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Tampa analysed: the transformational effect of security upon the “normal”
Stuart Watters
Paper submitted in completion of Global Security Studies Elective for Australian
Command and Staff Course 2011, supervised by Gavin Mount (ADFA@UNSW)
Abstract: As the Government prepares to issue a new National Security Statement,
the breadth and depth of what constitutes a security issue remains topical. Similarly
the tools available to national policy makers should also be considered. A number of
theories consider the process of an issue becoming a security issue, and sometimes
back again to a ‘normal’ state. This essay applies these theories to migration to
explore how this transition is transformational and can affect the relationships
between the actors involved as well as the broader socio-political environment. For
the military this carries significant implications – the long-term effects of utilising the
Australian Defence Force can carry unforseen and unintended consequences.
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Tampa analysed: the transformational effect of security upon the “normal”
The period since the end of the Cold War has seen a fundamental
reconsideration of what we mean by ‘security.’ The contemporary period has seen a
plethora of security-related terminology – from cybersecurity, environmental security
and water security to name but a few. These terms invoke images of cyber-warfare,
resource wars and non-military threats that seem to demand an urgent, dramatic and
exceptional response. As the current Prime Minister prepares for a new National
Security Statement in 2012, the width and breadth of the national security agenda
remains highly topical – what should be included and what should be left out? How
do we ‘operationalise’ something as esoteric as ‘water security?’ And who will act to
address these new threats?
While national security has traditionally been considered as the responsibility
of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), it is becoming clear that using the military
instrument in non-traditional security areas carries with it a host of limitations and
consequences, some of them unintended. This paper seeks to examine some of these
consequences by examining the use of the ADF in a non-traditional security issue, the
case of the MV Tampa, and by applying some contemporary theories in security
studies to analyse these policy consequences. These theories suggest that, in the
process of making something a security issue (and sometimes back again), there is a
transformational effect on what we accept as ‘normal politics.’ Even when an issue
has faded from the public imagination its ongoing effects may still be felt. When the
military is used in the process of changing a topic into ‘security issue’ then that
development holds profound implications for the military’s role as transforming actor
instead of a mute instrument of national security, challenging the trinitarian
conceptualisation of the military envisaged by Clausewitz and raises questions about
the responsibility for Defence in restoring ‘normalcy.’
Why make something a security issue?
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So why is it that the contemporary security agenda has become so broad?
What is it that has become so attractive about appearing in a National Security
Statement? Firstly, the end of the Cold War provided time and space to consider nontraditional security issues that, in many respects, had always been there but had never
gained sufficient prominence due to the constant distraction of pending nuclear
armageddon ticking away in the background. Secondly, and possibly more
pervasively, security is about power – the privileging of certain topics because of their
urgency. Barry Buzan characterised security ‘as the move that takes politics beyond
the established rules of the game and frames the issues either as a special kind of
politics or above politics.’1 In this respect, the exceptionalism normally reserved for
security (and military) issues becomes attractive – it allows urgency and resources to
be mobilised to address an issue that might not otherwise be regarded as so
significant. An example of this is AIDS. Many commentators recognise that AIDS
become a security issue in 2000 when it was discussed at the United Nations Security
Council. The issue was raised successfully, with global funding increasing more than
tenfold from 2000 to approximately US$13.8 billion in 2008.2 Buzan and Waever
contend that ‘it is important to be specific about who is more or less privileged in
articulating security. To study securitisation is to study the power politics of a
concept.’3 Making a subject a security issue means altering the power balance that lies
behind ‘normal politics,’ sometimes in an enduring manner and it is important to
understand why.
Migration Securitised: the case of the MV Tampa
Tampa provides an illustration of how a subject, historically without the
trappings associated with national security, can become a security issue, and the
significant role of the military in making it so. On 26 August 2001, the MV Tampa, a
Norwegian container ship travelling to Singapore was diverted by Australian Search
and Rescue to respond to a sinking Indonesian vessel reported to be carrying 80
1
Barry Buzan, et al., Security: A new framework, London, Lynne Reinner, 1998, p. 23.
