Tony Abbott warns ‘war drums are beating‘

Tony Abbott warns the free world has entered the ‘post-1945’ era vulnerable to dictatorships, having eroded their defence capabilities over decades.

Former PM Tony Abbott has warned of “restless, revisionist dictatorships”. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

Tony Abbott says the “war drums are beating again” as dictators in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran exploit fissures in the democratic world made by an unlikely ­coalition of Donald Trump-­supporting US Republicans and far left social activists.

The former prime minister said the free world had entered the “post-1945” era vulnerable to “restless, revisionist dictatorships”, having eroded their defence capabilities over decades.

“At one level, the problem we have – now that the war drums are beating again, in a way they haven’t for generations – is that the democracies’ armed forces are dreadfully run down,” Mr ­Abbott said in a speech delivered in London published in The Australian.

He said that was being compounded by the failure of the US congress to vote for more funds and weapons for Ukraine.

Republican members working with former president Trump have insisted that further military aid will be agreed to only in return for changes to US immigration policies.

Mr Abbott said this was taking place as Vladimir Putin continued what the Russian autocrat thought was “a mission from God” to claim back territories lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party oversaw “the greatest military expansion in peacetime history”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping via a video link. Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev / AFP

He said the “isolationism now rampant inside the Republican Party” was being driven by the “free-riding” of other countries on US strength, leaving the democratic world dangerously vulnerable. “We’re still sleepwalking through lotus land, thinking that the leaders of other countries are as preoccupied as ours … and wanting to believe that because war is unthinkable to us, it must be equally unthinkable to everyone else,” Mr Abbott said.

He said many people in Australia, Britain and other democracies were more focused on “toppling” statues and championing the rights of Palestinians than deterring “global villains” like Mr Putin and Mr Xi.

“Democracies can’t fight without weapons but won’t fight without the belief that we’re worth fighting for; it’s actually our moral disarmament, rather than our military decrepitude, that’s behind the looming catastrophe,” he said.

“The immediate need is to re-arm Ukraine, stand by Israel, position more ships and planes into East Asia, urgently excise China from critical supply chains, swiftly rebuild our defence industrial infrastructure, be ready to mobilise armed forces that adversaries would shrink to take on, and better befriend India, which should one day be America’s equal as a bastion of democracy.

“For that to happen, we need first to be sure that our countries are worth preserving; to me, a no-brainer, but not, perhaps, to generations steeped in notions of white privilege and the evils of colonisation.”

Xi Jinping waves from a vehicle as he reviews the troops at a military parade in Beijing. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

His gloomy assessment was delivered weeks after British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the UK was “moving from a post-war to pre-war world” and “our adversaries are now more connected with each other”.

It comes after Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Friday said China’s rapid military build-up was continuing “without the transparency and reassurance that the region looks for from great powers”, raising tensions in the Indo-Pacific.

In a keynote address in Perth in front of her Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Senator Wong said “deterrence and reassurance are both required to reduce the risk of conflict”.

“Transparency is at the centre of our approach – setting standards for ourselves and expecting those standards to be emulated by others. But without credible military capability, the efficacy of diplomacy is invariably diminished. And without ever more active diplomacy, the risk of military capabilities being called into service is greater,” she said.

Mr Abbott’s assessment was far blunter, including on Canberra’s nightmare scenario: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. He said “as long as there’s a hard-line communist regime in Beijing … there will be an attempt to seize Taiwan … if possible, without a fight, through subversion and cybersiege; otherwise through a blockade; but eventually through the mother of all bombardments and armed occupation of the ruins.”

He said an attack on Taiwan could precipitate the end of the US alliance system. “If the US fails to defend Taiwan, the whole global order is deranged, as former US allies make the best accommodations they can with their challengers; or alternatively arm themselves to the teeth in the harsh new world that the Pax Americana no longer sustains.”