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Former diplomat David Livingstone has launched a scathing attack on the AUKUS submarine deal, calling for it to be scrapped, citing concerns over Australia’s national security. In the same breath, Livingstone calls for Australia to abandon contributing to regional security as an extension of our national security and once again bury its head in the sand as it did prior to World War II, instead, leaving it to others.
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In the aftermath of Japan’s ruthlessly efficient and unprecedented blitzkrieg through the Pacific and Southeast Asia during the early years of the Second World War, Australia identified that like many of its European and American counterparts in the decades prior to the outbreak of hostilities, it had taken a number of factors for granted.
Not least of these was the continuing dominance of its “great and powerful friend” in the British Empire which was thoroughly routed in the region at the Fall of Singapore, leaving Australia precariously exposed and hilariously unprepared for the conflict Imperial Japan would bring to our doorstep. While the entry of the United States into the conflict following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 would serve as a major turning point for the Allies and Australia in particular, Australia’s leaders of both political persuasions recognised that Australia needed to do more.
The immediate post-war years reiterated for Australia’s leaders that our long-term national security would increasingly be defined by several different, yet interconnected and increasingly complex factors, namely:
- The benevolence, stability and continuing commitment of its primary strategic partner;
- The geographic isolation of the continent, highlighted by the “tyranny of distance”;
- A relatively small population in comparison with our neighbours; and
- Increasingly, the geopolitical, economic and strategic ambition and capabilities of Australia’s Indo-Pacific and Asian neighbours.
As the global headwinds once again shifted toward geopolitical and strategic competition between former allies, Australia’s leaders sought to confront potential threats to the nation by engaging them away from continental Australia to avoid any repeat of the Papua New Guinea campaign or any direct attack against Australian cities as had occurred numerous times throughout the Pacific campaign. This concept of “Forward Defence”’ meant engaging the region directly and providing an Australian strategic umbrella which guaranteed our freedom of action, with broader “hands off” support from the United States, and to a lesser extent, the British, prior to their withdrawal from the region.
Following our disastrous participation in the Vietnam conflict, Australia’s policy of “Forward Defence” was replaced by the “Defence of Australia” policy which shifted responsibility for the long-range defence of our national interests to the sole responsibility of the United States as the global hegemon, with Australia taking advantage of the waning days of the Cold War and the ensuing “peace dividend” following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, the geopolitical and strategic environment Australia finds itself in has eerie echoes of the decades preceding the outbreak of World War II — rising tensions between great power adversaries, a relative decline in the intent and capability of our primary strategic guarantor and the increasing decline of the post-Cold War global order which has prompted the Australian government to begin the most consequential modernisation and recapitalisation of our nation’s defence capabilities since the Second World War.
This is epitomised by the AUKUS agreement, which aims to deliver a fleet of eight, nuclear-powered submarines as its core priority and will deliver a transformational leap in the capacity and capability of the Australian Defence Force at a time of increasing tensions. AUKUS and the nuclear submarine program isn’t without its contention or its detractors, with many strategic policy commentators rightfully concerned about the delivery time frame of the submarines, while others have raised concerns about the impact of Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine fleet on our national security following frequent protestations by the People’s Republic of China.
Not least of these has been the recent commentary provided by former Australian diplomat David Livingstone, who establishes the foundation for his argument against the nuclear submarine program, stating, “The decision for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines has taken on a life of its own, divorced from disciplined considerations such as cost, effectiveness, and alternatives. At best, the decision is ill-considered. At worst, it’s Treasury-busting lunacy.”
What we have now will work, should work, ahh it’s too hard for them anyway so don’t worry
Besides the argument around cost, effectiveness and alternatives as Livingstone describes it, the next core pillar of his argument against the nuclear submarine deal is based upon the question around what role Australia’s fleet of nuclear submarines would play and just how effective their deterrence capability would be, given the geographic and logistical challenges Beijing would potentially face in attacking Australia.
“In particular, what would the submarines deter China from doing? Is it to deter China from attacking Australia? There is no evidence that China even dreams of such a misadventure.
“Australia is thousands of kilometres from China, and its approaches are characterised by maritime choke points and potential killing zones. That’s thousands of kilometres where its forces would be exposed to attack; thousands of kilometres of stretched supply lines requiring enormous and sophisticated logistics,” Livingstone argues. This neglects the fact that any potential operation (however unlikely) would be solely against Australia and wouldn’t be part of a broader conflict where losses had already been inflicted on Australian allies.
Adding to this, Livingstone believes that Australia’s existing capabilities, including our ageing fleet of Collins Class submarines would be sufficient to cover the vast northern approaches to our immediate north and would be capable of inflicting significant losses on a numerically superior Chinese force, “China would clearly fail in any attempt at a meaningful maritime assault on Australia. And that outcome is within Australia’s existing military capabilities, including the conventionally powered Collins Class submarines. With the acquisition of advanced missiles and drones, Australia will be even more secure.”
Livingstone fails to accept that an adversary doesn’t need to launch a direct “meaningful maritime” assault on the Australian mainland, rather simply intercept and directly attack the incredibly vulnerable sea lines of communication across the Indian Ocean and through Southeast Asia and up into north Asia, upon which Australia’s economy depends, across distances that our limited number of surface combatants, let alone our Collins Class submarines, would struggle to cover — because after all, in this sort of conflict, Australia will only be able to depend on its own forces for critical security, dramatically impacting our capacity to support allied combat operations.