Colin McInnes and Simon Rushton, ‘HIV, AIDS and security: where are we now?’ International
Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 1, January 2010, pp. 225-245, p. 243.
3
Holger Stritzel, ‘Towards a Theory of Securitisation: Copenhagen and Beyond’, European Journal of
International Relations, Vol. 13, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 357-384, p. 364.
2
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asylum seekers to Australia. The Tampa would ultimately rescue 433 survivors. The
next day Prime Minister John Howard announced that, in the national interest, the
government would refuse the ship permission to enter Australian waters. The Tampa
refused to comply and the Australian Special Air Service (SAS) boarded the vessel to
prevent passengers from disembarking onto Christmas Island. Newspaper headlines
included ‘New wave of 1000 illegals’ in the Australian on 27 August, and ‘Refugee
Crisis’ along with a photo of SAS troops on a barge approaching the Tampa in the
same paper on 30 August.
The result was a significant turnaround in the government’s electoral fortunes
in the period of November 2001. A poll undertaken by the NSW Labor Council
illustrated the successful acceptance of migration as a security issue by the Howard
government: 58% of unionists and 67% of non-unionists believed that the government
had handled the asylum seeker issue well.4 Newspoll reflected similar support, with
the PM’s approval rating jumping from around 40% in the week before Tampa to
50% by 7 September, just prior to the events of 9/11. By October, and following the
attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, John Howard’s support had risen to
over 60%, assuring the Liberal-National coalition of a tight victory in the November
election.5 As Ward states, the government succeeded in making the ‘asylum seekers
appear a threat rather than a tragedy... defined as a crisis demanding leadership, not
compassion.’6 By 27 September the government had enacted its legislative response,
excising offshore islands through amendment of the Migration Act (Cth).7 Hutchings
has argued that the combination of other incidents such as the ‘children overboard
affair’ and legislative changes resulted in the objectification of asylum seekers
through use of terms such as SUNC (Suspected Unlawful non-Citizen) and SIEVs
(Suspected Irregular Entry Vessels).8
The Aftermath of Tampa
4
Ian Ward, ‘The Tampa, wedge politics, and a lesson for political journalism’, Australian Journalism
Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, July 2002, pp. 21-39, p. 32.
5
Ibid, p. 35.
6
Ibid, p. 28.
7
Peter J Hutchings, ‘From Offworld Colonies to Migration Zones: Blade Runner and the Fractured
Subject of Jurisprudence’, Law, Culture and the Humanities, Vol. 3, 2007, pp. 381-397, p. 395.
8
Ibid, p. 395.
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Some eleven years later, migration remains a deeply contentious issue within
the Australian political debate. While the SAS have not been used again, maritime
illegal migration has become a significant issue in Australian security. In 2006 this
lead to the formation of the Border Protection Command to coordinate the military
and civilian response along Australia’s maritime borders. As newspaper stories reveal,
the Coalition policy of using the Navy to conduct ‘tow-backs’ means that migration
remains a deeply contentious and militarised polemic today.9 According to the 2011
Lowy Institute poll, 86% of respondents agreed that unauthorised asylum seekers
coming to Australia by boat pose a potential security risk to Australia.10 In another
question, 64% of those asked about the importance of a number of foreign policy
goals rated ‘controlling illegal immigration’ as very important.11 Regardless of the
validity of the issues in debate, it is clear that migration remains a very clearly
securitised issue. How this came to be, and what it means are far less clear. To help us
answer these questions we might now turn to several theories of security studies.
Security Studies – Explaining how something becomes a security issue
Security studies provide several theories for explaining the process by which a
subject become a security issue, or ‘securitised’ in the academic language. The
Copenhagen School was founded during the Cold War, but has evolved to provide a
framework through which to consider the ‘new’ security agenda that has emerged in
the last twenty years. Essentially, the Copenhagen School argues that an issue
becomes securitised by authority convincing an audience that an issue provides a
threat to its existence. This in turn therefore justifies emergency action.12 The
requirement for the threat to be ‘existential’ is a difficult one and it remains a
challenging threshold to meet in most cases, even when applied discreetly such as to a
particular sector of society. Nonetheless, despite this and other issues, the
9
Brendan Nicholson and Lanai Vasek, ‘Abbott policy “doomed to fail”’, Australian, 09 July 2012, p.
