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Tuesday, November 02, 2021

The great Australian defence strategy delusion



The great Australian defence strategy delusion



From Murray Hunter

Australia has been under siege from China, feeling alone and isolated over the last 18 months. China has lambasted Australia through its unofficial mouthpiece The Global Times and suspended contact with Australian ministers, while Australian exports to China have been embargoed, ironically benefitting the United States.

Over the last few years, revelations about Chinese interference and manipulation of Australian society and politics have been given massive attention by the press.

China also began a caustic style of what has become known as “wolf warrior” diplomacy, backed up with trade sanctions against Australian goods. China, which kept the Australian economy buoyant with the minerals boom during the millennium period, suddenly turned into a perceived adversary, where Australia felt it had to act.

Australia misread China, calling for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 and receiving retaliation that other countries did not receive. This provides some anecdotal evidence that China is using Australia as a testing ground for its harsh diplomatic approach.

Falling into China’s trap

Australia fell into China’s trap by trying to punch above its weight, using the metaphorical analogy that economic historian Lim Teck Ghee painted of recent Australia-China exchanges.

The cornerstone of Australian defence policy, the Australia-US alliance, has blinded policy makers into skewing security options towards the containment strategy pushed by the Biden administration.

This cut out other possible defence options that might be much more suitable for Australia, a small power, geographically situated on the fringe of Southeast Asia, with China as the number one trading partner.

This rush to join Biden’s Indo-Pacific containment doctrine is already showing consequences.

Australia’s relationship with France has soured. French president Emmanuel Macron has accused Australian prime minister Scott Morrison of lying, and doing irrefutable damage to Australia’s reputation around the world.

This has reverberated to the UK where France and Britain’s row over fishing rights is escalating. There will be a period of mistrust between Britain and France at a time when Russia is amassing troops along the Ukraine border.

With France’s possessions in the Pacific Islands neighbouring Australia, there could possibly be diplomatic issues arising within the Pacific region. US president Joe Biden effectively cast the blame of the Aukus issue on Australia, which is hardly a confidence-boosting action for the US-Australia alliance under the current administration.

Reservations in Asean

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have reservations over the Aukus agreement. Indonesia controls the waters Australian submarines must navigate through to reach the South China Sea.

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has not welcomed the deal, while Singapore has reluctantly accepted it.

Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear submarines will definitely influence Indonesia to upgrade its military, and even consider the acquisition of nuclear weapons, as it has said.

Even New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her government’s displeasure over Australia’s decision to acquire a nuclear submarine fleet.

One would expect members of the Chinese United Front within the Chinese diaspora to further destabilise Australian society. Further espionage will go on surveying Australian defence facilities, and even within Australia’s security organisations. China has this capability, where Australian authorities have tended to be silent on this weakness.

Australia’s defence strategy has turned into a costly delusion.

Nothing tangible for Australia’s defence

The Aukus agreement signed between Australia, the UK and the US in September is nothing more than a sharing of nuclear submarine technology, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, and long-range strike capabilities, and has nothing immediately tangible for Australia’s defence. Currently the agreement is about intentions.

At this stage there is very little detail about the actualities of Aukus. The Australian submarines will take more than a decade to go online into service. By that time, the whole strategic situation might be completely different. Any issue concerning Taiwan’s security may well occur long before Australia even sees a single submarine.

What more, the situation in China is currently volatile, with challenges to premier Xi Jinping’s authority and vision of China. This makes China a big unknown, and in the short term Australia joining countries aiming to contain China may be very counterproductive to Australia’s strategic interests.

Aukus is more a regeneration of the old ANZUS agreement with the UK taking New Zealand’s place.

If the US and UK use Australia as a base and staging ground for a nuclear submarine fleet, Australia will just be more vulnerable to a nuclear attack from China in the event of a superpower crisis. This is the opposite to what Australia should want.

No deterrent for potential enemies

Even if Australia is able to buy, lease or build nuclear-powered submarines quickly without strategic nuclear weapons on board, these platforms will not be strategic deterrents for potential enemies.

