ASPI joins growing choir for post-COVID nation-building strategy

As the Australian public settles into the ‘new normal’, many Australian public policy thinkers and journalists have picked up on the growing groundswell of support within the community to chart a path towards establishing and maintaining true economic and strategic sovereignty in the era of disruption.

With each passing day the impact of the coronavirus upon global supply chains is becoming painfully apparent, with Australia’s economy teetering on the edge of disaster – however, viewing the impact of the pandemic in isolation to Australia’s broader national security and national resilience further exposes the nation at a point in time when such distinctions are increasingly blurred. 

Unlike many of its contemporary and comparable international neighbours, Australia has enjoyed a record near three decades of economic prosperity and stability, buoyed by the immense mineral and resource wealth of the landmass and the benevolence of the post-Second World War political, economic and strategic order.

As a result, both the public and government are relatively unaccustomed to the economic, political and strategic realities of mass social isolation, a comparatively mild form of rationing and what seems to be a relatively low, albeit tragic body count, however, it isn't all doom and gloom as the COVID-19 predicament seems to have shaken the Australian public's confidence in the public policy status quo. 

Across the Indo-Pacific, competing economic, political and strategic interests, designs and ambitions are beginning to clash, flying in contrast to the projections of many historians at the end of the Cold War – further compounding these issues is the continued instability caused by the coronavirus and concerns about ecological collapse.

This has prompted an increasing number of strategic policy experts, journalists and politicians to vocalise the growing demands from the Australian public to do more to ensure Australia's economic, political and strategic integrity.

Defence Connect has sought to play a central role in supporting the furtherance of the public debate regarding the public debate about developing and ensuring true Australian national resilience in the era of global disruption.

VIEW ALL

Adding further weight to the continuing debate, ASPI executive director, Peter Jennings has joined the debate with a piece titled ‘Preparing for the crisis after the crisis’, in which he builds on the growing public and political groundswell.

Jennings sets the scene, stating, “The global economy may be in hibernation, but geopolitics is thriving and sprinting towards a potential crisis at the end of this year or early in 2021. The immediate and understandable focus is on fighting the virus, but our government needs to be thinking about defence and national security risks as well.

“The core of the security problem is the Chinese Communist Party’s drive to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic strategically stronger in the Asia-Pacific than the US and its allies. This is not just about diplomacy.

“The Chinese military is aggressively positioning around Taiwan, using ships and combat aircraft to push into Japanese and South Korean territory and doing high-end combat training in the South China Sea.”

While the cat is away, the mice will play - Ramping up preparedness

Jennings notes the rising Chinese assertiveness amid the declining US and broader allied presence to push the boundaries in the Indo-Pacific. This has ranged from high-intensity combat training operations in the western Pacific involving the joint forces of the Chinese Navy, Air Force and parts of the Marine units through to more direct confrontations with Vietnamese and Filipino fishermen in the South China Sea. 

This has also seen Chinese fishing boats come into direct confrontation with Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force in the East China Sea and incidents involving the Chinese Air Force and the South Korean Air Force at a time when the rest of the world struggles to combat the COVID-19 crisis. 

"The CCP’s strategy during the crisis has been to extract maximum advantage for itself at the expense of every other country. The Global Times reported that PLA combat aircraft for the first time conducted night-time combat drills southwest of Taiwan on 16 March. The paper said, ‘Similar drills are expected to become more frequent in order to let Taiwan secessionists get a clear idea of the power gap between the mainland and the island’.

"On 20 March, a Chinese fishing boat collided with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Shimakaze in the East China Sea. Japan claimed the incident occurred in international waters, while Beijing said it was in Chinese coastal waters.

"On 26 March, South Korean jets were scrambled to intercept Chinese surveillance aircraft that flew into Korean-claimed airspace. In the South China Sea in the middle of last month, the PLA Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, conducted flight training. The PLA Daily said, ‘Training for war preparedness will not be stopped even in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the training of carrier-based fighter pilots must continue,'" Jennings states. 

Jennings paints further relevance given Chinese rhetoric regarding the absence of US tactical and strategic force multipliers, namely Pacific-based aircraft carriers and supporting strike group formations to effectively monitor and serve as forward-deployed deterrence structures.

"Beijing’s increased military activities are meant to be seen as a show of strength and to contrast with the challenges the US Navy is facing with maintaining a viable presence in the western Pacific. The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has been tied up in Guam since COVID-19 infected many of its crew. China claims that three other American aircraft carriers have COVID-19 outbreaks and that there’s currently no viable US carrier presence in the Pacific."

This paints a concerning image for Australia, as the nation has long depended on the US to provide it with the strategic umbrella enabling tactical freedom and manoeuvrability in contested operating environments. 

