Timely defence escalation to meet strategic dangers

On Wednesday Scott Morrison issued a clarion call to the nation. We have arrived at a pivotal moment in history. The Prime Minister’s speech at the Australian Defence Force Academy marks a seismic shift in how the government views our security and the stability of our immediate region, and the stability of the wider global order. Since European settlement in 1788 the security of this continent has depended on the maritime supremacy of two great liberal democracies — Britain and the US. Throughout our history as a sovereign nation, our security, and on one occasion our national survival, depended on the global order provided by those two allies, whose values we share and whose institutions have shaped our own culture and polity. Australia is a trading nation and the security of our sea lanes has been guaranteed in turn by the hegemony of Britain, then the US. While we paid an enormous price in the two great global conflagrations of the 20th century, we enjoyed considerable prosperity without being required to divert large portions of our gross domestic product to national security. Rather than making us a lucky country, that indulgence, arguably, made us a fools’ paradise. Only in the earliest and darkest days of the Pacific War was an enemy state able to strike directly at our homeland. In the intervening decades we became complacent about the state of the world. Our geography is that of an island continent. Our strategic culture has conformed to that insularity. For too long we assumed that the US would continue to preside over our region and the global order. China would rise to the status of a great power and inevitably would democratise as it became enmeshed in the global market economy. Russia would be weakened and acquiescent in its status as a vanquished superpower.

These rosy assumptions have not been vindicated. At the height of that benign period no less a leader than John Howard asserted that Australia need not choose between its Anglo-American history and its Asian geography. On Wednesday, Mr Morrison effectively declared that benign era has come to an end. History has not ended. Indeed, if history is any guide, we are entering a period of grave danger. The last time the global system accommodated two totalitarian capitalist states, German and Japan, was during the 1930s. World War II ensued. It is not alarmist to observe, as did this newspaper’s Greg Sheridan and Jim Molan, a distinguished former soldier, that the strategic outlook in our immediate region is dire. There is a very real risk of great power conflict in the Indo-Pacific. It is not fanciful to suggest that any one of a number of flashpoints could erupt into conventional war.

Nor is there any polite way of ignoring the common denominator in all these potential conflicts. China now constitutes a grave risk to the peace and stability of our region. Under Xi Jinping, China has become belligerent and provocative. It seems to have viewed the recent tumult in the West as a symptom of terminal decay. Thus emboldened, it has intensified its repression of civil liberty in Hong Kong and made ominous hints about its claims to Taiwan. In recent weeks it has also acted provocatively towards Japan and Vietnam. It has engaged in bloody clashes along the disputed Line of Actual Control with India. This intensification of its reprehensible behaviour towards its neighbours follows the steady militarisation of natural and artificial reefs in the South China Sea during the past few years. The West was far too complacent about this activity, which has now created a new ground reality designed to ensure forward basing of US naval and air forces inside the so-called second island chain became untenable. In relentlessly pursuing this course, China has treated international law with contempt. Its territorial claims, defined by its preposterous Nine Dash Line, has created growing consternation in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and The Philippines. But of more immediate concern has been its overt hostility towards, and bullying of, Australia through hysterical accusations of racism and sinister cyber operations against our infrastructure and attempts to subvert our democratic institutions. Finally, Mr Morrison has declared that a bright line must be drawn between civility and appeasement. To the brutal regime in Beijing, the price of peace is supine compliance. The choice between our history and geography has been made for us — by the regime in Beijing.

This newspaper argued last November that Australia needed to bolster its forward defences in northern Australia, and to procure armed drones and land-based ballistic missiles. We welcome the comprehensive and urgent suite of measures announced by Mr Morrison. Together, they enhance our capability to deny intrusions upon the vital sea and air approaches to our nation. They are defensive in nature and will be employed only in the event of direct threat.

However, they also permit us to support our allies, especially the US and India, in maintaining freedom of passage through vital sea lanes through enhancements to our mine warfare capabilities. This measure and our procurement of anti-ballistic missiles are long overdue. Apologists for the Chinese Communist Party will blame Australia for the rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. Some will resort to the hoary chestnut of white Australian racism. That is nonsense. Australia is one of numerous Asian nations summoning the resolve to resist China’s revisionist ambitions.

The ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic have already restored the primacy of the nation-state as the source of security and allegiance. Hard borders and more realistic Westphalian alliances will replace fluid borders and the footloose cosmopolitanism of the post-Cold War era. Davos Man has succumbed to the virus.

Mr Morrison is correct in moving urgently to ensure that Australia has the means to secure its sovereignty and liberal democratic values as we enter what some are terming a new cold war. By showing resolve and acquiring the means to deter threats, we ensure that it remains a cold war.