Think of China as an aggressive fellow prisoner and plan defence strategy accordingly

China’s guided-missile frigate Yantai arrives at Yantai Port in Shandong Province during a celebration of the 74th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy in 2023. Picture: Tang Ke/VCG.

Australia’s defence posture is disturbingly reminiscent of my readiness to be a security guard in Sydney’s west in the mid-1980s.

In short, the nation is as unprepared for conflict as I was when wandering through shopping centres with a handgun strapped to my belt.

First some context.

I had not chosen security as a profession. Like Australia’s strategic dilemma, it was a time delivered by unhappy circumstance. My first choice – spending three years in a Catholic seminary – had, remarkably, not equipped me for getting a job in the real world during a recession.

I rapidly learned my options were limited. After two years as a storeman and packer I decided to try my hand at security. That involved spending precious money on a three-day course run by a former cop and hoping it would translate into work.

The course included a half day’s training in unarmed combat run by a former soldier and amateur boxer. His advice on how to win a fight seemed sensible.

“Don’t get hit,” the boxer said. This is easier if you have the reflexes of Muhammad Ali but the basic concept is sound. His call on how to deal with someone wielding a blade was debatable.

“Run at the knife,” he said.

I questioned this theory and he explained his thesis rested on three planks.

First, it is an unexpected move (undoubtedly true because it had never occurred to me). Second, getting in close limits the ability of the assailant to swing his arm and, well, kill you (possibly true but insane). Third, you should, apparently, be prepared to sacrifice a hand to avoid being stabbed in the heart/lung/kidney. (The caveat is there is a better than even chance of multiple stab wounds.)

Fully trained, I was ready for work.

It was the practice of the now-defunct western suburbs security agency I had joined for guards to line up at its Parramatta office to be assigned jobs scrawled on a blackboard. The line was a multicultural melting pot of Sydney’s greater west.

On the first night I learned another valuable lesson: just because you are a migrant doesn’t mean you welcome all migration.

“Mate,” said the guy behind me in an accent I couldn’t place. “When you get to the front of the line he’s going to offer you a job at McDonald’s at Cabramatta,” he said.

“Good,” I replied. “I need a job.”

“Don’t take it.”

“Why?”

“The Viets. They will stab you, mate,” he said in a stage whisper. “They stabbed one of our guys last week and none of us will do the job.”

There ensued a vigorous debate in the line among the last wave of migrants about the failings of the newest mob. Greeks, Italians, Lebanese and currency lads debated and decided that, as a guard, being hit was fair play and if they fell, they fully expected to be kicked.

But stabbing someone, all agreed, that was un-Australian. I was offered, and declined, the McDonald’s job.

Uhlmann was given unarmed combat training by an amateur boxer, but it was hardly going to be according to Queensberry Rules.

One night the guy behind the desk offered an opportunity to patrol what was then called Mt Druitt Marketown.

“That’s a gun job,” he declared before turning to a safe behind the counter, pulling out a Smith & Wesson revolver and plonking it on the counter alongside six ­bullets.

“The bullets go in there,” he motioned to the empty chambers on the gun’s cylinder. “Don’t shoot anyone.”

I added it to my belt, which also boasted a PR-24 side-handle baton and a Maglite torch. The Maglite is 80cm long, made from high-strength aluminium, and when you fill it with four D-cell batteries weighs about a kilo. It is a club disguised as a torch.

In security school the ex-cop had advised we all buy a Maglite because, if you ever found the need to brain someone, deploying the torch over the baton made your argument of self-defence more plausible in court.

With more weapons on my belt than Batman I went to the shopping centre. This became my regular Thursday and Friday night gig.

It was there I met a colleague known as The Screw because his day job was as a prison guard. He wasn’t big but he exuded brutality. He even made the Maori we worked with nervous.

The Screw was an hour late for a shift change one night. I had missed my train while covering for him and that prompted me to complain, as he wandered through the centre doors at about midnight.

He had very particular views on dispute resolution.

“Get your baton, let’s go outside,” he said.

I declined because I had seen Midnight Express. I spent the long wait at the station and the journey home that night pondering what the prisoners he oversaw must be like if he was the good guy.

The Screw was a man of few words but he must have grown to like me a bit because one night, for no apparent reason, he proffered some life advice.

“Never fight naked,” he warned.

I was touched. He had reached into the dark mine of his experience and produced a nugget. I tried not to imagine how he might have found himself fighting naked, in prison, but thanked him for the sage counsel.

It is wisdom that has guided me ever since. It is endlessly adaptable if you take it to mean “Be prepared”. Don’t leave events to chance. Know yourself. Play to your strengths and understand your weaknesses. Plan for every foreseeable circumstance.

Let’s apply The Screw’s rule to something big, like defending Australia.

The government says we are in the most dangerous strategic circumstances since World War II. China is arming at warp speed and poses threats in the real and virtual world. It’s already waging a grey war with its economy, its military, its fishing fleet, its criminal drug-running syndicates, its cyber warriors and a foreign legion of volunteer useful idiots.

The never-fight-naked-rule means tooling up. Fast. Sure, plan for the next decade, but find a broken bottle to fight with now.

Instead, we are the pantomime hero staring dumbly into the theatre as the audience screams, “He’s behind you!”

Let’s boil the geopolitics down a bit. Australia is nude, lathered up in the shower and has dropped the soap. A curious Comanchero lifer has appeared at the open door.

This could end badly.