7.
10
Fergus Hanson, Australia and the World: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, Lowy Institute for
International Policy, 2001, p. 14.
11
Ibid, p. 3.
12
Buzan, Security: A new framework, p. 26.
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Copenhagen School does provide a mechanism for understanding what happened in
the Tampa case.
What then does a securitised situation look like? Huymans has argued that
securitisation leads to ‘a re-ordering of social relations according to the logic of
political realism and has defined it as a “technique of government which retrieves the
ordering force of fear of violent death by a mythical replay of the Hobbesian state of
nature.”’13 When an issue is securitised, time becomes compressed and urgency
prevails. Space is condensed and boundaries are hardened. The interconnectedness
coveted by liberals is subsumed by a starker cartography. Identity is similarly
hardened – in Alker’s words, the process is characterised by ‘procedural
exceptionalism, extreme othering, and decisionism.’14
The refusal to let the Tampa enter Australian waters and a decision to send
special forces soldiers to take control of the vessel was clearly dramatic action by the
government that tried to convince the electorate of the existence of a compelling and
urgent security threat. Polling and election results indicate that they achieved this
emphatically. While the issue had certainly been politicised earlier, it was the act of
refusing entry to Tampa and insertion of SAS troops that dramatically securitised,
indeed militarised, the issue. Time, space and identity were all brought to the fore and
‘hardened,’ trends magnified by the almost simultaneous occurrence of the 9/11
attacks. The sense of urgency and crisis was palpable, facilitated by media headlines
and community anxiety. This was reflected in Liberal focus groups at the time of
Tampa who...
...detected an ugly sentiment amongst voters in western Sydney that “went like this:
boatpeople, illegals, queue jumpers, street gangs, raping white girls.”... callers [to
talkback radio] repeatedly made it clear that it was not the refugees’ countries or
origin to which they objected but their religion.’15
13
Huysmans quoted in Claudia Aradau, ‘Security and the democratic scene: desecuritisation and
emancipation’, Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2004, pp. 388-413,
p. 392.
14
Hayward R. Alker, ‘Securitisation politics as contexted texts and talks’, Journal of International
Relations and Development, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2006, pp. 70-80, pp. 74-75.
15
Ian Ward, ‘The Tampa’, p. 25.
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These actions during the Tampa case turned migration into a security issue,
but the consequences of this move occurred regardless of the intent of the government
at the time. The choice of using the SAS may not have been specifically driven by a
desire to generate fear of a security threat within the Australian community but it
certainly had that effect. The consequences of using the military instrument may not
always generate predictable or even desirable outcomes. The ADF may provide the
most effective option for the expeditious resolution of an issue, but the long term
effects, described above by Alkers, can be more complex and problematic.
Security Studies – Explaining how something stops being a security issue
The major element in the process suggested by the Copenhagen School is the
concept of a security issues representing a movement away from ‘normal politics.’
The corollary is an ability to move back to this normalcy, but this area is somewhat
neglected in the theory. Insofar as the Copenhagen School has a normative agenda it
is that normal politics is preferred to the urgency and exceptionalism of security.
Waever is particularly critical, regarding ‘security should be seen as a negative, as a
failure to deal with issues of normal politics.’16 Buzan characterises it as a ‘more
extreme version of politicisation’17 and that ‘politics should be able to unfold
according to routine procedures without this extraordinary elevation of specific threats
to a pre-political immediacy.’18 We have established that being on the security agenda
is not necessarily a good thing, but how then do we move away from that state?
Being a security issue brings with it a contrast with normal politics, but as
Buzan has conceded, the emergency measures critical to the concept of securitisation
can be institutionalised and made routine without losing their exceptional status – he
conceives of ‘normal politics as involving a reasonably high degree of
16
Waever quoted in Floyd, ‘Towards a consequentialist evaluation of security’, p. 330.
Buzan, Security: A new framework, p. 23.
18
Ibid, p. 29.
