Embracing the novel key to shaping better national security choices: Lowy Institute

As a nation, Australia has a had a long, tough, and often love-hate relationship with the “tyranny of distance”, that is our relative isolation from the epicentre of global events. 

Where the public has often treated it with disdain, hostility, and as an inconvenience for holiday planning, the nation’s political and strategic leaders have recognised the double-edged sword our geographic isolation provides — namely, distance from enemies also means distance from allies, dramatically impacting the nation’s long-term national security. 

However, with the rise and reemergence of many powers across the Indo-Pacific, our long maligned “tyranny of distance” has been replaced by arguably a more concerning paradigm, a “predicament of proximity”. 

In particular, the rise of China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, along with several other regional nations, is serving to reshape the economic and strategic paradigms that provided the unprecedented period of economic development, stability, and prosperity since the end of the Second World War. 

Today’s geopolitical and strategic predicament is not without its precedent, with the early years of the post-war years proving eerily similar to the challenges that contemporary Australia faces.

Learning the lessons following Japan’s blitzkrieg through Southeast Asia, and successful routing of both British and American forces throughout both the region and wider Pacific, served as a confronting wake-up call for Australia.

As Australia’s primary security relationship shifted from the British Empire to the triumphant United States at the end of the war, the growing threat of communism in the region, driven by the successful Chinese revolution in 1949 and the following Korean crisis saw Australian forces drawn into direct conflict with former North Korean and Chinese forces. 

VIEW ALL

In response to this perfect storm of external global factors, 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.

Growing domestic concern about the threat of communism in Southeast Asia and the mounting arms race between the US and the Soviet Union served to amplify Australia’s fears about the threat of a “red” invasion, leading to Australia’s direct involvement as part of the United Nations force in Korea, as well as playing a pivotal role in responding to the Malayan Emergency and curbing a growing insurgency on Australia’s doorstep. 

A decade of strife on the Malayan Peninsula, beginning in 1950, resulted in Australia establishing and maintaining a forward deployed force based at RAAF Base Butterworth as part of the British-led Far East Strategic Reserve, entrenching Australia’s position as a regional security benefactor committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region.

The outbreak of the Konfrontasi between Indonesia and Malaysia in the early 1960s equally served to highlight the inherent instability and volatility of Southeast Asia, with the potential for extensive impact on Australia’s national and economic security. Again, Australia’s intervention to subdue a regional conflict that posed a threat to strategically critical sea lines of communication reinforced the necessity for a robust Australian presence in the region.  

Fast forward and mounting domestic political dissatisfaction, the new Whitlam government, and the mounting cost of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict, combined with rapidly declining US public support for the conflict, saw the nation’s post-Second World War strategic reality and doctrine begin to shift away from regional intervention and towards a policy favouring the defence of the Australian mainland and outlying territories.

This post-war dynamic outlined in the 1976 Dibb Review became the basis for Australia’s strategic policy and doctrine to this day, however, governments of both sides have recognised that Australia’s new geopolitical reality requires a radically new approach to ensure the long-term maintenance and protection of our national security, prosperity, and interests in this evolving, multipolar world.

These tried and true methods, including the deference to the United States, stepping in to fill the role traditionally filled by the British Empire as the nation’s strategic benefactor now faces an immense series of challenges as the world shifts toward an increasingly competitive, multipolar world, characterised by a rising number of increasingly capable middle and great powers with their own ambitions and designs for regional and global affairs. 

Recognising these challenges, Ben Scott, of the Lowy Institute’s Australia’s Security and the Rules-Based Order Project and the Australian National University’s National Security College, has identified the growing need for Australia to make “sharper choices” and embrace the novel to improve the national security outcomes in this new, multipolar world. 

Scott sets the scene, saying, “There is no master theory that can entirely explain Australia’s situation and guide its decision makers. A national security strategy is necessary, but its utility will be limited by the increasingly unpredictable course of geopolitics. The strategic concepts Australia has adopted illuminate its interests, objectives, and the types of issues Canberra must grapple with. But these concepts also mask many of the difficult choices Australia will face. Focusing on the paradox of ‘competitive independence’ brings additional clarity to the country’s policy dilemmas but does not resolve them.”