At best, Australia’s nuclear submarines will only be tactical platforms for conventional weapons. They may not be suitable for deployment around the shallow waters off Australia’s coastline to defend the country against any future military threat.

The strategic alliance Australia just signed with Asean has little to do with security. Asean is not a defence pact, and has differing member views on China.

Asean members have mutually coexisted with China for more than a thousand years. Asean is in effect a neutral party which sees superpower coexistence in the South China Sea as desirable.

During the recent Asean Summit in Brunei, the bloc also signed strategic alliances with the US, China and Russia. Asean is scheduled to have a special summit with China in November to bring their multilateral relationship up another tier.

Provocative Quad

Australia’s participation in the Quadrilateral Security Cooperation Agreement or Quad, is an organisation that former prime minister John Howard saw as a platform for Australia to play a key role along with the US in the region.

Canberra at the time had the view of being the US deputy sheriff, running on from the war on terror era. However, Quad itself has changed with Quad Plus, and one of the cornerstone countries in the so-called frontline, South Korea, has been very reluctant to fully commit to the US containment view of the region. There are strong opinions from political analysts that Quad’s role in the region may be more provocative than stabilising peace.

Australia cannot afford to develop an offensive armoury. This will leave the Australian continent poorly defended. Australia needs strategic bombers, tactical fighters and submarines that are agile in shallow waters to defend Australia. A small number of nuclear warheads will send the message that Australia, although a small military country, would be very costly to engage.

Australia must come to the realisation that no country may come to its defence over low-scale localised military action. This is more likely to become an immediate threat to Australia, than a mass invasion from the north.

A potential enemy would use forward bases in Indonesia or Papua New Guinea to launch nuisance attacks, provoke skirmishes on the waters around the country, or make probing flights into Australian territory, all that we have seen in the South China Sea and the Taiwan straits.

Most probably, Australia will have to deal with this alone.

Every Australian may feel the pain

The biggest cost to Australia is the need to compromise the nation’s freedom to determine its own policies.

The Biden-Johnson axis pressured the Morrison government to commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. This severely strained the cohesiveness of the Liberal National Party coalition, and may even cost Morrison the election when it is due next year.

Morrison’s reputation after Aukus and his reversal on climate change policy has done him a lot of personal damage for a conference that couldn’t come to any firm agreement.

It’s time for Australia to come to the realisation that it is not a middle power. Australia just can’t spend the money to do it.

Australia’s defence strategy decisions are creating more risk for national security, rather than safeguarding it. Unfortunately, most of the analysts and academics Canberra listen to have given Aukus hawkish approval.

The concept of “Fortress Australia” has been abandoned for the delusion of playing like a middle power.

Aukus won’t solve Australia’s diplomatic issues with China. In fact, it will probably make them worse, and this could be felt very quickly with further losses in trade.

This means that eventually, every Australian may feel the pain in some way or another. Since Aukus was announced, Australia has increased its breadth of strained relations with other nations.

Threats closer to home

Australia has 20,000 km of coastline that needs protection. This should be Scott Morrison’s number one priority, not being an appendix to the US vision of containment.

Australia has other potential threats much closer to home.

A survey by the Alvara Research Centre in October 2017 of 4,200 students at 25 universities indicated that 20% supported an Islamic Caliphate in Indonesia, and 30% were prepared to wage jihad in some form.

This number is growing rapidly, and the influence of fundamental and radicalised Islam on Indonesian society and politics has been grossly underestimated by Australian analysts.

This threat must be taken seriously and prepared for, if one day in the near future Australia shares a border with an Islamic Caliphate. Local governments in many regions within Indonesia are already introducing very strict Shariah laws.

It’s time for Australia to reflect deeply upon its own geoposition in the world rather than the views from the other side of the world. Until Australia does this, it will not be an independent country.


