Defence – Against Who, What?

2023-07-02

Is the recent Australian Strategic Defence Review justifying AUKUS or did AUKUS predetermine the outcomes of that Review”? In either case both are contrary to the “sovereignty, security and prosperity” of Australia.

By Chris Johansen, Green Issue Co-editor

In April 2023 the Australian Government released its Defence Strategic Review report. Its stated purpose was “to consider the priority of investment in Defence capabilities and assess the Australian Defence Force’s structure, posture and preparedness in order to optimise Defence capability and posture to meet the nation’s security challenges over the period 2023-24 to 2032-33 and beyond”.

The overall justification of the exercise was to provide “recommendations that seek to maintain our nation’s sovereignty, security and prosperity”. In my view, it does the opposite of this. But I should point out that my view is inevitably tainted by having lived in various Asian countries for a quarter of a century, including a country implied in the report as most threatening to Australia’s “security”.

This review was open to public submissions in late 2022, for which I made a detailed submission. However, obviously, my input was completely ignored. The released report (subsequently referred to as the “Review”) was for public consumption and there was a concurrent more detailed confidential report with “classified” information submitted to the Government.

Surely a first step in working out a defence strategy is developing a clear understanding of what the threat(s) is/are. The Review considers threats to Australia’s “sovereignty, security and prosperity” as just being military ones. It overlooks the biggest threat of all – climate change. There are other potential threats, like a massive earthquake, a huge volcanic eruption or a large meteor strike, but we would have little control over their occurrence and so they are not considered here. I’m afraid the Review does a poor job at defining military threats and their relative importance in relation to other real threats.

The threat of invasion

Logically, the prime role of a “defence” force is to deter, or repel if necessary, territorial invasion. Looking around the Asia-Pacific region it is difficult to identify any country with ambitions of “invading” Australia.

A major reason for military conflict is border disputes. The only border dispute Australia has had in recent times is that of the maritime border with Timor Leste. But this was supposedly settled in 2019. If it wasn’t though, it would be difficult to imagine an armada of warships and squadrons of bombers of the Timor Leste armed forces bearing down on northern Australia.

Although not explicitly stated in the Review, China is obviously considered the country most threatening to Australia, in a military sense, despite it being our biggest trading partner. This is assumed through the hegemonic battle between the US and China and the sanctity of the military ties between the US and Australia. Despite US claims of Chinese ambitions of military expansionism, there is little evidence that China wishes to militarily expand beyond its existing borders, just protect them. China is surrounded by US bases and frequent naval exercises off its shores and its defence build up is in response to this.

The current justification of Australia’s stance alongside the US is that it is contributing to the “global rules-based order”. This is essentially the “order” set up by the US as victors in World War 2, assuming the US to be the world’s policeman, and judge, jury and executioner. The world has since changed.

However, the most likely scenario for a Chinese attack on Australia itself is if major military conflict between the US and China did break out. China would promptly bomb, nuclear or conventional, US military sites in Australia – at Pine Gap, Darwin and Stirling Naval Base in Cockburn Sound (being a base for US nuclear submarines). There is a simple way to avoid such an attack and that is not to have US bases in Australia. In other words, Australia’s alliance with the USA makes it more prone to foreign attack, not safer from it.

Including China, apart from if it goes to war with the USA, I can think of no country in the Asia-Pacific region with ambitions to invade Australia in the short- or long-term. Maybe there is information to the contrary in the confidential, full Review report submitted to the Australian Government?

The biggest threat to “invasion” of Australia will come from a rising generation of boat people, climate refugees. Nuclear submarines and long range missiles won’t help much here. More on that later.

Involvement in faraway wars

Since World War 2, Australia’s defence has been based on a close, if not sycophantic, relationship with the US, a position of “forward defence”. It assumes that if Australia supports all of the US military engagements the US would automatically come to Australia’s military aid should it be threatened. Of course, that went well didn’t it Vietnam, Iraq x 2, Afghanistan. The justification given for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war was the domino theory – if the North Vietnamese were not stopped the communists would promptly march into the rest of Asia and Australia. Never happened. And with the invasion of Iraq – weapons of mass destruction never found but something worse than Al Qaeda, i.e. Islamic State, created. And Afghanistan – invaded to defeat the Taliban only to be defeated by the Taliban 20 years later.