17
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securitisation.’19 Alternatively, Salter has identified a degree of desecuritisation
through ‘entropy’ in which issues fade from the public imagination.20 However, these
conceptions of securitisation don’t address the potential for securitisation as a
transformational act, in which the re-ordering described by Huymans and Alkers is
never truly undone by any desecuritisation. The effects of othering and
exceptionalism linger, distorting any concept of normalcy. It is this transformational
approach to security issues that poses the most profound implications for the military.
Implications for Defence
The Copenhagen School provides a means for mapping the process of making
something a security issue. In order that everything does not become ‘security’, it
provides steps that require, for example, a significant threat to be demonstrated. The
Australian Defence Force will almost always provide the level of drama and
exceptionalism, often regardless of intention. Its very presence will militarise
perceptions of a situation, regardless of whether this reflects the intent to turn a
subject into a security issue. Defence, as an agent, becomes a securitising actor that
plays a significant role in transforming the political environment. This carries
significant implications for the Clausewitzian notion of the military as an instrument
of policy – in this case, its use has the potential to change the political dynamic in a
fundamental manner.
This carries significant consequences for a military whose approach towards
deterrence and de-escalation belies its inherent character as a catalyst for
securitisation. What better dramatises a security threat than insertion of the SAS into a
foreign vessel carrying people referred to as SUNCs? For Defence this means that its
voiceless but critical instrumentality in securitisation is far more difficult to reflect in
desecuritisation.
19
Barry Buzan, ‘Barry Buzan on International Society, Securitisation and an English School Map of
the World’ dated December 2009, downloaded on 2 November 2011 from <http://www.theorytalks.org/2009/12/theory-talk-35.html>
20
Salter, ‘Securitisation and desecuritisation., p. 325.
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The transformational effect of securitisation is likely to see identities remain
hardened and boundaries accentuated for a period beyond the immediate period of
securitisation – the symptoms may outlast the disease, as in the case of illegal
migrants. For Defence as a securitising agent, the effects of the initial event may
continue to reverberate, challenging any attempt to act as a desecuritising actor. The
new ‘normal’ carries with it transformed relationships, not only between actor and
audience, but amongst agents and others affected by the securitisation including
between Government and military. In this manner we can see fundamental tensions in
the ADF’s self-conception as a ‘force for good’ that seeks to de-escalate and the effect
of its very presence as a militarising force.
The policy lesson here is nuanced – beware the impetuous or reckless use of
the military instrument for it remains a sharp and imprecise scalpel. At some $24
billion annually, the ADF is an expensive insurance policy and governments will be
understandably interested in gaining bang for their buck. While it presents an
expedient and effective option for dealing with challenges, the longer-term
consequences for using the ADF may not always be apparent or desirable. For the
government there is a risk that the short-term fix may transform the issue into a
longer-term issue from which retreat to the safety of the status quo may be elusive.
Cognisant of these limits, complementary and capable options need to be generated as
an alternative to the military scalpel – the Australian Civilian Corps represents an
important example.
Conclusion
As the government prepares to deliver its National Security Statement, it faces
a range of challenges associated with the ‘new’ security agenda. How we address
these non-traditional security issues remains an important question for our
conceptualisation of Australia’s national interest. Nonetheless, security remains about
power. It is the resources and urgency associated with becoming a ‘security’ issue that
make it attractive. However, security, to an extent, represents a failing of normal
politics to deal with issues within the realm of the national political discourse. This
provokes questions about the role of the military in non-traditional security
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challenges. The result, as demonstrated by the Tampa case, can have long-lasting and
unexpected consequences. A number of security studies theories explore the manner
in which an issue becomes ‘securitised’ and back again. It is clear that this process is
more than a threshold, but is a transformational operation. When we consider the
military as an instrument to be used in this process, then this perspective offers an
understanding that its actions as an agent might lead it to do more than act as an
instrument of the Government. Instead the military fulfils a role in which it changes
the very political environment in which the original decision took place. The military
will often provide an attractive option for the resolution of non-traditional issues.
However, it is clear from the case study and theory that the consequences for its use
may not always be desirable.
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