Scales fall from our eyes: Dependence the strategy du jour warn experts, commentators

The collapse of British power in the East, following Japan’s blitzkrieg-like campaign through Malaya, culminating in the surrender of Singapore in 1942, shattered the widely-held Australian belief in British invincibility and had wide-reaching fallout that resonates to this day.

Australia’s resulting strategic anxiety levels were subsequently ramped up to 11 as it scrambled to recall its deployed troops from North Africa to defend the mainland from the rampaging and seemingly unstoppable Japanese war machine.

In the aftermath, Australia’s Prime Minister, John Curtin, made an impassioned plea to both the Australian and American people as our precarious predicament really hit home, with the Prime Minister saying, “We looked to America, among other things, for counsel and advice, and therefore it was our wish that the Pacific War Council should be located at Washington ... But I give you this warning: Australia is the last bastion between the West Coast of America and the Japanese.

“If Australia goes, the Americas are wide open. It is said that the Japanese will bypass Australia and that they can be met and routed in India. I say to you that the saving of Australia is the saving of America’s west coast. If you believe anything to the contrary then you delude yourselves,” he said.

This relationship evolved throughout the Second World War and would, in the aftermath of the war, be formalised with the signing of the Australia, New Zealand, United States (ANZUS) Security Treaty in San Francisco in 1951, albeit in a non-binding, collective security agreement that continues to serve all three nations to this day.

For Australia, the ANZUS Treaty went a long way to mitigating and resolving the nation’s long-held strategic anxiety and anguish that dated back to the earliest days of colonisation and provided an opportunity for the nation to develop and implement a largely independent coherent strategic doctrine for the first time in its history.

This agreement would allow the nation to begin a slow decline towards a strategic posture of dependence upon the United States and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, despite the abandonment of British territories and interests “East of the Suez” beginning in earnest in the late-1960s before being finalised in the early-1970s.

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While the end of the Cold War came as a shock for many across the Western World, for Australia, the ultimate success of the United States and its post-Second World War order, coupled with the promise of globalisation and the permeation of the “golden arches” theory of international relations, seduced successive generations of Australian policymakers into a state of complete dependence upon the United States.

Bringing us to today, with The Australian’s Ben Packham and Strategic Analysis Australia’s director, Peter Jennings, AO, in two separate, but complementary pieces highlighting just how dependent Australia is in this increasingly dangerous part of the world.

Leaning on the US

There is no escaping the reality that for much of the last four decades, Australia has, like many nations across the Western World and Europe in particular, became increasingly dependent upon the United States for a host of tactical and strategic capabilities.

Now yes, Australia has played an active role in supporting the United States in conflicts like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, but the later conflicts, the United States disproportionally bore most of the weight and costs of those engagements, with Australia providing niche or boutique forces as part of a larger effort.

Highlighting this, The Australian’s Ben Packham stated, “Australia has a potent strategy to fill gaps in the nation’s defence preparedness in the next decade. It can be summed up in three words: ‘The United States’.

“Under the plan, which has been hiding in plain sight for years, more US bombers will operate from Australia’s northern bases, including nuclear-capable B-52s. More US fighter jets and hi-tech surveillance aircraft will also fly missions from the Top End, while US Army amphibious units will join annual deployments of US marines that are now in their 13th year,” he stated further.

As Packham stated, the expansion of this longstanding rotational US presence is neither unusual, nor unexpected as Beijing, in particular, continues to challenge the regional and global order as well as accelerating efforts to coerce neighbours including Taiwan and the Philippines.

Beijing’s increasing reach and range of both kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities across the domains, in conjunction with the geographic proximity of key US facilities in Japan, South Korea and Guam to Chinese, Russian and North Korean offensive capabilities has resulted in a marked shift in the posture of our “great and powerful friend”.

“On one level, this is all to be expected. The US is Australia’s most important ally, and Australia’s strategic geography has much to offer our American friends. With the US’s main regional bases in Guam, Japan and the Philippines all within easy reach of Chinese missiles, it makes sense for Australia to pitch in and help to keep American forces safe from harm,” he said.

This “shift” has echoes of General Douglas MacArthur’s view of Australia during the Second World War in the Pacific, when the nation was viewed in essence as a continent-sized, unsinkable aircraft carrier; today we have more to offer as a whole-of-nation response, even if that potential remains largely under-developed.

Packham explained, “Australia also gains a lot from the arrangement. The ADF has no bombers of its own since the retirement of the F-111s, so having a force of B-52s that regularly operates from the Northern Territory is enough to give potential adversaries pause for thought. But don’t ask if the US bombers carry nuclear weapons. Our government certainly doesn’t. The prospect they might have nukes aboard is all part of the deterrent.”