Jennings adds, "Beijing is clearly showing it can operate forces around the so-called first island chain that includes Japan, Taiwan and maritime south-east Asia. How might this play out across the rest of this year and into next year? I anticipate a dangerous situation arising over Taiwan as President Xi Jinping seeks to seize a strategic advantage while the US remains dangerously incapacitated."

These manoeuvres all have a startling impact on Australia, it's national interests, security, resilience and position within the contested Indo-Pacific, something Jennings believes should be the focus for Australian policy makers, post-COVID-19. 

What should Australia do?

It is becoming abundantly clear to the Australian public that the nation is struggling to respond to the myriad economic, political, strategic, environmental and infrastructure challenges that are arrayed against it and, accordingly, the public discourse and Australia's leaders need to take a direct role in designing, implementing and communicating a coherent national response.

Jennings believes Australia should take an active role in uniting regional and global partners in the aftermath of the crisis, stating: "What should Australia do? First, Prime Minister Scott Morrison needs to talk with Trump, his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, a recovered UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and any other national leader who is willing to join a coordinated push-back against Chinese military opportunism.

"This is a tough call. Canberra’s deepest instinct is to say nothing and hope all will return to just­in-time normality. That won’t happen. COVID-19 exposes the real nature of the CCP, which cannot be accommodated by an Australia that needs to build up practical sovereign capabilities to ensure national security.

"Second, far from thinking that this is a time to cut defence spending, the government needs to double down on strengthening the Australian Defence Force, including by urgently building up ammunition and fuel stocks to have the force as operationally ready as it can be.

"Australia is going to be deeply in debt, but we don’t have to be in debt and insecure. Now is the time to invest in nation-building, sovereignty-enhancing defence capabilities. A defence budget closer to the US’s 3.2 per cent of GDP rather than just under 2 per cent would be a more realistic base from which to deal with the strategic risks we face."

However, these are just components of the nation's response, albeit critical ones for serious consideration. Building on this, Jennings articulates a number of additional supporting responses, stating, "Third, it’s time for new thinking about our national security challenges. For unworthy bureaucratic reasons, we did away with a national security adviser years ago and haven’t seen a national security strategy since 2013, when Prime Minister Julia Gillard produced a flabbergasting document that said Australia faced a ‘positive’ and ‘benign’ security outlook."

This echoes calls made by a range of commentators, ranging from NSW senator and former Major General, Jim Molan; Air Vice-Marshal (Ret’d) John Blackburn, AO, chair of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research – Australia; and Griffith University Professor, Peter Layton, each of whom have echoed such a sentiment when speaking to Defence Connect. 

Jennings adds, "Fourth, a new defence white paper must be commissioned soon. At Minister Linda Reynolds’ direction, the Defence Department has been working on a strategic update and review of procurement plans. But that was before COVID-19. We’ll need something that’s dramatically bigger and produced much faster than the 2016 white paper, which took two years to develop — the time it took China to build three air bases in the South China Sea.

"Finally, Morrison has wisely realised that COVID-19 will force Australia to redesign its approach to supply chain security. A stronger national security perspective must be brought to how we manage the supply of fuel, food, medical equipment, information technology and critical infrastructure. This will unseat many comfortable Canberra assumptions, but there is no return to the pre-COVID-19 world."

Equally important factors that traditionally fall under the national security category but would be equally at home in the resilience category are factors like energy, water and resource security, infrastructure and industry development, diversity and economic diversity, competitiveness and traditional hard power concepts like defence and intelligence, which all serve as essential components for a nation’s resilience.

Australia has recently undergone a period of modernisation and expansion within its national security apparatus, from new white papers in Defence and Foreign Affairs through to well-articulated and resourced defence industrial capability plans, export strategies and the like in an attempt to position Australia well within the rapidly evolving geostrategic and political order of the Indo-Pacific.

Each of the strategies in and of themselves serve critical and essential roles within the broader national security and national resilience debate.

Your thoughts

Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically.

Despite the nation’s virtually unrivalled wealth of natural resources, agricultural and industrial potential, there is a lack of a cohesive national security strategy integrating the development of individual yet complementary public policy strategies to support a more robust Australian role in the region.

Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia.

However, as events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?

Further complicating the nation’s calculations is the declining diversity of the national economy, the ever-present challenge of climate change impacting droughts, bushfires and floods, Australia’s energy security and the infrastructure needed to ensure national resilience. 

Let us know your thoughts and ideas about the development of a holistic national security strategy and the role of a minister for national security to co-ordinate the nation’s response to mounting pressure from nation-state and asymmetric challenges in the comments section below, or get in touch with This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..