Building on this, Livingstone also fails to account for the still limited range of existing and planned, advanced, long-range missiles and similar drone systems capable of suitably long-range strike are still decades away from being fielded in meaningful numbers by the United States, let alone Australia. That is, of course, unless he is subtly calling for Australia to acquire long-range ballistic missile systems? Something I am sure Beijing, along with many of our regional neighbours, will be equally thrilled about.
The Taiwan question and shifting the responsibility to others
Shifting to the Taiwan question, Livingstone raises the question about Australia’s potential involvement in any Taiwan crisis and the value add Australia’s future nuclear submarines will play in defending the besieged, democratic island of 24 million people, stating, “So, what are nuclear-powered submarines supposed to deter China from doing? The answer, apparently, is to prevent China from attacking Taiwan.
“But where in the universe of rational thought is Australia’s acquisition of fewer than 10 submarines over the next two or three decades meaningful in China’s equation about attacking Taiwan? By even generous estimates, the first boats are years away. The full complement of eight could be several decades away. And then what is the actual impact of the new additions to the fleet?” Livingstone posits, and this is a valid question to ask. The one he fails to ask is, what happens if there is a successful invasion of Taiwan, and the United States is pushed out of the Western Pacific?
Perhaps sarcastically, Livingstone posits, “Has Australia suddenly and mistakenly taken on the mantle of the ‘indispensable country’? Does Taiwan’s future hang on Australia’s purchase of a few eye-wateringly expensive submarines?” which does partly account for this prior line of questioning. However, he does quickly shift the emphasis to deferring the responsibility to other regional “friends”, where he states: “The balance of submarines that Australia’s acquisition is claimed to upend so dramatically as to ‘deter’ China includes: China, up to 79 submarines; the US, 68 submarines; Japan, about 20 (and growing); and South Korea, about 20. And that does not include Taiwan’s submarines, or those of the self-proclaimed Indo-Pacific power, the UK. That is well over 100 for Australia’s friends, and they are generally of better quality than the Chinese subs.”
Expanding on this, Livingstone states, “Moreover, the US and Japan are taking significant and meaningful steps to increase their capacity to defend Taiwan. Foremost among them is the restructuring of US Marines to counter a Chinese maritime threat and deploying to islands close to Taiwan. And Japan, long constrained by its non-aggression constitution, will double its defence spending over the next five years. That is a massive increase for a country that already has one of the largest and best equipped maritime forces in the world.
“If this brief review of some of the characteristics of the military balance affecting China’s calculations about attacking Taiwan indicates that Australia’s purchase of nuclear-powered submarines is insignificant, it is because that is precisely what it is. Militarily meaningless. Now and into the future,” Livingstone adds, reinforcing Australia’s tried and true method of strategic planning for the past four decades, “it is too difficult, so let’s not bother”.
Building on these points, Livingstone, rather than accounting for the rapidly deteriorating regional geopolitical and strategic environment, defaults to the “Defence of Australia” approach to defending Australia and its interests, which he encapsulates as follows: “The opportunity cost foregone (nuclear submarine costs) would include the acquisition of more meaningful defence capabilities, including smart sea mines that lie undetected in strategic approaches, only activating in times of conflict and only targeting enemy vessels; off-the-shelf conventional submarines; long-range missiles and rockets; more fighter aircraft to dominate the sea-air gap between Australia and Indonesia; aerial and maritime drones.”
Livingstone’s entire premise is coloured by the rose-coloured glasses and wishful thinking of the security paradigm of immediate years following the end of the Cold War. Concerningly, this view that by abrogating our responsibility and outsourcing the heavy lifting to other “partner” nations is downright arrogant at best, if not morally abhorrent at worst and reflects poorly on Australia as a true “partner” for regional stability and security. Simply put, how can we expect others to defend our security and interests first if we won’t?
One point of convergence — a stronger Australia is tougher to hobble
There is one point upon which we can all agree with Livingstone’s assessment, and that is building a stronger Australia makes a harder target to force into capitulation — enhancing our national societal, economic and industrial resilience, coupled with a stronger emphasis on strengthening our global and regional competitiveness should be our priority moving forward.
Livingstone describes this accordingly: “With the amount saved (by cancelling the nuclear submarines) there would be money to retire national debt, build and adequately equip and staff schools and hospitals, and rebuild Australia’s failing national transport infrastructure. Greater national security would be achieved through investing in a better Australia than in throwing vast amounts of national wealth at the chimera of security through acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.”
While these are noble investments in Australia and should be included, such investments in isolation do not provide Australia with the tangible “hard power” capacity to resist economic or direct military coercion. Accordingly, planning for the defence of the nation requires, as the late NSW senator and Major General (ret’d) Jim Molan explained, “National security is a national responsibility. In these demanding times, we as a nation cannot pour money into the ADF and think we have solved the national security challenge. It takes a nation to defend a nation.”
By its very nature, national security strategy and policy is an all-encompassing area of public policy — indeed, every facet of contemporary public policy is crucial to supporting the broader national security debate. From seemingly banal aspects of social security and health policy, through to infrastructure development, water security and agriculture policy, each element of public policy is intimately enmeshed as part of the broader national security conversation.
Recognising this critical factor — is it time for Australia to respond to the rapidly evolving regional environment and develop a holistic national security strategy?
Lessons for Australia’s future strategic planning
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.
Contemporary Australia has been far removed from the harsh realities of conflict, with many generations never enduring the reality of rationing for food, energy, medical supplies or luxury goods, and even fewer within modern Australia understanding the socio-political and economic impact such rationing would have on the now world-leading Australian standard of living.
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. Shifting the public discussion away from the default Australian position of “it is all a little too difficult, so let’s not bother” will provide unprecedented economic, diplomatic, political and strategic opportunities for the nation.
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?
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
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