For Packham, it is becoming clearer that the deployment of US nuclear capable forces, both in terms of bomber aircraft and submarines, is being used conveniently by both government and Defence as a means to continue to coast along on the coattails of the US military, rather than putting the hard yards in and develop a truly robust sovereign Australian military capability.

He detailed this summation, saying, “While its ministers will argue until they’re blue in the face that they’re pouring billions of new money into weapons and equipment, there is no doubt that short-term capability improvements are being de-prioritised to pay for nuclear-powered subs and navy frigates that are still a long way off...

“Fortunately, Australia’s remoteness and willingness to host an ever-increasing number of American forces are valuable contributions that the US is happy to take in lieu of greater Australian firepower,” Packham said.

Bringing us to the scathing commentary by Strategic Analysis Australia’s director, Peter Jennings AO.

Spinning our wheels, but hey, we have two defence policies!

Jennings pulls no punches and is quick out of the gate, saying, “The Albanese government has given us two Defence ministers: Richard “Call me Deputy Prime Minister” Marles and his tireless workmate, Pat Conroy. No one should be surprised to learn the government also has two defence policies.”

Unpacking this, Jennings stated, “It’s the defence policy the government doesn’t talk about because it acknowledges our dependence on the US and judges that China is the threat. The second defence policy is the one Labor ministers highlight, focusing on a future Australian Defence Force to be built in just the next few years, faster than anything previous governments could do, with everything delivered on time and within budget.”

This highlights the ongoing debate and concerns about the nation’s capacity, commitment, and ability to deliver the defence capabilities needed to defend the nation and its interests, while also serving as a key coalition partner for the United States in the Indo-Pacific.

Jennings highlighted this well-documented debate and concern, stating, “This is the 2020s version of what happened after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The choice then was to build up our own defence capabilities or support the US, the only country with the industrial and economic heft to win the Pacific War. Australia picked the US option.

“This is the right strategy – indeed the only available one for Australia given that the ADF is on a long-term capability decline and will remain in that state for the rest of the 2020s,” Jennings stated further.

Yet little seems to be changing, which means those of us in the Australian media, defence, and national security space need to do more to raise the standard, consistency, and visibility of the conversation, and we need to bring our fellow Australians along on the journey.

Only with their considered consent and enduring commitment can we succeed in accelerating the delivery of capability necessary to defend the nation, while also shifting the way the nation views itself.

Jennings issued this challenge, albeit covertly, saying, “Like Mulder in The X Files, with his UFO poster declaring “I want to believe”, I want to believe Labor is “speeding up major defence capability acquisitions to meet the strategic challenges we face as a nation”.

“It is experience that prevents me from swallowing this delusional pap. Decades of political bipartisanship and alliance rent-seeking bring us to this point. The truth is out there.”

Final thoughts

Despite the rhetoric, Australians seem reluctant at best or, indeed, even oblivious at worst that the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar” and our own home, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world.

Declining economic opportunity, coupled with the rapidly deteriorating global and regional balance of power and the increased politicisation of every aspect of contemporary life, only serves to exacerbate the very reality of disconnection, apathy, and helplessness felt by many Australians.

This attitude is only serving to be compounded and creates a growing sentiment that we are speeding towards a predestined outcome, thus disempowering the Australian people and, to a lesser extent, policymakers as we futilely confront seemingly insurmountable challenges with little-to-no benefit and at a high-risk/reward calculation.

Taking into account the costs and implications, it is therefore easy to understand why so many Australians, both in the general public and within our decision-making circles, seem to have checked out and are quite happy to allow the nation to continue to limp along in mediocrity because, well, it is easier than having lofty ambitions.

If both Australian policymakers and the Australian public don’t snap out of the comforting security blanket that is the belief in the “End of History”, the nation will continue to rapidly face an uncomfortable and increasingly dangerous new reality, where we truly are no longer the masters of our own destiny.

All of this combines to form a rather confronting and disconcerting outcome for our long-term national security and one that requires remedying immediately if Australia is to be positioned to capitalise on the truly epoch-defining industrial, economic, political, and strategic shifts currently underway across the globe.

After all, how can we ask and reasonably expect Australians, particularly young Australians, to put the national interest ahead of their own when the nation doesn’t seem to account for their own interests, particularly when taken to the end of its logical extension, the national interest is at its core, the individual’s interest?

Ultimately, Australia and Australians face these two concurrent yet interconnected challenges, which stand as the greatest challenges of our age, so which way, Australia?

Do we want to be competitive, consequential and thriving, or do we want to be “steady and sturdy” in our managed decline?

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..