Going further to this scene setting, Scott adds, “Responding to greater uncertainty will require greater case-by-case decision making. But this does not mean the government should simply muddle through. Rather, it should seek to improve the quality of its decision making by following through on Australia’s history of imposing more structure on national security decision making. Acknowledging the complexity of the challenges it faces, the government should more often seek discrete assessments of national security problems to ensure that all relevant dimensions are considered. This would help ensure that Australia’s long-term strategic goals are considered when critical decisions are made.”

The China situation and global disorder   

There can be no doubt that the world of the 1990s and early-2000s is over, where the United States was the unquestionable and unassailable global hegemon. Today, however, the reality of the global paradigm is dramatically different. 

Disastrous forays in the Middle East as part of the Global War on Terror, combined with the economic, political, and strategic emergence of the People’s Republic of China, India, Russia, Brazil, and others has shattered the post-Cold War order creating the new, multipolar paradigm.

The rise of China, in particular, is serving to dramatically reshape the global order and paradigm through its direct coercive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, combined with broader campaigns of influence and “grey zone” operations presenting major challenges for Australia in particular as one of the key anchor nations of the Indo-Pacific. 

Scott details the predicament facing policymakers, stating, “As Australia’s national security environment has toughened, so too have the decisions facing government. Canberra has stopped insisting that it will never have to choose between the United States, its old ally, and China, its main trading partner. Instead, Beijing’s efforts to reshape the Indo-Pacific have compelled the federal government to make a series of unfamiliar, difficult, and sometimes quickly improvised decisions.

“In recent years, Canberra has had to respond to China’s interference in Australian politics; persistent cyber pressure; attempts to gain leverage through investment; economic pressure; and efforts to gain a military toehold in the South Pacific. This blurring of old distinctions between security, economics, development, and technology is a recurring theme of the new geopolitics,” Scott explains. 

In facing these China-specific challenges, Australia has shifted to strengthen its traditional partnerships with the likes of the United States, UK, and Japan, while also increasing ties with South Korea and India as a means of adding collective weight to the group of nations “aligned” to secure regional peace and stability. 

Beijing’s own efforts to undermine the post-Second World War order aren't a solo mission, rather, the confluence of a host of seemingly independent factors, ranging from economic competition, global extremism, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the aftermath of the COVID-19  pandemic and potential for future pandemics, rising distrust in government, particularly in the West, and the emerging multipolar world are all factors in the new security paradigm. 

“China, however, is far from the only challenge to Australia’s national security. Climate change poses a planetary threat that can only be countered through increased international cooperation ... Geopolitical competition is not limited to US–China rivalry. In a more interconnected and multipolar world, more states are using more tools to compete in more areas. Geoeconomics — the use of economic tools for strategic ends — is resurgent. At the same time, rapid technological development is creating both new instruments for statecraft and new domains to be contested, particularly in cyber and outer space,” Scott explains. 

Going further, Scott explains the impact of this combination of circumstances, “Modern China is more enmeshed in the global economy, and especially Australia’s economy, than the Soviet Union ever was. At the same time, Australia cannot be as confident about the stability and reliability of its ally, the United States, as it could be before the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the US presidency. The populist nationalism Trump embodies still constrains US policy and presents an enduring threat to democracy, in the United States and elsewhere.”

Shifting to Australia's predicament, Scott explains the challenges facing the nation in this increasingly multipolar world, stating, “Australia’s national security environment contains more variables than ever. Canberra can make fewer assumptions than it previously could about the natural environment, international order, and even the behaviour of the United States. The unpredictable and potentially volatile interaction of these variables adds to the complexity.

