Does China Win If The Australian Defense Force Pivots From Disaster Response?

In a disappointing move, Australia’s long-anticipated defense review rejects disaster response as a priority defense mission. For a military entity that operates in a geologically active, natural-disaster prone region, a defense policy that downgrades the military’s role in large-scale disaster response is a big strategic misstep.

The report is very blunt. it raises concerns that climate change will likely spur domestic disasters, and then urges a wider civil preparedness effort, saying, “defence must be the force of last resort for domestic aid to the civil community”. It warns that the military is not set up to be a disaster response and recovery agency.

The review is right. Over the past several years, Australia has relied upon the military for disaster response services as massive wildfires, floods, and COVID overwhelmed Australia’s State and Territorial Governments. The military has done an amazing job—three years ago it was literally helping save Australians as wildfires drove residents into the sea. And while the military contributions to Australian domestic support may have been a tad excessive, there’s no ready way for the Australian military just to stop, and hand over the role to some other entity—either at home or abroad.

But that is exactly what the Review suggests. And it wants changes to get underway soon, declaring that “defence work on lower-priority projects and programs must be stopped, suspended immediately or progressively reduced as transition requires.” A sense of urgency is fine, but, given the disproportionate role the Australian Defense Force plays in both domestic and overseas disaster responses, all the various stakeholders in Australian national security policy need to do some serious thinking about disaster response gets Australia and what stopping that work will mean.

For better or worse, the Australian Defense Review mirrors current U.S. military thinking—with all the good and all the bad. Right now, in the U.S., the military seems overly focused on currying a simple lethality-obsessed “warrior ethos”. Intangibles like aid, support, and care—and the diplomatic and influencing dividends that may follow disaster response or other civil-military engagement efforts—have been de-emphasized.

And while that shift in focus may free the military from a tough and often confusing mission, in the end, it may not be a strategic winner for national security.

In Domestic Disaster Response, The ADF Will Be Tough To Replace:

As a domestic “first responder”, the Australian military will be difficult to replace. While the “Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC)” mission is no substitute for comprehensive local investment in disaster-response planning and relevant disaster-focused resources, no other Australian entity has the “ready reach” to span the vast—and often remote—Australian continent. Unless Australia develops—and funds—an entirely separate disaster response agency, empowered to employ miliary-like assets and project aid throughout Australia and beyond, disaster response will remain a major military mission.

Right now, the Australian Defense Force does an enormous amount of domestic disaster response work—and no capabilities have been built to replace it.

In the past six months, members of the Australian Defense Force have fought floods in almost every corner of the country. Defense personnel were showing up everywhere, helping with flood response and recovery aid in Southern, Northern, and Western Australia. The military has supported everything from basic cleanup tasks to the ceremonial transport of teachers back to remote, flood-stricken communities. Units have managed air traffic in impacted areas and supported complex logistical tasks—even airlifting food to starving cattle.

That’s all in addition to a bunch of other “bonus” domestic support missions. Again, in the past six months, defense personnel have removed unexploded ordnance from popular dive sites, engaged in a few odd brushfire fights and supported other specialized disaster-response training.

And, of course, since Australia does not have an independent Coast Guard, the Navy made headlines for rescuing quite a few endangered mariners.

Who Will Fill The Void Overseas If ADF Pivots Away From Disaster Response?

While the Strategic Review took a firm stand on reducing domestic disaster response, it totally overlooked the role of the Australian military in regional “near-abroad” disaster response.

Operating in a seismically active region that is regularly subjected to big natural disasters, the Australian Defense Force has always leaned forward in helping hard-pressed regional powers get back on their feet.

The lack of oversight of overseas disaster response in the Australian Defense Review is surprising because the Australian military has made an enormous commitment to support disaster responses overseas.

Australia’s small military punches above its weight in disaster response work. In the past six months, the Australian Defense Force helped both Vanuatu and New Zealand after cyclones. It dispatched search-and-rescue specialists to Turkiye, carried out earthquake response activities in the Solomon Islands, and delivered drought support supplies to Kiribati. In addition, military teams carried out advanced disaster response planning in Tonga, practiced evacuation scenarios in the Solomon Islands, and helped pre-position disaster supplies in Laos.

That is a lot for any military.

And with Australia apparently backing away from this work, it is relevant to wonder just what—or who—Australia expects to fill in when the Australian military pivots away from disaster response efforts. Is the U.S. set to fill in? Indonesia? Japan?

Or might China be willing to lend helping hand instead?

Sadly, nobody in the strategic review seemed to look at that question, or really mull secondary or tertiary effects of such a sudden change in Australia’s regional engagement policy might mean. It was not a priority for the Review Team. The Australia Defense Review really only focuses on what it calls a “strategy of denial”. A “strategy of denial” only aims to keep rival states from achieving their objectives through force. That’s a great organizing concept for a strategic template, but it is, at its heart, unsophisticated.

Force is just one tool in the national security toolbox. Countries seek their objectives via many, many other ways, and while it is “in vogue” right now for Western militaries to focus their energies on little more than the accumulation of raw military might, the modern military playbook is far broader than Australia’s Defense Review seems to suggest.

Maintaining an active disaster response capability is strategically important, and it may well be an enabler for the tools necessary for Australia to actually carry out a comprehensive “strategy of denial”. It is something Australia, as it hashes out how to move forward, needs to really focus on.