Time isn’t on our side – Accelerating our response to China

The era of undisputed US and Western military dominance is over as great power rivals increasingly field capabilities of similar quality and quantity, narrowing the edge and diminishing the advantages we have long held as insurmountable.

From the moment the first laser-guided bombs fell from combat aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships in Persian Gulf against targets across Iraq in January 1991, the very nature of contemporary conflict changed forever.

The speed, accuracy, and lethality of then next-generation weapons systems, the interconnected coordination, command and control, and overwhelming advantages in surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance capabilities provided the US-led Western world with a seemingly unassailable tactical and strategic advantage.

Yet, across the globe, watching, waiting, and collaborating, were potential adversaries we had been assured would become responsible, respectable, and engaged members of the global communion of nations as the hubris of the post-Cold War era swept across the world and we, in the West, embraced the “end of history”.

Little by little, the era of unrestricted globalisation saw the US and Western world, including Australia, give away our industrial capacity in favour of “just in time” global supply chains and costly military adventurism which has arguably left the world in far worse shape than what the previous incarnation of a bipolar world built.

As the US and its allies got bogged down in campaigns in the Middle East and Central Asia, bringing to bear their conventional military and economic might against small, ragtag bands of militia and insurgents, potential great power adversaries watched and applauded as the weakening of their adversaries took place.

Meanwhile, for the former Soviet bloc, the swift and utterly humiliating routing of Iraqi forces in both iterations of the Gulf War revealed their own vulnerabilities of traditionally Soviet-style doctrine, relying heavily on masses of men, machines, and high explosives to get the job done to rapidly manoeuvrable, interconnected, and high-technology “focused” fighting forces.

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For China, the US intervention during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of the mid-1990s in particular, revealed their vulnerabilities to and necessity for fearsome, globally focused power projection capabilities like aircraft carriers and their supporting battlegroups, long-range strategic bomber forces coupled with high-technology, integrated command and control systems creating fully digitised combat forces deployable across the globe in short notice.

Fast forward to today and we now find ourselves in an era of renewed and mounting great power competition, characterising the birthing pains of a new and truly multipolar world, more akin to the geopolitical reality of the late 19th, early 20th century of competition between various imperial powers.

Recognising this, Alexander Velez-Green, researcher at the Center for a New American Security, in a piece for The National Interest, titled, The Case for urgency against China, highlights the rapidly deteriorating threat environment and the very real challenges the US and allies like Australia now face.

“Policymakers often assume the United States can deter China from invading Taiwan or win if deterrence fails. But that is no longer a safe assumption. Indeed, it is very possible that the United States will be unable to deter China for the remainder of this decade. Worse still, there is a real chance the People’s Liberation Army will be able to defeat US forces in a fight over Taiwan,” Velez-Green explains.

We only have ourselves to blame

Despite this seemingly unassailable position of strength, the decades of costly conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia, coupled with a slew of domestic economic, political, and demographic issues have served to constrain and muddy the decision-making process, and indeed, decisionmakers in the United States and Australia as they come to terms with the new power dynamics.

Velez-Green highlights this predicament stating, “We are in this situation because Washington has consistently failed to prioritise investing in our ability to deter China. But now we have no other choice: If we wish to avoid war with China, or prevail if it comes, then we must urgently focus on strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific by surging investments in the region, even if it means doing less elsewhere. This may not be the choice Washington wants to make, but we have spent decades deferring these investments – and now the bill is due.”

This epochal end was reinforced by comments made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on 22 December 2022, when he stated: “When it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine, if we were still in Afghanistan, it would have, I think, made much more complicated the support that we’ve been able to give and that others have been able to give Ukraine to resist and push back against the Russian aggression.”

Equally, this feeds into the underlying sentiment that underpins this seminal statement in the recently released Defence Strategic Review, which states, “Australia does not have effective defence capabilities relative to higher threat levels. In the present strategic circumstances, this can only be achieved by Australia working with the United States and other key partners in the maintenance of a favourable regional environment. Australia also needs to develop the capability to unilaterally deter any state from offensive military action against Australian forces or territory.”

This also feeds into the growing groundswell of debate and conversation surrounding the long-term funding pathways, acquisition plans, and recent announcements by the government of long budgeted for “known known” projects and capabilities, let alone the various reviews into future capabilities (*cough* Surface Fleet Review *cough*).

All of this ultimately leads to major concerns about the capacity of the United States and Australia to provide meaningful, aggregated deterrence capability in defence of Taiwan, or any other contingency that may arise across the Indo-Pacific.

Velez-Green adds, “It is no secret that America’s ability to deter China has eroded, but the severity of that erosion is not widely understood. Fortunately, this is starting to change. In 2019, the United States Studies Centre reported, ‘America’s military primacy in the Indo-Pacific is over and its capacity to maintain a favourable balance of power is increasingly uncertain’. Last year, The Heritage Foundation’s Index of US Military Strength concluded, ‘[T]he US military is at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests’. The RAND Corporation found similarly this year: ‘[I]t has become increasingly clear that the US defence strategy and posture have become insolvent’.”

This predicament is only exacerbated by a lack of urgency despite mounting analysis that reveals we’re heading towards quite a significant bloody nose in the event of any kinetic, peer-level confrontation with China in particular.

