News Story: France aircraft carrier is coming to Pacific

A French Mistral class Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD)

France will be sending one of its powerful Mistral amphibious carriers to lead drills on and around Tinian island in the western Pacific, with Japanese and U.S. personnel and two troop-carrying helicopters sent by Britain, two sources told Reuters.

“Rather than just being a naval exercise, this amphibious exercise will send a clear message to China,” said one of the sources, who were not authorized to talk to the media and so asked not to be identified.

The other source said, the exercise will take place in the second and third week of May.

Read the full story at Tankler

Think Tank: Making the most of the French connection

Theo Ell

One of 2016’s more notable surprises was the selection, in April, of French shipbuilder DCNS as the principal partner to design and build Australia’s future submarines. Few Australians would have anticipated that outcome, but it’s among the more reassuring developments of the past year, because we’re able to manage its consequences. But this isn’t to say that handling deeper cooperation with France won’t require renovation in policy or in conventional thinking.

Australian–French strategic cooperation has grown steadily, from the signing of the FRANZ agreement on Pacific disaster relief in the early 1990s, to the establishment of the biennial ‘Croix du Sud’ multinational military exercises in New Caledonia, and the forthcoming Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, which will grant Australian forces regular access to French Pacific military bases.

But the 2016 submarine decision has taken Australian–French cooperation beyond logistics into unfamiliar territory. It challenges a notion that, despite formal acknowledgement of broad like-mindedness, and despite a rapprochement after decades of wariness over French policies in the South Pacific, Australia and France are too far outside each other’s spheres of understanding to collaborate in more sophisticated ways.

Think Tank: Australia and France - time to plan a closer partnership

Theo Ell

France is on the move. Since the release of its 2013 White Paper on Asia–Pacific Security, the country’s been pursuing its interests in the region with an ebullient energy. At the same time, Australia’s own strategic priorities are bringing us into closer contact with France on important matters, with the choice of French company DCNS to build our future submarines being just one of these. The convergence in the Australia–France relationship is more meaningful than dollars and project management.

At a time when the United States’ strategic interest in this region might be about to wane, France’s strength and long-term intentions offer opportunities that we’ll grasp if we’re observant and prepared. That will only be possible if Australia makes the effort to truly understand France. We must also overcome attitudes that paint France simply as a provocative interloper, or as a partner for occasional disaster relief operations and military hardware purchases. Certainly from the 1960s into the 1990s, France’s activities defied international conventions, and the bilateral relationship suffered. Nuclear tests in French Polynesia, challenges by Australia and New Zealand at the International Court of Justice and violent uprisings in New Caledonia are still well within living memory. But that sour taste has little bearing on the new reality for Australia (save perhaps the problem of fallout). France has a more complex and constructive role to play in the region and Australian policy should respond accordingly.

AUS: Exercise Croix Du Sud launches into action

Over 100 members of the Australian Defence Force have joined a French-flavoured multinational force for some valuable training in disaster response interoperability.

Running until 18 November, Exercise Croix Du Sud Southern Cross is the largest humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) training exercise in the South Pacific.

Led by the French Armed Forces of New Caledonia (FANC), Croix Du Sud is held every two years as part of France’s engagement in the region and assists all participants to prepare for major HADR operations.

The Commander of the Australian Contingent, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Manoel, said the exercise tackles the more difficult areas of disaster response.

“Croix Du Sud allows us to deal with the responses that may be required when the security situation is complex following a disaster,” he said.

Editorial: China's Peace Ark Completes First-Ever Australia Visit

By Prashanth Parameswaran

Port visit is part of Harmonious Mission 2015.

From October 7 to October 12, the hospital ship of the Chinese navy made its first ever port visit to Australia.

The ship, known as the Peace Ark, made the five-day goodwill visit as the first stop in a broader voyage across the Asia-Pacific code-named “Harmonious Mission 2015”, which China’s defense ministry says focuses on boosting military diplomacy, medical exchange and cultural communication including through the provision of free medical and humanitarian services.

The inaugural visit to Australia began when the ship arrived at the port of Brisbane around 10am on October 7 local time, according to media reports. The visit included a welcome ceremony as well as a range of activities including a visit to the health center of the Royal Australian Air Force, physical examinations for the staff of the Chinese embassy and consulate in Australia and their families and other cultural, medicine and military exchanges.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

USA: Koa Moana Promotes Oceania Maritime Security Cooperation

By Grady Fontana, Military Sealift Command Far East Public Affairs

U.S. Navy file photo of Military Sealift Command dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE 1). >>

PACIFIC OCEAN - Military Sealift Command’s dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE 1) is currently participating in Exercise Koa Moana 15-3, a four-month international exercise that involves embarked Marines and will make stops at various locations in the Pacific Island Nations of Oceania: French Polynesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Timor Leste.

The purpose of the exercise, which is slated to end late November, is to enhance senior military leader engagements between allied and partner nations with a collective interest in military-to-military and military-to-law enforcement relations.

While training with other nations, the U.S. Marine Corps will exercise key aspects of military operations, capability development and interoperability.

Editorial: New Zealand's Mass Surveillance of Pacific States Exposed

By Ankit Panda

New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau conducts mass surveillance of several Pacific states.

Reports citing classified documents leaked by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden state that New Zealand is carrying out mass surveillance over several Pacific island states, including  Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Tonga and French Polynesia. The New Zealand Herald notes that the data gathered was shared with the other members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing network, a grouping encompassing the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. New Zealand’s Green Party has lodged a complaint with the country’s Inspector General of Intelligence and Security claiming that the Government Communications Security Bureau (New Zealand’s intelligence agency) broke the law by spying on, among other target, New Zealand citizens’ activities in the aforementioned states.

Diplomatically, the revelations will likely cause a problematic backlash for Prime Minister John Key’s government. The nations included in the Snowden documents as targets of New Zealand’s mass surveillance are all friendly with New Zealand. The Intercept, which hosted the leaked documents, notes that the surveillance “is being carried out by GCSB from an intelligence base in New Zealand’s Waihopai Valley.” The report adds:

Intercepted data collected at the Waihopai site is being shared through an NSA surveillance system called XKEYSCORE, which is used to analyze vast amounts of emails, internet browsing sessions and online chats that are intercepted from some 150 different locations worldwide. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat