Helping the Australian public to understand the importance of deterrence

For almost the entirety of our national history, Australia has grappled with the double-edged sword of our geographic isolation, comparative small population, and our corresponding status in a much broader, more competitive world dominated by great powers. 

Perhaps by divine providence, this perfect blend of circumstances served to shield the nation and public from a series of existential threats to our national security, prosperity, and stability.

It wasn’t until the rampaging forces of Imperial Japan blitzkrieged their way through Southeast Asia and the Pacific that the Australian public confronted the existential reality of the world, that is: our world is inherently competitive. 

Australia embraced a more assertive policy of “Forward Defence” in the immediate decades following the end of the Second World War, which saw the nation’s defence and national security posture shift towards a heavy emphasis on regional presence, direct engagement, and deterrence. 

In some ways, the Cold War-era policy of “Forward Defence” is the precursor to the Albanese government’s still-to-be-clearly-articulated policy of “Impactful Projection”, set to be formalised as part of the upcoming Defence Strategic Review. 

The government’s renewed focus on deterrence is best encapsulated in the AUKUS trilateral partnership which will see Australia develop and build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to serve as the pointy end of the next-generation Australian Defence Force. 

Despite broad support from the Australian public for our nuclear submarine ambitions, there still appears to be a disconnect in understanding the rapidly emerging challenges facing Australia in this new era of great power competition and the role deterrence will play in securing Australia’s national interests for the Australian community. 

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Importantly, in this new era of great power competition, deterrence isn’t merely confined to the realms of who can field the most nuclear warheads, or who has the most tanks. In changing the rules, wielding “grey zone” conflict against us, adversaries have also provided a path to strengthen our response and provide a more holistic deterrence response. 

Anybody who has worked around politics and public policy for long enough knows that any doom and gloom message is bound to fail, so how do we address this knowledge disconnect while also presenting the Australian public with a positive outlook? 

The region is changing

There are very few nations as utterly dependent on the unmolested access to the oceans as contemporary Australia is. All of our major exports and inputs, whether key industrial inputs, like liquid fuel, natural gas, iron ore, coal, pharmaceuticals, cars, and other consumer goods are heavily dependent on seaborne trade.

Indeed, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, 99 per cent of our international trade is carried by sea, travelling through key maritime choke points in the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Malacca, Suez Canal, and the hotly contested waterway of the South China Sea.

Yet on the periphery of public consciousness, despite a growing amount of media coverage (even where it is publicly lambasted by former prime ministers) the Australian public still appears to be reluctant to directly engage with and as an extent, enhance their understanding of the new era of great power competition in our immediate region. 

There is also the question about the level of interest and direct care on the part of the Australian public towards the challenges contemporary Australia faces, when as former Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, George Brandis KC states, Australians don’t have a lived memory of existential threat to our way of life. 

Brandis explains, “The war that followed [World War Two] was the only time that Australia has felt existentially threatened. While we now know from archival research that Japanese policy was not to invade Australia but to isolate it, that was not how it seemed at the time — particularly to those who lived in northern Australia.

“There are few still alive who remember the Pacific War; every generation since, from the Baby Boomers onward, has grown up in a sense of relative security. Even Vietnam, the most serious war in our region which many Australians remember, was not accompanied by widespread fear of communist invasion if South Vietnam fell,” Brandis said. 

Despite the broad cultural and societal malaise that seems to be ingrained in Australian society, the post-Second World War order upon which contemporary Australia’s security, stability and prosperity is built is fraying at the seams. 

The United States is a broad tail spin of decline characterised by compounding economic crises and a globally coordinated shift away from the US dollar as the global reserve currency, domestic political polarisation and atomisation, combined with a social melancholy and waves of deaths of despair, directly linked to the deindustrialisation of the heart land. 

Comparatively in our region alone, both Australia and the United States, as our major strategic benefactor, face an increasingly complex and challenging environment, one which places direct strain on our own capabilities to defend our interests, particularly following decades of underinvestment as a direct result of the post-Cold War peace dividend. 

This is particularly relevant when analysing the unprecedented economic, political, and military rise of Beijing, particularly across our own region where the influence-peddling campaign is forming a web of soft deterrence, through consensus building, economic “investment” and development of critical infrastructure throughout the region. 

Beijing is doubling down on this approach through the largest peacetime military expansion and modernisation in history, resulting in a force that is focused, not just on deterrence through the recapitalisation and modernisation of a nuclear triad, but equally a force that emphasises power projection across the Indo-Pacific. 

This is best explained and indeed reinforced by the US Indo-Pacific Commander, Admiral John Aquilino, who recently explained to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, “Conflict in the INDOPACOM area of operations is neither imminent nor inevitable. Nevertheless, we do not have the luxury of time, we must act now to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.

“There’s a tonne of variables on what might motivate President Xi Jinping to take that action. It’s our job to convince him every day, [that] it would be a bad choice ... Beijing publicly claims a preference for peaceful unification over conflict. However, its consistent pressure tactics and coercive behaviour demonstrates a significant disconnect between their words and their deeds ... This larger arsenal could provide the PRC with new options before and during a crisis or conflict to leverage nuclear weapons for coercive purposes, including military provocations against US allies and partners in the region," ADM Aquilino added. 

But what can Australia do in the face of these challenges, and how can we bring Australians on the journey?  

Getting the public on board with deterrence 

Both the United States and China’s approach to “hard power”-based deterrence relies on two key factors: the broad-based economic and industrial strength of their economies and the power and capacity of their respective armed forces, which make both these nations, true global powers. 

But how does that relate to Australia, after all, as Australians have repeatedly been told, what more could humble, little Australia do? We do, after all, already punch “well above our own weight”. 

This is a particularly important question to ask in reference to Australia as a nation, because, as explained by Dr Andrew Carr of Australian National University, military deterrence is a relatively novel concept for the nation to grapple with: “Deterrence is very new in the Australian experience. We have been part of a Western coalition for a very long time, but we have never had to do the kind of messaging and communication which is a crucial part of deterrence. There is not a lot of muscle memory in Australia for deterrent discourse.”

Going further, how do we sell the Australian public on board? 

Doing so requires a compelling narrative that doesn’t undersell the challenges we face, but one that equally articulates the opportunities on offer, if we get the balance right. 

First and foremost, it is about the bottom line and everyone’s bottom line is their wallet and for young Australians in particular, those that will inherit the world and the domestic and geopolitical environment we build today, we’re leaving them vulnerable to being coerced and influenced, effectively circumventing any defence acquisition plans.    

This is particularly important for young Australians who, like many of their Western counterparts, are facing the uncomfortable reality that they will be the first generation in centuries to not be better off than their predecessors, hardly a deterring factor if your adversaries’ populace is uninvested in the future of the order.

To this end, the government has already moved to make the nuclear submarines program a compelling story, particularly on the employment and industrial development front, with the government’s media release at the AUKUS announcement stating: “The program will create around 20,000 direct jobs over the next 30 years across industry, the Australian Defence Force, and the Australian public service including trades workers, operators, technicians, engineers, scientists, submariners, and project managers.

“At its peak, building and sustaining nuclear-powered submarines in Australia will create up to 8,500 direct jobs in the industrial workforce.”

But more has to be done to enhance not just the direct strategic deterrence capabilities of the Australian Defence Force, but the broad-based deterrence capabilities of the nation in general. 

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. 

In order to truly build Australia’s deterrence capabilities, we need to view the concept of deterrence in a much broader lens than simply defence capabilities, and accordingly, we need to pursue a number of avenues, namely: 

• Conventional military capabilities – including air, land and sea-based power projection capabilities;
• Strategic deterrence capabilities – including but not limited to a nuclear triad, strategic bomber and naval strategic force multipliers; and
• Economic power – focused on maintaining strategic industries with a focus on being globally competitive across manufacturing, resource and energy, innovation and research and development.  

As a nation, Australia is at a precipice and both the Australian public and the nation’s political and strategic leaders need to decide what they want the nation to be: do they want the nation to become an economic, political, and strategic backwater caught between two competing great empires and a growing cluster of periphery great powers? Or does Australia “have a crack” and actively establish itself as a regional great power with all the benefits it entails?

Final thoughts 

There seems to be an undercurrent belief that Australia will be facing down any future threat alone, or that our primary strategic benefactor will be there at our beck and call.

As with everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle and the reality is that Australia may have to face down a great power competitor on its own at certain points and be required to win. Accordingly, we need to be able to deter them from seeking to coerce or attack us directly, or our interests, and we need to do so with the full confidence of the Australian people. 

This can only be achieved by putting ourselves first, after all, the old saying says, “Charity begins at home”, and if we don’t put our interests first, both those of today and those of tomorrow, how can we expect anyone else to put our interests first? 

Only a united people, invested in and believing in the promise of the nation, can be a truly effective deterrent and sadly, no shiny pieces of kit can make up for a public that is uninterested and uninvested in the future. 

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. 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.

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