ASPI at 25 – After 25 years, ASPI’s role is more important than ever
It was 25 years ago that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute opened its doors, an event that both of us believed in.
By the beginning of 2001 we had developed the view that establishing a think tank focused on national security policy would greatly strengthen Australia’s capacity to respond to defence challenges. We didn’t know just how important it would prove to be.
Three weeks after ASPI opened in Canberra on 22 August 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck at the heart of our ally, the United States, and the world changed in an instant. One of the many consequences was that democratic governments had to accept that they were not the fount of all knowledge and that classified intelligence couldn’t tell the future. Alternative advice – which ASPI was mainly set up to deliver – was all the more necessary, even if it created political discomfort.
Moreover, the value of ASPI would be in direct proportion to the severity of the threats to Australia’s security – which, as we all know, is far greater now than when the think tank was established 25 years ago.
When the Coalition government led by one of us, John Howard, set up ASPI, it received full support from the Labor opposition led by the other, Kim Beazley.
The idea had been growing for several years to create a source of expert defence and strategy advice separate from the government, particularly the Department of Defence.
In the event, this was done thoroughly, by making ASPI independent and not, for example, an office in the department.
With substantial government funding, it was given freedom to form its own judgments in research and analysis and was expected to publicly disagree with policy when the merits suggested it should.
ASPI’s first head, Hugh White, proved to be a judicious choice. He was a former adviser to Kim and was selected by John to hold the national security system to account and keep the public informed, a job he performed admirably.
Policy criticism from ASPI came soon enough. White cast doubt on the wisdom of joining the US and Britain in the 2003 military operation to remove Saddam Hussein.
Around that time, John said, ‘It’s not often that a government creates an independent policy research body. It’s the sort of action Sir Humphrey Appleby might have described as bordering on “courageous”.’
It’s also the sort of action that Australia’s strategic adversaries wish the government hadn’t taken, which of course reflects the whole point of the exercise.
Disagreement and debate are democratic strengths. And, by the way, we still reject White’s criticism. Australia would not have AUKUS today if it had not stood so solidly behind the US in the years after 9/11.
ASPI has consistently exerted positive influence on security policy. The institute played a key role in Australia’s foreign policy towards Solomon Islands following ethnic violence and economic collapse there in 2003. An ASPI report argued for a hands-on approach and helped pave the way for an Australia-led coalition that restored law and order.
ASPI shifted up a gear in 2012 by beginning to produce a digital magazine, The Strategist, which daily publishes expert and easily digestible commentary and analysis on national security. It imposes no particular editorial line and, again, airs ideas that are at times uncomfortable to the government of the day.
The think tank was among the first to understand China’s efforts to surreptitiously exert influence in this country. Its research exposing Beijing’s opaque methods helped provide public support for laws to tackle foreign interference and influence.
ASPI analysts were also early in warning against allowing Chinese companies to equip Australian 5G networks, which their government might then use as a vast apparatus to collect information in this country and for disruption in a crisis.
Australia went on to lead the Western world in implementing a ban.
So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the greatest endorsement of the value of the think tank came from China itself: its embassy demanded in 2020 that the Australian government cease funding ASPI.
Think tanks, and not just ASPI, contribute not by echoing the government’s talking points or by acting as social media activists but by doing the hard work of evidence-based research that informs the public and puts policy orthodoxies to the test.
Ten years ago, Kim wrote that Australia was ‘think-tank starved’. It still is. But we are richer for those that we have, something that even politicians acknowledge through gritted teeth. ASPI’s deep annual analysis of the defence budget, The Cost of Defence, for example, is a seminal document.
As the idealism of the 1990s has given way to terrorism, cyberattacks and now renewed state-on-state conflict, all turbocharged by technology, Australia faces a broader and deeper level of threat than we have faced since the end of World War II. ASPI was established before 9/11, social media or China’s admission to the World Trade Organization.
There will always be the next crisis or strategic surprise. Wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf are showing how we must change force structures, war stocks, operational art and strategy. ASPI has again seen a trend in the upcoming influence of AI on Australia’s security, which it’s trying to illuminate as far beyond the horizon as possible.
Governments have much to consider, and ASPI’s role is more important than ever.
This article was first published in The Australian.
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