What price our national security?

Alongside the distraction of the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the very real problems of inflation and the cost of living, and the rush to renewable energy at any cost, what should be the bedrock issue of defence and national security receives a low priority. It is an irony that in 1901 a Defence Act was of the highest priority for the founding fathers of Federation.

The potential threat now is the People's Republic of China, with its vast military and economic power and its clear objective of establishing hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, alongside the perceived twilight of the Pax Americana which has prevailed since 1945. It should be clear to all that Australia is ill-prepared to stand up to this challenge and to fulfil its role under the ANZUS treaty, behind which we have sheltered for seven decades. While our governments have paid lip service to these realities, the neglect of what is needed has been little short of irresponsible.

As The Australian's foreign affairs editor Greg Sheridan observes, few countries spend more on defence forces for less military effect than Australia (The Australian, June 6, 2023). His reports on the Department of Defence have been scathing, the bottom line being that the nation is totally unprepared in the event of war.

Politicians are as culpable as bureaucrats for this state of affairs. Two glaring examples stand out. Without a keel being laid, we have endured the submarine saga for 15 years: it was "Son-of-Collins-class" under Kevin Rudd; Tony Abbott's intention to purchase Japanese-built vessels; Malcolm Turnbull's fantasy of a hybrid French concoction; and, finally, the Morrison government's AUKUS submarine deal — all cursed with decades of delay for delivery and the politics of employment in South Australia. And what could be more indicative of an army not fit for deployment than the over-reliance on the tiny Special Air Services (SAS) regiment in Afghanistan?

AUKUS is a partnership, involving the Australian, UK and U.S. governments, to enable us to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. It will have Australia hosting U.S. Virginia-class submarines in our waters, before acquiring several of them secondhand, and meanwhile building, together with the UK, a new "SSN-AUKUS" vessel, which will replace the Royal Navy's Astute-class submarine fleet — all over the next two decades.

This is of course condemned as warmongering by China, which itself has already built an extensive blue-water navy, larger than that of the U.S.

After the Labor governments of 2007–2013 had buried Kevin Rudd's ambitious naval plans and gone on to ditch over 30 other military programs, an incoming Abbott government attempted to catch up, especially in ship-building, with the belated appointment of Kevin Andrews as defence minister being hailed by the Australian Defence Force, if not his department.

His successors, after the Malcolm Turnbull coup, have allowed the department and some of the top brass to create the waste and lack of direction that Sheridan and others have decried for some years. The flawed frigate program, and the department's pretentious engagement — as if it were the Pentagon — in "off-the-plan" acquisitions with an uncertain outcome down the track, are just two obvious examples. Off-the-shelf proven military hardware would be a far more rational choice for a nation like ours, instead of behaving like kids in a toyshop.

Ever since President George W. Bush dubbed PM John Howard as "sheriff" in the Asia-Pacific region, Australian governments have treated our island neighbours chiefly as aid recipients. Meanwhile, the growth of China's power and influence in the region has been accompanied by large amounts of Chinese aid — but with strings attached. China's Belt-and-Road initiative has involved state-owned companies investing in assets, such as mining operations, in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and has enriched the local elites while often leading small nations into debt-traps.

Such was the flashpoint for populist riots against the Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare in 2021, which led to Australia sending a contingent of Australian Federal Police to assist with law and order. A larger Chinese force also arrived, and the incompatibility of the two groups led to the withdrawal of the Australians.

New foreign affairs minister Senator Penny Wong has made some well-publicised visits to the region to show the flag, and there have been some small commitments in the recent Budget; but it has been too little, too late. Just now, the Solomon Islands has signed a new policing pact with Beijing, with PM Sogavare accusing Australia of short-changing his nation on aid, and his gaining further funding from the Chinese Communist Party.

A more positive situation exists in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (commonly known as the Quad) involving India, Japan, the U.S. and Australia, with military exercises and recognition of mutual interests. To these should be added Vietnam, the Philippines and other South-East Asian nations apprehensive about Beijing's aggressive stance over the South China Sea. There is also renewed interest in the region on the part of several NATO countries, in recognition of an emerging Russia-China axis. The Australian government is urgently tightening up cyber security, after numerous cyber incursions believed to have their origin in China or Russia.

The megaphone diplomacy in 2021 of the then PM Scott Morrison and his defence minister Peter Dutton, which accompanied the AUKUS announcement, has softened somewhat under the Albanese government. It tries to present itself as co-operative with China as a neighbour and as chief trading partner, but strong on principle and Australia's national interest. It is noticeable, however, that Canberra has since refrained from joining in international condemnation of China for its human rights transgressions, for example, its use of Uighur slave labour in industry. Prolonged detention of a number of Australian citizens on likely trumped-up charges also needs to be addressed.

Labor's support for AUKUS in the context of an election campaign certainly neutralised any advantage therein for the Coalition; but the arrangements with the U.S. and UK to acquire and build nuclear-powered submarines have proceeded seamlessly under a change of government. However, beyond some confident announcements from defence minister Richard Marles, nothing concrete has eventuated beyond the recent graduation of several RAN submariners from their U.S. training on nuclear propulsion.

The project requires a massive financial outlay, but no specific provision for building either submarines or a proposed $10bn east coast base has appeared in the recent budget. Of more concern is the 12 months' postponement, subject to a review, of acquisition of guided missiles, to be funded from cuts in military vehicle orders — an actual cut to defence spending. As Sheridan cynically observes, this government has mastered the Coalition's art form of strong rhetoric, tiny deployments and distant plans beyond the forward estimates.

