Institute For Integrated Economic Research-Australia
Smart Sovereignty & Trusted Supply Chains - A National Sovereignty / Resilience Imperative.
We had the opportunity to present the attached brief to the Australian Joint Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on 22 April 2020. Key points included:
The Coronavirus pandemic has exposed a global lack of resilience as a result of a collective failure to assess and act on national risks and vulnerabilities in the face of a rapidly changing world.
Global trade and diverse supply chains are essential and will remain the predominant model into the future. However, we need to redesign critical components of our supply chains using the “Smart Sovereignty” model described in the brief.
The complement to Smart Sovereignty is “Trusted Supply Chains.” Where we depend on global trade imports, we must have diverse and transparent supply chains and have the ability to verify them.
The Gray Zone is Not Just an Away Game: We Are In Risk of “Losing Without Fighting”
Dr Robbin Laird’s interview of John Blackburn, Defense.info on 17 November 2019
Whilst many Defence writers proclaim the aim of “winning without fighting,” we are much more likely to end up “losing without fighting” if we do not get serious about our supply chain vulnerabilities and related issues.
The critical issue that Australians need to consider is what components of critical supply chains are owned or controlled by authoritarian powers. This clearly means that there is a need for a much broader security concept than simply preparing for high end kinetic warfare or engaging at distance from our nations in “gray zone areas.”
Trade and manufacturing vulnerabilities in our societies are reshaping the liberal democracies to be the “gray zones” when it comes to being vulnerable to deliberate disruptions in times of crisis.
We need to stop congratulating ourselves for acquiring the latest 5th Gen platform and understand that our security cannot be guaranteed merely by pledging to expend 2% of our GDP on Defence. We need a comprehensive National Security Strategy that acknowledges the world has changes.
Re-Thinking Australia’s National Security Strategy – Lessons from the 1930s for the 2030s
Published on Defense.info on 4 December 2019
During the 1920s the rise of Japan was preoccupying the national security discussions within the Australian Government. What role would Britain play in the Asia-Pacific region? Interestingly, these same issues and challenges are being discussed today in Australia: simply replace China for Japan, and the US for Britain.
By the 1930s the situation in Europe, and events unfolding in Asia (particularly Japan’s seizure of Manchuria), triggered a step-up in the rhetoric and policy considerations about Australia’s national security. The public debate involved not only the political leadership of the time, but intellectuals and businessmen.
A notable businessman of the era who contributed significantly to Australia’s capacity to prepare for the coming conflict was Essington Lewis, the managing director of BHP. He urged the government and industry to prepare for war and he also took action himself: establishing large stockpiles of raw materials, co-founding the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and establishing munitions annexes at the steelworks. How many business leaders today would have the foresight of Lewis and then take the lead in driving a national security agenda?
It is unfortunate that the whole-of-government approach so effectively employed during the Second World War, is not a feature of Australian government planning in 2019. How can the Australian government understand and manage the interconnected elements of national security (for example the economy, infrastructure, industry, maritime trade, energy, environment, defence) without a whole-of-government approach?
This whole-of-government approach should be integrated under a national security strategy.