8 comments:

  1. Why are we even discussing another country’s defence policy? We should just STFU.

    If so kaypoh why are we not discussing 5000 yo Bully’s aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong? Now they are building Type 3 and 4 and Type 4 is a nuclear propulsion aircraft carrier, work started YEARS AGO, in 2017.

    No Meow From Us?

    Oz hasn’t even decided what type of subs they want and we are already “concerned”.

    QUOTE
    The Type 004 is planned to be larger than the Type 003, and also feature nuclear propulsion, which could power weapons like lasers and railguns. It is claimed that construction started in December 2017 at Jiangnan Shipyard.
    UNQUOTE

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    1. Blurred mfer, using yr same f*cked argument, WHY r u ranting about the Chinese aircraft carriers?

      R they r f*cking business?

      Ooop… once the master dictates so, the ball carriers just follow!

      YES?

      Delete
  2. I call it the Great Asean Security delusion.
    Malaysia ,being an excellent example, is daily facing intimidation from armed People's Republic China warships to its oil exploration ships , close to Sarawak waters, within its EEZ.
    Yet Malaysia chose to be quiet as a mouse, not saying anything to China.
    It's idiotic policy, which Communist China will consider as a sign of weakness, or worse , acceptance.

    The Australian nuclear submarines will be based far away , bases on Australian soil, yet Malaysia chose to jump up and down like a monkey, even the Malaysian Defence Minister going to Beijing to receive his instructions.

    Classic case of shooting oneself in the foot.

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    1. Old moneyed mfer, u should rephrase it as the Great American Security delusion.

      When those US fleets roaming around the SCS, mfers, like u, consider that exercise as a defense of peace & regional security!

      Not a fart is leaked as most of the SCS neighbouring countries chose to be quiet as a mouse, not ever realising that the eminent threats that the China faced.

      The very likely consequence is a possible war when a unfortunate mistake happens.

      WHO starts the FIRE?

      And why a far far away foreign nation cares to dig dirt in other's backyard?

      "Sign of weakness, or worse , acceptance"?

      Haven't u for once thought about how the Chinese felt?

      Oooop… for a banana hating it's skin, that thought is never flashing through its petrified anmokausai mind!

      Oz has a peaceful treaty with the ASEAN. Anything the dingo does to unsettled that regional treaty is a BIG threat to the ASEAN region security. So why shouldn't m'sia jump up and down like a monkey like the rest of the ASEAN members?

      Again, for a China/CPC/Chinese basher, u wouldn't or more likely unwilling to see into that direction!

      Delete
  3. Murray Hunter!

    Wakakakakaka… definitely no hp6 but absolutely WASP indoctrinated.

    "Chinese United Front within the Chinese diaspora to further destabilise Australian society"

    Wow… from his yrs of Chinese observation? Or just that yellow peril imagination.

    "the situation in China is currently volatile, with challenges to premier Xi Jinping’s authority and vision of China"

    Wow… a China fear mongering from a China observatory far far away from the China epic centre!

    President Xi is in an absolute popularity with the Chinese mass. The reinvigoration of the Chinese is in his term - with the complete reunification of Taiwan.

    The concept of “Fortress Australia” has NOT been abandoned by US. With the formation of Aukus & Quad clearly planted the 5th Pacific defend line that would further strengthen ANY East Pacific warfront from encroaching too close to the Yankee mainland.

    Australia will never reflect deeply upon its own geoposition in the Asia Pacific region rather than the views from the other side of the world - both European &/or US!

    The white Australian supremacists r too deeply ingrained into the mindsets of those controlling polidingos.

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  4. Older generation Australians will remember Darwin was repeatedly bombed in 1942 by Japanesen aircraft flying from what is present day Indonesia.
    Geography hasn't changed - future security threats to Australia will come from that direction or from the surrounding oceans.

    Those were desperate days in February - July 1942. Some 15,000 Australian soldiers had been taken prisoner in Singapore and Malaya, another 2,000 killed or wounded. Almost the entire trained Australian Army was gone.

    It looked certain Japan would invade mainland Australia , and plans had been made to evacuate Darwin, and fall back to defensive lines stretching from the Outback to Brisbane. It was thought even Brisbane would be indefensible.