One wag has suggested that the greatest danger to AUKUS would be a "woke" defence bureaucracy tinkering with the functioning of the Australian military with such things as solar panels to reduce carbon emissions, wind-power for transportation, trans "heads" and sleeping quarters, and accommodation for a diversity, equity and inclusion officer (News Weekly, April 1, 2023).

On a more serious note, interference looms at the coming ALP national conference, where many on the Left are adamant in their opposition to nuclear power. Former PM Paul Keating and former NSW premier and foreign affairs minister Bob Carr have also arisen from their slumbers to condemn AUKUS and, more recently, any suggestion of the "plague" of NATO involvement in our region.

The release of a Defence Strategic Review this year has received an enthusiastic response. Yet defence spending remains at only 2 per cent of GDP, instead of the perhaps 4 per cent needed to establish defence industries and the fuel stockpile required if our sea-lanes were threatened by conflict. Australia also relies on imported ammunition and artillery shells, while much of our inventory has been sent to Ukraine. Unfortunately, the government shows no intention of replenishing any of the gaps left by sending materiel to Ukraine.

A recent contribution to Ukraine of outdated military junk, at the inflated value of $110m, has been rightly condemned by the federal opposition. A bright spot exists in the building of military vehicles onshore: the Bushmaster and Hawkei armoured vehicles and the Boxer heavy-weapon carrier. Perhaps as a consequence of the his attendance at a NATO summit in Lithuania, held in July, PM Albanese has subsequently announced, also at an inflated value of $100m, a donation of 30 additional Bushmasters — although there was no mention of the Hawkeis specifically requested by Ukraine as ideal for launching battlefield guided missiles.

Behind all of the palaver concerning defence, there remains the assumption that the U.S. will continue to guarantee our freedom, on account of the ANZUS Treaty and the little more than token contributions which Australia has made to our ally's military missions in recent decades. Some have even chosen to believe that this commitment would hold, even if we were not to stand with the U.S. in the event of war with China to defend Taiwan.

This is the same delusion for which former U.S. President Donald Trump chided Western European nations during his 2017–20 term, as they made themselves hostages to Russia via their dependence on her for energy, while reducing investment in defence.

His "America First" pronouncement, suggesting isolationism, explains much of the opprobrium which he has experienced abroad; but the moral question remains of why should U.S. blood and treasure be expended in defence of nations unwilling to make the effort themselves? Now, perhaps, the Ukraine conflict has inspired a rethink in the Western world.

Despite the spectacle of a doddering President Joe Biden on the world stage, a woke administration in Washington and the debacle in Afghanistan in 2021, the U.S. remains an extremely strong military power. Its technological superiority overall, and especially its nuclear submarine and aircraft-carrier fleets, would seem to outweigh China's numerical advantage. Perhaps the greatest weakness is the number of command positions occupied by those fixated on carrying out the administration's identity politics agenda. Yet a hollowed-out industrial base, resulting both from much of its manufacturing capacity being outsourced overseas and the Democrats undoing Trump's efforts to "Make America Great Again", renders the awakening of a sleeping giant less of a likelihood to an aggressor.

Of more concern is that the U.S. today has become a divided society, with both optimism and patriotism in free fall. The Australian's Washington correspondent, Adam Creighton, has composed a devastating analysis of these divisions and loss of public morale, based on current polling of the American people (Inquirer, July 8–9, 2023).

Optimism has dropped 20 points to 43 per cent since 2012, while patriotism is rated as important by only 23 per cent of those under 30 and only 38 per cent overall. This is reflected especially in the drop of recruits to the armed forces, a trend which is mirrored in Australia. Black Americans believe that relations with whites have deteriorated, and wealth inequality overall has worsened, along with trust in government. Prescription drug-taking has soared, along with crime, which remains elevated since the 2020 Black Lives Matter "summer of love" riots.

Identity politics, as espoused by the Democratic Party, translates to a belief that individuals' race, gender and sexuality should define their relationship with the state and with other citizens. This fragments society into hostile tribes. The party also displays an aversion to the cornerstone of the Constitution, that is, freedom of speech. Socio-economic issues, such as healthcare and tax rates take a back seat to this ideology,

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party increasingly represents the wealthy and the establishment in a nation where the poorer 50 per cent of households own a mere 2.4 per cent of total household wealth. Crippling inflation, which has dragged down living standards, has been largely caused by the injection of trillions of dollars by the Biden administration, much of it wasted.

The Republican Party has become the defender of the Constitution against the Democratic Party, which rejects some of its core principles. Recent victories in the Supreme Court's rulings on Roe vs Wade and race-based affirmative action in universities have given some heart to conservatives, while a Louisiana federal judge's condemnation of media companies' censorship of posts and articles, which subsequently turned out to be accurate, also suggests a positive trend. Yet the next generation, informed by woke education, social media and even Hollywood, offers little scope for confidence in the future.

All of these factors impinge on Australia's national security, a subject which should command more attention even than the related problems of cost-of-living increase and debate on the Voice to Parliament. It provides an urgent context for our misguided energy policy which makes our position with respect to China even more ludicrous. Trade and supply chains are also inseparable from defence, and Australia's dependence on China in these must be given the highest scrutiny in the deliberations of government on national security.

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