“We should be sceptical of claims that the present is somehow unique. Australia was directly threatened during the Second World War and has been engaged in many other military conflicts ... By contrast, the range and complexity of national security issues is now much wider, ranging from climate change to new mutations of political extremism. This makes the environment more complicated than ever, even if it is not yet as dangerous as war time. Making sense of this complexity presents an additional challenge for policymakers," Scott adds. 

Our national security architecture needs to evolve

Central to Scott’s thesis is the growing recognition that as our world fundamentally evolves, Australia’s response to the growing national security challenges needs to evolve accordingly, in particular, the nation’s established national security architecture needs to adapt. 

Scott explains, “Australia’s national security architecture must evolve to meet these new challenges, as it has before. The bureaucracy has undergone significant reform in recent years, including the merger of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and AusAID, the establishment of the Department of Home Affairs, and the creation of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI). One possibility would be to further reorganise this bureaucracy with the goal of making it more integrated, flexible, and so better equipped for the new environment.”

Going further, Scott reinforces the call for Australia to develop a national security strategy, echoing the calls of the late senator and retired Major General Jim Molan who remained a strong advocate for a holistic national security strategy, drawing on the experience, intelligence and expertise across government to better position the nation and enhance the nation’s resilience in the face of mounting challenges. 

“A less onerous option would be to formulate a national security strategy to guide those making and implementing decisions. Such a strategy could be informed by a global threats assessment prepared by ONI, and so take a wider scope than the annual threats assessment undertaken by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Ideally, such a strategy would also drive more integration between the many parts of government that should play a role in national security. Working through problems in advance should at least help the government prepare for choices it might have to make with less time. A focused set of objectives and priorities would improve judiciousness about which threats to counter and how.

“Australia needs a national security strategy that at least articulates these high-level goals. It could take the form of a statement to parliament. But the unpredictable environment will limit the utility of any detailed planning document. There is a high risk that it could render any such strategy out of date not long after it is completed,” Scott explains. 

Time for sharper choices

In response to these mounting challenges, Scott calls for the nation’s policymakers to shift away from the traditional approach to responding to national strategic challenges, that is to “muddle through” making ad-hoc decisions without consideration for broader geopolitical, economic and strategic challenges, thus limiting their efficacy. 

“Australia could leave its national security architecture unchanged and muddle through, making decisions on a case-by-case basis and in the traditional way. But if governments believe what they say about the extraordinary challenges Australia now faces, then they should be open to doing business differently,” Scott states. 

A key part of strengthening the nation’s strategic resilience and response to these emerging national security challenges is to improve the quality of Australia’s national security decisions by strengthening the decision-making processes. 

At the core of this is changes to the NSC processes which serve as the foundation of Australia’s national security making decision processes, Scott explains, “The NSC is the keystone of Australia’s national security architecture. Changes to NSC processes might be challenging to implement but they would be more consequential than other reforms. To strengthen the NSC, the government should follow through on Australia’s history of seeking more structured national security decisions and adapt these processes to Australia’s new and more complex national security environment.”

Going further, Scott outlines a concept for enhancing the national security structures will also provide an avenue for greater flexibility, novelty and innovation in responding to these challenges, “Making the best possible choices and trade-offs will require decision-makers to better grasp the multiple dimensions of complex problems, including the immediate context and the bigger picture as well as security, economic, and environmental aspects. To achieve this, the NSC should more frequently seek discrete and independent assessments of these different dimensions. This process would avoid imposing “excessive coherence” on complex problems and, ideally, compel decision-makers to engage with all important components.

“It should also create more space for the creative policy making that Australia will need to successfully navigate a more complex and competitive world,” Scott states. 

Lessons for Australia’s future strategic planning

There is no doubt that Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically in the face of rising regional and global competition.

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.

While 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, this is particularly well explained by Peter Zeihan, who explains:

"A deglobalised world doesn’t simply have a different economic geography, it has thousands of different and separate geographies. Economically speaking, the whole was stronger for the inclusion of all its parts. It is where we have gotten our wealth and pace of improvement and speed. Now the parts will be weaker for their separation."

Accordingly, shifting the public discussion and debate 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.

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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 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..   

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.

Send me a message