Thursday 6 October 2005

Bi-weekly report from the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, Australia.

1. Jemah Islamiah’s Fading Control Spells More Disaster
2. Net Widens As Bombs Fears Mount
3. Canberra Warns Of More Attacks
4. Bali Bomb II Could Rock Yudhoyono
5. Strong Indonesian Ties Crucial To Terrorism Fight
6. Underplaying The Threat Of Terrorism Could Be A Fatal Mistake
7. Brisbane To Host Asia-Pacific Bird Flu Summit
8. Military Set To Get Its Own Court In Abuse Clampdown

Special report: Australian Network Centric Warfare Roadmap

1. Jemah Islamiah’s Fading Control Spells More Disaster, Greg Fealy, APO, 2005-10-04

   JI retains the capacity to mount highly lethal attacks but may no longer be the central node of Indonesian terrorist networks. Increasingly, non-JI groups and individuals are keen to join terrorist operations and growing numbers of them are acquiring terrorist capabilities.

2. Net Widens As Bombs Fears Mount, Marian Wilkinson, Age, 2005-10-05

   Security experts are anxious over early police findings that TNT was used by the Bali suicide bombers. While this has yet to be confirmed, it could indicates that the bombers had replaced the usual “home brew”, made from fertilisers, used in earlier attacks.

3. Canberra Warns Of More Attacks, Brendan Nicholson, Age, 2005-10-05

   The Foreign Affairs Department has warned Australians to take extreme care after rumours that more bombings were coming in Bali. Australia will provide $1 million in aid to help Bali cope with the aftermath of the bombings.

4. Bali Bomb II Could Rock Yudhoyono, Endy Bayun, AFR, 2005-10-05

   The bombings could have serious consequences for President Yudhoyono. The latest attacks show lapses by the National Intelligence Agency and the National Police. Scrutiny will be intense on General Sutanto of the National Police and Syamsir Siregar of the intelligence agency.

5. Strong Indonesian Ties Crucial To Terrorism Fight, Paul Kelly, Australian, 2005-10-06

   In response to the Fealy-Borgu ASPI report Paul Kelly said that future Australian policy will re-weight from being a global US military ally to piloting a multi-layered strategy in the local region.

6. Underplaying The Threat Of Terrorism Could Be A Fatal Mistake, Gerard Henderson SMH, 2005-10-04

   The former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, now president of the International Crisis Group, recently expressed the view that Jemah Islamiah’s regional division had been smashed. If an Australian political leader had made a similar remark, at the same time, his or her career would have been tarnished.

7. Brisbane To Host Asia-Pacific Bird Flu Summit, ABC News Online, 2005-10-05

   Australia is bringing together experts from the Asia-Pacific economic group (APEC) to discuss the threat posed by avian influenza. Australia is promoting APEC as the best vehicle to coordinate an Asia-Pacific response. The meeting will take place in Brisbane at the end of October.

8. Military Set To Get Its Own Court In Abuse Clampdown, Brendan Nicholson and Paul Osborne, Age, 2005-10-06

   A permanent military court will be established to cover the Australian Defence Force as a result of a damning Senate report on the state of Australian military justice. Changes will be introduced over two years and the Defence Force will report to Parliament every six months on progress.

9. Special report: Australian Network Centric Warfare Roadmap

   Chief of the Department of Defence Capability Development Group, LTGEN David Hurley, officially released the updated Network Centric Warfare Roadmap which outlines the steps to achieve the goal of a combined joint seamless NCW force by 2020:

   “Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is about significantly enhancing the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) warfighting capability. Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to demonstrate the operational benefits to be derived from the enhanced information flows and consequent effects such as agility”.

   The Roadmap emphasizes the integration of the technical network dimension, that:

   “connects our military systems, including our engagement, sensor and command systems”, and the human dimension that “is about the way people collaborate to share their awareness of a situation, so that they can fight more effectively (become ‘networkers’)”. “Networking describes the manner in which these and future networks interface or collaborate to build a self-synchronising, self-informing system of systems”

   Click to access ncw_roadmap%20(released%206%20oct%2005).pdf

   Of related interest:

   Gary Waters and Desmond Ball, Transforming the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for Information Superiority, Canberra Paper 159, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU (2005) http://rspas.anu.edu.au/sdsc/publications.php#CP159