So why should Australia trust US judgement in getting into future wars? The US is currently reacting to China replacing the US as the dominant economic world power, particularly rankled by it having a political governance system which it abhors (a communist government). It is trying to make a case that China is about to invade Taiwan, even though it still formally agrees that Taiwan is part of China (One China Policy). China-Taiwan is a yet to be settled civil war, best settled by these two parties rather than outsiders like the US and allies. And much is made by Australia and US of China’s human rights violations – er, people who live in glass houses ….

The Review boldly endorses Australia’s ongoing subservience to US foreign policy and even upgrades it by proposing that the country’s future military procurements should be targeted to future faraway wars, rather than just defending its own shores. Its support for AUKUS is reflective of this. Indeed, to me, the Review seems to have been written for the purpose of justifying AUKUS.

The nuclear submarines to be procured under AUKUS are best suited to distant deployment, like off the coast of China, rather than being suitable for protecting Australia’s coastline. Through AUKUS, Australia cedes large swathes of sovereignty to the US due to US patent over the nuclear propulsion system and the Force Posture Agreement providing the US exclusive jurisdiction in its Australian bases. Rather than enhancing Australia’s security AUKUS makes Australia a prime target in any future major conflict involving the US. Several of Australia’s neighbours, with whom we should be fostering relations for mutual security, have expressed disquiet about Australia’s procurement of nuclear submarines. AUKUS was born as an attempt to get the previous Coalition government re-elected – the age-old political ploy of creating an enemy and claiming that you are the best party to defend against it. I could go on about the multifaceted stupidity of AUKUS but I’ll stop here.

Further critique, more damning than mine, of the Review/AUKUS can be found in recent articles by Caitlin Johnstone, Dennis Argall, Greg Lockhart and here, Major General Michael G Smith AO (Ret’d), John Blackburn, Jim Coombs, Paul Keating, William Briggs, Chris Barrie, John Blackburn and Ian Dunlop, Alison Broinowski, Margaret Reynolds; and oh so many more.

The biggest security threat

Climate change poses the biggest threat to Australia’s “sovereignty, security and prosperity” now and increasingly into the future. It is obviously manifesting itself now with all manner of weather, ice melt, wildfire, flooding, etc. records being broken, faster than predicted just a decade ago. As global fossil fuel emissions are as yet showing no sign of abating, the intensification of climate change related grief is inevitable. Australia, along with most countries, faces enormous climate adaptation challenges. Those nations unable to cope will produce increasing numbers of climate refugees, with Australia seen as a possible place of refuge. Any consideration of Australia’s defence needs to address this reality. To the contrary, the Review sidelines the climate issue claiming that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) should be exonerated from climate related rescue and rehabilitation responsibilities and this left to local authorities.

An alternative approach to defence

I am not implying that the ADF should be downsized or disbanded, but that it should be reoriented to the following mandate:

  • Have military hardware suitable for the defence of Australia’s borders only (nuclear subs and long-range missiles not needed). And this should be relevant only to possible military invasion threats – which seem difficult to substantiate – and should thus not be excessively costly.
  • No foreign bases or military-type activities on Australian soil. This would mean ending the Force Posture Agreement with the US, which essentially makes Australia a target in the event of a conflict involving the US.
  • A substantial increase in climate adaptation preparedness, requiring a military-style force able to be rapidly deployed across the country according to incidence of inevitably increasing climate-related disasters.
  • Ability to rescue, receive and process an inevitable increase in climate refugees trying to reach Australia, but hopefully not along the lines of Operation Sovereign Borders with its boat turn-backs and offshore imprisonment and psychological torture of detainees.
  • Overseas deployment restricted to training and UN peacekeeping (although as Australia is widely viewed as being a lackey of the US this may not be feasible).

This approach would need to be complemented by vastly enhanced diplomatic input in the Asia-Pacific region. This needs to be backed by substantially increased development assistance, especially in the areas of climate resilience and humanitarian procedures for managing climate refugees. Minimizing the reasons for any nation of the region to invade Australia would be the most effective and cheapest way of avoiding invasion, as opposed to arming up against an invasion from an unspecified source.

Header photo:  Artist rendering of possible design for SSN-AUKUS submarines. BAE Systems. Wikimedia Commons

[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]