“Things are especially dire in the Pacific. The Trump and Biden administrations both embraced a strategy of denial to deter China. This strategy rests on our ability to prevent China from successfully invading Taiwan, especially by quickly disabling or destroying hundreds of Chinese ships in the invasion fleet. Yet it is not clear the United States can do this. As RAND found, ‘Neither today’s force nor forces currently programmed by the [DoD] appear to have the capabilities needed to’ defeat an adversary like China that can ‘seize the initiative and move quickly to secure their principal objectives’. Instead, our existing approach ‘leave[s] open the possibility of a rapid victory by China’. To make matters worse, Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) Admiral John Aquilino testified this year that trends in the Indo-Pacific are going ‘in the wrong direction’,” Velez-Green explains.

Deterrence without dominance

In recognising the now very real economic, political and materiel military limitations on the United States in the era of great power competition, particularly as the relative power of rival and neutral or adjacent nations continues to rise, challenging both the traditional concepts of deterrence and dominance held true by United States and its allies in this new global power paradigm.

The impact of this new reality is best explained in the RAND Corporation in a piece titled, Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of US and Allied Military Power and Influence, which states: “The Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the succeeding decades, US military forces have enjoyed an enviable record of success against the armed forces of other nations. But disparate developments abroad and at home, including North Korea’s acquisition of atomic weapons; the September 11, 2001, attacks and the US response to them that diverted resources from force modernisation; the proliferation of technologies for sensing and precision guidance; Russia’s use of overt military aggression; and, of greatest consequence, China’s economic take-off and concomitant military modernisation, have led to the deterioration of the military balance in regions of strategic importance.”

Highlighting this, the RAND report states, “There is now a growing consensus among Western policymakers and strategists that ‘business as usual’ with respect to national security strategy and defence posture is no longer sufficient. But much remains to be done in the United States and elsewhere to determine how best to proceed with building the military capabilities and operational concepts needed.”

Unpacking this further, the report states, “it has become increasingly clear that the US defence strategy and posture have become insolvent. The tasks that the nation expects its military forces and other elements of national power to do internationally greatly exceed the means that have become available to accomplish those tasks”.

As this mounting array of challenges across the globe continue to place strain on the tactical and strategic capabilities of the United States, allies will be required to step up their game in order to more effectively spread the burden, while also creating a greater, aggregated holistic capability ranging from economic and industrial capacity to direct multi-domain combat capabilities.

Recognising this, RAND articulates, “reversing this erosion will call for sustained, coordinated efforts by the United States, its allies, and its key partners to rethink their approaches to defeating aggression and to recast important elements of their military forces and posture” incorporating a number of key findings, namely:

• Posture: RAND recognised that US and allied forces based in Europe and the Western Pacific lack the combat capability, hardened and resilient basing infrastructure to survive in a contested, peer-level battlespace, and resupply/mobilisation rates limit the offensive capacity of these forward deployed forces.
• Sensing and targeting: Existing surveillance and intelligence gathering platforms and capabilities are increasingly vulnerable to soft and hard kill capabilities across the spectrum, necessitating radically novel approaches to gathering and disseminating relevant information through to command-and-control chains of command.
• Strike: The proliferation of advanced combat aircraft across the world, coupled with the widespread adoption of complex integrated air and missile defence and advanced air-to-air missile systems, challenges the traditional air dominance capabilities of the US and to a lesser extent, its allies and partners, requiring the rapid modernisation of the US and allied air combat fleet and supporting platforms and munitions supply.
• Asymmetric attrition: Directly preventing an adversary’s territorial objectives isn’t sufficient in this era of great power competition given the complexity and scope of the potential battlespace, this requires the US and its allies to be capable of defending their homelands, with sufficient capacity to subsequently push back and hunt down enemy forces in a cost-effective manner.

Final thoughts

Importantly, in this era of renewed competition between autarchy and democracy, this is an uncomfortable conversation that needs to be had in the open with the Australian people, as ultimately, they will be called upon to help implement it, to consent to the direction, and to defend it should diplomacy fail.

Our economic resilience, capacity, and competitiveness will prove equally as critical to success in the new world power paradigm as that of the United States, the United Kingdom, or Europe, and we need to begin to recognise the opportunities presented before us.

Expanding and enhancing the opportunities available to Australians while building critical economic resilience, and as a result, deterrence to economic coercion, should be the core focus of the government because only when our economy is strong can we ensure that we can deter aggression towards the nation or our interests.

This also requires a greater degree of transparency and a culture of innovation and collaboration between the nation’s strategic policymakers, elected officials, and the constituents they represent and serve – equally, this approach will need to entice the Australian public to once again invest in and believe in the future direction of the nation.

Additionally, Australia will need to have an honest conversation about how we view ourselves and what our own ambitions are. Is it reasonable for Australia to position itself as a “middle” or “regional” power in this rapidly evolving geopolitical environment? Equally, if we are going to brand ourselves as such, shouldn’t we aim for the top tier to ensure we get the best deal for ourselves and our future generations?

If we are going to emerge as a prosperous, secure, and free nation in the new era of great power competition, it is clear we will need break the shackles of short-termism and begin to think far more long term, to the benefit of current and future generations of Australians.

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 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..