Hearing the drums of war as strategic climate changes

Department of Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo’s extraordinary Anzac Day message to staff will disturb many Australians. But its timeliness and gravitas cannot be ignored given deteriorating geo-security in the Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean region. Mr Pezzullo said the least we could do for the dead commemorated on Anzac Day “is to be prepared to face equivalent challenges with the same resolve and sense of duty that they displayed in years past”. A history graduate who served in senior roles in the Department of Defence under both sides of politics, Mr Pezzullo drew on key lessons of 20th-century history. These included the reluctance of Europe to heed the drums of war as they beat through the 1930s, a point made by Scott Morrison last year. As the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty approaches, Mr Pezzullo cited US president and former five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 warning about Soviet military power.

Free nations were again hearing the beating drums and watching the militarisation of issues “that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war”, Mr Pezzullo said. We must continue to “search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war”. By our resolve, military preparedness and statecraft, he said, “let us set about reducing the likelihood of war — but not at the cost of our precious liberty”. We must search for peace until we are faced with the only prudent, if sorrowful, course — to send off, yet again, our warriors to fight the nation’s wars. He did not mention China or Russia by name.

But Australian National University emeritus professor of strategic studies Paul Dibb, a former deputy secretary of defence and director of joint intelligence, did so in these pages on Monday. Russia and China increasingly were operating together militarily, he wrote: “The key question is under what conditions might China and Russia co-ordinate their military actions against the West? Beijing and Moscow both understand Washington can no longer handle two major regional wars concurrently.” Pictures have emerged of Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiling three new warships, amid concern he is preparing to retake Taiwan. One vessel, an amphibious helicopter carrier, was hailed as the most advanced in China’s fleet. It can transport up to 1200 troops and dozens of helicopters and jump jets. A new nuclear-powered submarine can carry 12 JL-2 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The launch coincided with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warning the US would have to accept China’s rise if it wanted to coexist peacefully. But as John Lee writes, China has constructed a narrative to hide its own weaknesses. It needs to be challenged.

Mr Pezzullo’s message is in line with the government’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update. It said we could no longer rely on a previously assumed 10-year warning time before a major conflict, as Australian Strategic Policy Institute defence program director Michael Shoebridge told Ben Packham. The work of deterrence requires greater public understanding of the risks in our strategic environment, Mr Shoebridge says. Risks are best communicated calmly. As a deterrence, Australia and other nations need to raise the costs of military adventurism for potential adversaries. The prudence of Mr Pezzullo’s intervention will be debated, perhaps for a long time. He is right when he says war “shakes confidence in a civilisation’s soul”. Freedom-loving Australians would hate living under its threat; as Eisenhower put it, “humanity hanging from a cross of iron”. Australians are not warmongers. But, while war is folly, the greater folly is to refuse to give it a thought, Mr Pezzullo says. His message follows pertinent comments by Defence Minister Peter Dutton, who until a month ago was Mr Pezzullo’s boss. Mr Dutton has spoken of China’s militarisation on our doorstep, foreign interference and cyber threats. Withdrawal from Afghanistan, he says, will allow troops to ramp up training and operators to master new acquisitions. Australia’s strategic situation, like our Anzac story, is moving on. Defence is moving to the centre of national conversation.