A South-East Asian Integrated Air Defence System

Time has eased those tensions, to the extent that Indonesia sent its single most advanced and prestigious military capability to the Royal Australian Air Force’s bi-annual exercise Pitch Black.

Pitch Black is the RAAF’s largest and most complex training activity, and in addition to the Indonesians included elements of the US Marine Corps, the Royal Thai Air Force, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Among the advanced aircraft taking part were Super Hornets, F-15SGs, Wedgetail AEW&Cs, and KC-30 multirole tankers. Equally as significant was the involvement of the RAAF’s exceptional networked information and command and control system.

At one level this was a valuable learning experience for the TNI-AU, an organisation that has had its problems (not all of which have been of its own making – see Flankers, Friends, and Opportunities, AA, February 2011). It is in Australia’s interests for the RAAF to do as much as is reasonably possible to offer professional guidance and to build relationships. We can be confident that this will be achieved with the usual professionalism.

At a politically more complex level, the fact that the Indonesian government was prepared to let the Flankers participate in Pitch Black may represent an opportunity for Australia to take the first very careful, very discrete step along a path that could lead to greatly enhanced regional stability.

The objective of setting out on that path – a journey that could take as long as 20 years – would be the eventual formation of a South-East Asian Integrated Air Defence System.

Few initiatives would have the potential offered by a regional IADS to promote defence cooperation and stability.

The obvious exemplar is NATO, which for all its faults represents an enormous success story. Before NATO was formed in 1949, Europe had for hundreds of years been the cockpit of global interstate rivalry and warfare. Since then, with NATO as one of the pillars of European accord, the prospect of war between the union’s major states is almost inconceivable.

The South-East Asian region has a number of thriving diplomatic and trade connections, most notably the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

However, while ASEAN has extended its charter from politics and trade to periodic security discussions, and while many of the member states and others in the region (such as Australia and New Zealand) enjoy good, and in some cases formal, bilateral defence relations, there is no over-arching security arrangement. Which is where the concept of a regional IADS fits in.

Maritime – sea and air – trade is vital to South-East Asia’s prosperity. Australia, for example, is one of the world’s largest importers/exporters, with 83 per cent by value of goods being moved by sea and the remainder by air. In other words, the country’s economy depends absolutely on freedom of access to maritime lines of communication. Singapore’s reliance is even greater, and a similar trend exists in the region’s emerging economies.

Air and space provide the most effective medium for controlling and protecting the maritime environment.

No other medium can offer anything like the same degree

A WELCOME SIGHT An Indonesian Flanker at Pitch Black 2012. (Dept of Defence)

of broad area surveillance and, if necessary, rapid response.

Moreover, operations in the air and space domain need not involve the often socially disruptive influence inherent in deploying surface forces to foreign territory.

The three essential capabilities for an IADS are command and control, surface- and air-based ISR (Intelligence/ Surveillance/Reconnaissance), and control of the air (which de facto brings with it control of the sea surface). Ultimately, a genuine South-East Asian IADS would have to incorporate all three capabilities.

Given regional sensitivities, however, the first steps towards establishing a fully-functioning IADS could focus on command and control and/or ISR, both of which present non-threatening organisational and operational opportunities. NATO again provides the model, in this instance through its shared ownership of non-threatening assets such as AWACS and C-17 aircraft.

The construction of a SouthEast Asian IADS has the potential to deliver enormous benefits to the entire region.

However, longstanding sensitivities mean that the process must be managed carefully. That should not be a problem – there is no hurry.

By sending its Flankers to Darwin, Indonesia’s government seems to have indicated a willingness to engage with Australia at a heightened level of defence cooperation. There is no doubt that the ADF could accommodate any such willingness. The question is whether an Australian government would have sufficient vision and patience to grasp the opportunity.