Piers Akerman: Trump card in fight for global security against the bad guys
THE threat to global security has never been greater since the end of the Cold War, but Donald Trump is rapidly proving to be the West’s best bet in the face of the unprecedented dangers we face, Piers Akerman writes.
Opinion
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THE threat to global security has never been greater since the end of the Cold War, but Donald Trump is rapidly proving to be the West’s best bet in the face of the unprecedented dangers we face — and there are encouraging signs that Western leaders are finally growing some backbone.
The bad actors in this scenario are China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Ruthless totalitarian nations all, with no regard for international peace if it interferes with their expansionist ambitions.
China has extended its reach into the Pacific, even to the extent of creating artificial islands to house forward naval, air and ground troops; Russia has sent operatives into the Ukraine and Syria, although it tries to deny they are connected to the government; Iran is pushing its special forces into regional conflicts, including Syria, and is backing Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon as it moves to create a Shia crescent across the Middle East; and North Korea is rapidly developing its nuclear capability and supplying Iran with nuclear weapons technology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s smirking disavowal of the recent nerve gas attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia in the face of Western condemnation demonstrated the former KGB agent’s hubris, but it also galvanised the European nations into rare public unity.
Recently re-elected German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not the same woman she was when she opened her nation to more than a million pseudo-refugees in 2015. She is now steering a more steady course.
French President Emmanuel Macron has agreed to work with the US on the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
The meeting in Sydney this weekend of nine of the 10 leaders of the ASEAN nations (health reasons prevented Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte from attending) could not be timelier.
President Duterte’s replacement, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, will play a central role today when the ASEAN heads discuss terrorism. Australia has a significant military presence in the southern Philippines, where the government is engaged in a long-running war against Islamist terrorists.
But, as with the Western bloc in Europe, the ASEAN leaders have also found a new unity in the face of the Chinese and North Korean threats.
The Belt and Road initiative, inserting itself in domestic politics and running propaganda campaigns through newspapers are all part of China’s imperialism.
Our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, has sharply warned the Chinese against aggressively intruding in the waters surrounding the Natuna Islands.
In 2016, Indonesian warships fired warning shots on Chinese-flagged fishing vessels and President Joko Widodo held a cabinet meeting on a warship as it cruised in the islands in an important gesture that stressed Indonesia’s rights to the waters that lie within what China calls its “nine-dash” line — on which China bases its ambitious claim for most of the South China Sea.
Vietnam is an important player. Despite their close ethnic ties, Vietnam has been suspicious of China for centuries.
It deeply resented China’s demands over the centuries that Vietnam become a tribute state.
That feeling is still alive and well in Vietnam, which last year showed where it believes its future lies by hosting a US aircraft carrier — the first to visit since the Vietnam War.
Bizarrely, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his ministers came late to the Trumpian position, and Turnbull still seems to be uncritical of both China and of Mao.
It is now openly acknowledged that Russia and China have been conducting cyber-warfare against other nations for decades, but the West and the ASEAN nations are now ramping up strategies to counter-attack.
Australian defences were hugely depleted under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments, hence the dramatic efforts by the Abbott-Turnbull Coalition to repair Labor’s damage.
One of the gravest setbacks to regional security was former prime minister Rudd’s 2008 decision to unwind the strategic alliance with the US, Japan and India known as the Quad, in a move that was seen as Rudd kowtowing to China.
The Quad is now back on track and one its strongest long-term supporters in the US, Admiral Harry Harris, is the American ambassador-designate to Australia — a great appointment for our nation.
However there is a need to prepare for the worst. North Korea is a master at playing Western politicians — President Bill Clinton entered talks with North Korea which the North Koreans used to buy time as they continued to build their nuclear program.
In holding out the prospect of talks on nuclear non-proliferation, North Korea has opened the prospect of endless rounds of negotiations during which it will continue to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
It has already used the recent Winter Olympics as a propaganda tool to soften its image in the West — the ploy of sending Kim Yo-jong, younger sister of leader Kim Jong-un, to PyeongChang was a masterstroke. She was the first member of North Korea’s ruling family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Defence experts say, however, that the US will not permit another stalling process, and that unless something tangible is achieved by late this year (September has been mentioned) look for more pressure to be brought to bear on the rogue state.
Trump has been well aware of the tactic and believes the US government has been far too risk-averse in the past.
Minimising risk in the short-term compounds risk in the long-term and he believes that the US must bear greater risk. So must Australia.
We have greater economic leverage than is generally understood, as a supplier of LNG, coal, iron and uranium.
With stronger regional alliances our combined opposition to authoritarian regimes may make the essential difference now.
If it doesn’t, the game might well be over and the West will be the loser.
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