‘Prepare for the worst’, Australia’s political and military leaders warned

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. 

Far from the “end of history” we were promised at the end of the Cold War by the likes of Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington, COVID-19 for many was not what they anticipated causing a major reshuffle in the global power dynamics, at least not in the 21st century.

This is particularly the case following the near two decades of US-led Western attention on countering violent extremism in the Middle East, which has paved the way for the likes of Russia and China to quietly position themselves as credible rivals to the liberal-democratic, capitalist world order. 

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Now it has been revealed that the Department of Defence had been preparing for a range of disruptions, as the Australian public begin to place increasing pressure on the nation’s political and strategic leaders to learn from the past and prepare the nation for an increasingly disrupted future. 

Be prepared 

Speaking to ABC 7:30, former director of the Department of Defence’s preparedness division, Cheryl Durrant, has echoed the sentiments of regular Defence Connect commentators – senator for NSW and Major General (Ret’d) Jim Molan AO, DSC, Air Vice-Marshal (Ret’d) John Blackburn AO, Major General (Ret’d) Gus McLachlan AO and Dr Peter Layton – in calling for greater long-term planning for the nation’s future. 

Durrant told ABC, “We predicted the unpredictable. We knew the problems. We knew this might be coming. We knew that various things needed to be done.” 

“We saw three main possibilities of that happening: the increasing and escalating effects of climate change and natural disasters; a global power conflict, probably between America and China, and finally a pandemic – one with a much greater death rate than what we’re seeing with the COVID crisis,” Durrant added. 

Expanding on these points, Durrant added additional questions, asking, “The review looked at the big issues, like if we had to go to war, do we have enough fuel? Do we have enough energy? Can the national supply chains and our national infrastructure support Defence in a war or other crisis?

“We asked, if we had basically a halt on global supply – a couple of steps more demanding than we‘re seeing in the current crisis – what would run out in one week, two weeks, one month or three months?”

Perhaps, more importantly, Durrant issued an important challenge for Australia’s public policy and strategic leaders, stating, “Australia is at an interesting fork in the road where it goes on from here. If we take the attitude, ‘She’ll be right, go back to business as usual, bounce back,’ I think we’re going to find ourselves not as well prepared for what happens next.”

Accepting the overlapping challenges 

Australia’s geographic position and the continent itself present Australian policymakers with a unique and complex series of challenges – ranging from cyclical droughts, monsoonal rains and ravaging bushfires, the geographic isolation “tyranny of distance” being replaced with a “predicament of proximity”.   

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 competitiveness and traditional hard power concepts like defence and intelligence all serve as essential components for a nation’s resilience. 

While public conversation about the overlapping national security versus national resilience challenges has started to gain greater traction, with the Prime Minister raising the topic in the public discourse during media interviews. 

Indeed, Prime Minister Scott Morrison articulated the increasingly convoluted nature of national security and national resilience in an interview with Peta Credlin for Sky News, stating:

“When it comes to keeping people safe, it’s also about our resilience, our resilience to the environment, the climate we’re going to live in in the next 10 years. And I’m sure we’ll have a bit of a chat about that tonight. But that resilience, too, whether it’s ensuring that our roads are built the right way so they don’t get shut down when there are bushfires or ensuring we’re addressing hazard reduction as much as we’re addressing emissions reduction.

“Because whether it’s the resilience of building a road and having clearing around it, which means it’s less likely to be cut off in a bushfire, or the way you build a bridge in a particular area so it could not be compromised because of natural disasters, what the building standards and codes are... You know, in response to disasters, it’s not about replacement. It’s about building back better with better resilience for the future.”

This is a major breakthrough in the public discourse about the nation’s resilience and ensuring national security, something Blackburn believes needs to continue, telling Defence Connect, “We need to have a serious conversation with the Australian public about the challenges we face as a nation – that includes climate change, it includes the fact that 90 per cent of our energy supplies are imported from overseas and our industry base is declining.

“This should be a key focus point for the government, but when you look at the government’s own national security site, it is focused on counterterrorism, countering violent extremism and de-radicalisation and the vulnerability of transport infrastructure to such actors. This is far too narrow a focus for a nation like Australia,” Blackburn explained to Defence Connect. 

An integrated response and the end result is ‘national security’ 

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. 

Additionally, the formation of organisations like the National Resilience Taskforce, state-based Energy Security Taskforces, and supporting organisations like Infrastructure Australia and broader government departments all serve to provide an intricate yet competing tapestry muddying the water and decision-making process for political and strategic leaders.

Each of these organs and constituencies in the form of state and territory governments have their own individual agendas and lobby accordingly for Commonwealth support and assistance, further complicating a national response, hindering both national security and national resilience in an age of traditional and asymmetric disruption. 

Blackburn explained the importance of a cohesive, integrated response to national resilience and by extension, national security, “We have our departments doing great work in their respective fields. We have organisations like the CSIRO doing great work in terms of the hydrogen economy, energy security and the like, but the problem is each of these organs is siloed. 

“One would expect that there would be a coordinating authority within the organs of government, which can support the development and implementation of a national resilience policy framework. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and we are seeing the affects of that today, so the only way to address this is with a coordinated, integrated response,” Blackburn explained to Defence Connect. 

The individual nature of the aforementioned respective strategies, combined with the competing interests of the respective portfolios and departments are further exacerbated by a lack of cohesive, co-ordinating authority managing the direction of the broader national interest and implementation of a resulting strategy.

It is important to recognise that this realisation does diminish the good work done by the respective ministers, assistant ministers and opposition representatives.

But recognising the limitations of siloed approaches to the increasingly holistic nature of national security in the 21st century requires a co-ordinated, cohesive effort to combine all facets of contemporary national security and national resilience policies respectively – into a single, cohesive strategy. 

In order to maximise the nation’s position, prosperity and security, is it time to introduce a role of a Minister for National Security or special envoy role to support the Prime Minister and respective ministers, both within the traditional confines of national security or national resilience like Defence and Foreign Affairs, to include infrastructure, energy, industry, health, agriculture and the like?  

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.