priorities in fostering economic growth in neighbouring developing countries and help them to protect the marine environment.

Anthony Bergin is deputy director of ASPI.

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PME in Australia is in reasonably good shape, but there are further steps that could be taken. The Australian Defence College (ADC) is the key PME organisation which includes the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) for entrance level officer candidates, the Australian Command and Staff College (ACSC) for middle-ranking officers and the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies (CDSS) for senior officers. All three are tri-service and all three have important relationships with universities to provide input into their teaching.

ADFA has a long-established partnership with UNSW (since 1986) to provide bachelor degrees for officer candidates, while ACSC has just signed a 10-year contract with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU which includes masters degree offerings. CDSS has had a long relationship with Deakin University but is currently re-examining its academic input. The academic partners operate as service providers to the ADF.

While Australia has avoided the pitfalls created of putting independent civilian academics into a military hierarchy, more work could be done to close the civil-military gap. As well as bringing academics to the service personnel, as per Petraeus’ prescription, more ADF officers could be send to undertake research in a one- or two-year master’s degree at a civilian university. As well as their personal development, this will also equip some to teach at PME institutions themselves.

The demands of counterinsurgency and stability operations should also be reflected in officer training; PME could introduce the tools of the disciplines of behavioural science (psychology, sociology and anthropology) to provide officers with an understanding of how societies and cultures work—relevant both to operations in communities overseas and indeed to the ADF itself (whose own culture is undergoing close scrutiny at the present time). Other western military academies have long taught such disciplines. This could take the form of a compulsory one-semester behavioural science course as part of general education and a three-year program as an optional specialisation.

To help build a wider link between the ADF and the Australian community, it’s also important to promote military-related research at universities outside Canberra which at present enjoys a virtual monopoly in this field. Military-related behavioural science could be the focus of, say, three or four Defence-funded centres of excellence, perhaps located at universities near to major military bases.

The ADC also includes other ADF ‘centres of learning’ such as the Capability and Technology Management College and the Centre for Defence Leadership and Ethics. It’s a good model that could be extended. The single services have their own think tanks, so why not the ADF as a whole? In addition to existing centres of learning, we could establish a centre for the study of contemporary warfare at the ADC.

Rethinking the delivery of PME isn’t restricted to full-time commissioned officers; ADF Reserves are playing an increasingly important role in ADF operations and senior non-commissioned officers are also taking on greater responsibilities and need to be catered for. PME should be more available to these groups.

At the moment the defence debate in Australia is largely carried by organisations outside of the ADF (including ASPI). That means that an important voice is missing, and we’d all benefit from contestability from ‘inside the tent’. One way for this to happen is for the Australian Defence Force Journal to be developed into a flagship journal for the profession of arms in Australia. As such it could provide a forum for serious debate about defence and the ADF by members of the profession as well as outside experts and demonstrate to the public the thoughtfulness that characterises many ADF officers.

The machinery is in place to ensure that the key elements of PME can be co-ordinated and that economies of scale, a critical mass of teaching and research staff and more integrated delivery of courses can be achieved.

The planned co-location of all ADC centres on a single site in Canberra should further help this process. But good leadership and adequate funding will be required to realise these goals.

The ADF ultimately depends on the intellect, expertise, ethical character and leadership qualities of its people. PME assists especially in developing expertise in the complex business of using force as an instrument of policy and in ensuring that members of the ADF have the intellectual ‘right stuff’.

Hugh Smith is an associate professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW, and Anthony Bergin is deputy director of ASPI.

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In a surprisingly low-key way, Australia has been making an important contribution to strengthening regional cooperation on counterpiracy. Apart from the regular deployment of a Royal Australian Navy major fleet unit to operations in the Gulf which include counterpiracy work, Australia has provided significant funding to the United Nations to strengthen anti-piracy legal frameworks in a number of Indian Ocean region countries. One obvious next step would be for Australia to further champion the issue at the United Nations Security Council. A number of UNSC resolutions have dealt with piracy in disparate regions. But the Perth conference shows that there is a lot of value in identifying global lessons by pooling experiences from different regions and identifying common elements and developing shared solutions.

Australia is well-placed to lead in developing a global consensus around counterpiracy strategies and we should further commit to strengthening that global view. Our investment thus far gives us the credibility to lead in such an effort at the United Nations and elsewhere.

Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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