    THE BIG difference that shored up Australian morale, and hope was the arrival of the Yanks army, navy and Air force. Inexperienced though they were in the early days.

    The Australians, especially the older generation have never forgotten that.

    Australian public support for Anzus, UKUSA, and now AUKUS is rock-solid, notwithstanding the minority elite Lefties critics like Murray Hunter.

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    1. Where do u c&p these trash that Yankee came to the defense of the Oz when the Jap was planning The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or the GEACPS?

      When GEACPS was ongoing, yr uncle Sam was busy making blood monies out of its military HW to both the Axis & Alliance in the WWII!

      Do u actually understand the intention of ANZUS?

      Wakakakakaka…

      The ANZUS treaty was signed in 1951 to reassure the two countries that they would be protected and bolster their support for the ANTI-COMMUNIST cause. The parties agreed to maintain and develop the military resources needed to resist an attack, and to consult the others if their security was threatened in the Pacific.

      However, the ANZUS Treaty has only been formally invoked once – in the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Twenty years on, with the 70th Anniversary of ANZUS and the recent withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan, it bears reflecting on the Treaty and how it has influenced the relationship.

      In March 5, 1946, signing of the BRUSA (now known as UKUSA) Agreement marked the reaffirmation of the vital WWII cooperation between the United Kingdom and United States.

      Where is the interest of Oz? The wounded land was only an outpost of auntie pommie to excommunicate her convicts!

      & now AUKUS - a repeat of the f*cked UKUSA to extend the sacrificial role of the dingoland for the failed glory of uncle Sam & auntie pommie!

      Delete
  5. Yeah, Murray Hunter (!) he's certainly no hp6 as aptly pointed out by CK, but WHOAH....he surprisingly reveals a side of him when he went quite off the rail when he jauntily talked about how China had been 'treating' Australia.

    Hunter wrote : "China also began a caustic style of what has become known as “wolf warrior” diplomacy, backed up with trade sanctions against Australian goods."

    What sanctions ?

    China has SANCTIONED European and American INDIVIDUALS and BUSINESSES for infringing china's sovereignty. That short list includes Mike Pompeo and Boeing's military division. Most are reciprocal sanctions in response to unilateral sanctions on Chinese individuals and companies. The exception are those related to arms sales to Taiwan, a clear violation of the ONE CHINA principle, which is recognized by the UN.

    China has not sanctioned Australia because no line has been crossed yet.

    However, China is walking away from a trillion dollar economy it helped create by increasing exports more than 200 times in the last 3 decades.

    China is diversifying from Australia, not sanctioning it. Murray Hunter needs to get very clear on this.

    And this "Chinese interference and manipulation of Australian society and politics" are just pure bullshit ! Hunter mentioned that Australia had fallen into China's trap.....but it is more accurate to say that it was he himself who has been trapped in the Western toxic media echo chamber with regards to China, quite saddening really, given that Hunter is pretty sharp eyed in his analysis about the South East Asian regions.

    As for the rest of the senseless so-called Chinese United Front within the Chinese diaspora to further destabilise Australian society ( OMG, what is THAT ?) and Xi having 'volatile" challenges to his 'authority' now ! the less said the better.

    Really baffling what's the Ozzie Govt is trying to pull, having shot itself so squarely in the foot. Will Australia ever seek to fix its relationship with China? Can Canberra just say no to Washington, or does it want to say no?

    I guess it must feel pain first, before the leaders realize the error of its policies.

    However, it will be hard to reverse the long term commitment of hundreds of billions in subsidy for Indopacom war making in the Western Pacific, particularly the SCS.

    Australia fancies itself a major pacific power with a trillion dollar economy.

    China will not allow Australia to aim guns at China using profits from the lucrative Chinese market.

    Australia will have a hard time to find new demand to replace the sunshine growth of the last decade, so we will see it mire in more pain as it lashes out ever more so at China, pointing the finger of blame at someone else, of course.






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