Changing the way we view ourselves and the need for a grand national narrative

No matter where one looks through history, kingdoms, empires, and nations that have a clearly defined sense of purpose, ambition, and role have prospered and flourished.

Despite its faults, the United States and its 19th century concept of “manifest destiny” served as the guiding star for the economic, political, strategic, and social development of the US, paving the way for the nation to emerge from the Second World War as the world’s only indispensable nation and the leader of the free world.

Further back, England and Britain’s own romantic notions of Camelot and Arthurian equality, and the lure of the Magna Carta and the concepts of Common Law, paved the way for the ascendency of the British Empire.

Looking closer to home and across the Indo-Pacific, we see President Xi Jinping’s ambitions of entrenching China at the centre of global affairs, becoming the true “Middle Kingdom” to see China’s own ancient Mandate of Heaven, the Indian Hindutva or the Russian concept of a Third Rome equally serve as invaluable examples of nations guided by a common unifying and defining role for the nation to play within the confines of geopolitical and strategic relations.

These concepts and the ensuing identities formed out them have played an important role in guiding and unifying the various political systems and structures responsible for decision making within these nations, kingdoms, and empires.

In contrast we have Australia, a nation obsessed with the widely held belief in a “Lucky Country” as originally defined by Donald Horne. Ironically however, this term was never meant as a term of endearment for the nation and its people, but rather, was meant as a term of derision, with Horne explaining in his follow up book of 1976, Death of the Lucky Country: “When I invented the phrase in 1964 to describe Australia, I said: ‘Australia is a lucky country run by second rate people who share its luck.’ I didn’t mean that it had a lot of material resources.

“I had in mind the idea of Australia as a [British] derived society whose prosperity in the great age of manufacturing came from the luck of its historical origins ... In the lucky style we have never ‘earned’ our democracy. We simply went along with some British habits ... I have had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase,” Horne detailed.

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As the first part of this short series, we took a high level look at the importance of identifying and implementing traditional “hard power” mechanisms as a means of strengthening the nation in the face of great power competition and its implications across the Indo-Pacific.

In the era of great power competition and in light of the advent of new ways of warfare, particularly the concepts of “hybrid” and “grey zone” warfare as implemented by nations like Russia and China, coupled with the rising prominence of ethno-nationalism across parts of the Indo-Pacific, means Australia needs to rally the elements of “soft power” to fully implement a whole-of-nation response.

A house divided cannot stand

There has long been an intrinsic understanding that a divided house cannot stand before a storm, to bring this into the 21st century, there is a quote by Marvel villain Helmut Zemo, “An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That’s dead, forever.” Today, however, we seem to have forgotten this fact, in a time when remembering it has never been more important.

Australia is not unique among the Western world in facing internal tensions, whether they be intergenerational concerns about access to employment, housing or education opportunities, wealth inequality, gender-based grievances or historic injustices from the era of imperial expansion. Equally, we are not alone in seeing this tensions inflamed and exacerbated by subversive foreign adversaries that leverage “hybrid” and “grey zone” operations across the internet, social media, and traditional media avenues.

From the perspective of a Millennial, things have undoubtedly gotten more difficult for us: we face mounting levels of debt, stagnating, if not falling wages, an increasingly impenetrable housing market, and little to no connection to the great successes of our great Western democratic history, and who is to blame from our perspective? The boomer generation.

How can we realistically expect young Australians to put their hands up and step forward to defend a system they have no ownership over, no material investment in, and increasingly feel that the lifestyle that they were promised will remain a pipe dream?

Conversely, from the boomer generation, they see Millennials and the subsequent generations as spoiled, entitled, and arrogant know-it-all’s with little understanding of history, the lessons that have built civilisation, and in a lot of cases, that isn’t an unreasonable assessment, particularly when we see the temper tantrums which characterise the activist class of the younger generation.

Meanwhile, the boomer generation was the last generation to benefit from “free” university education, enjoyed record periods of wage growth, and an enviable access to the ability to build generational wealth and home ownership, all part of the “Great Australian Dream” that is now unfortunately out of reach for many young Australians.

With this in mind, is it any wonder that generations of Australians are at each other’s throats or have just pulled up stumps and resigned themselves to a life of middling poverty, forced to remember the good old days of their youth?

We need to get serious

Even in the lucky country, every day, we are reminded by our leaders that we live in unprecedented times — social unrest and declining social cohesion are compounded by the lingering impacts and distrust wrought by the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about the impact of climate change, and the rising potential of global conflict, yet no one really seems to be taking things seriously — despite their rhetoric.

Political leaders on the centre-Left like to reinforce that “the adults are back in charge”, while those on the centre-Right continue to squabble over the best way to rebuild their political fortunes: Neo-Thatcherism, or Neo-Reaganism — which no matter how you look at it, are two sides of the same coin.

While Australia isn’t alone in facing these challenges, our position in the world requires a radical departure from the status quo of how Australia as a nation responds.

For too long, the idea that national security and economic opportunity are two mutually exclusive pillars of national governance has left the nation woefully, no, hilariously unprepared to not just survive, but thrive in this new era of disruption.

First and foremost, COVID-19 has taught the Australian people that we are incredibly vulnerable to the whims of what US geostrategic analyst Peter Zeihan calls the “just in time” economy, that is, companies often stock little in the way of inventory and are dependent on increasingly complex, cheap, global supply chains to provide the goods, just in time.

Recent years have demonstrated that these supply chains are often inviting targets for nation-state brinkmanship and coercion for geopolitical, economic, and strategic gain.

However, Australia, unlike the United States, for example, has not embraced the opportunities presented by this paradigm shift, with both sides of the nation’s political divide unwilling to adapt and provide the policy, tax, and employment incentives necessary to establish Australia as a new, competitive, and resilient economic power in its own right.

Where the US has begun, albeit slowly, a shift towards re-industrialisation, Australia, a similarly sized and blessed continent continues to sputter along, reinventing the wheel then wondering why we consistently fail to move the needle in our industrial capacity or national resilience.

Hell, Australia can’t even work out that it needs to build new dams to prevent disastrous flooding or to store water and drought-proof the nation, or that nuclear power is capable of providing reliable, base load power that can power the re-industrialisation and revitalisation of the nation’s economic and scientific ambition and potential.

Many an Australian media, political, and policy pundit has called for both sides to do something to respond to these challenges, what have we got instead? State and territory government’s bickering over their split of the GST, rampant pork barrelling, a declining level of industrialisation, and a relative collapse in the confidence and investment in the nation by the Australian public — meanwhile, no matter where you look, the globalisation Australia is dependent on is in retreat.

Meanwhile, in another grand irony, the Australian public are increasingly calling for the nation’s leaders to take our future more seriously, if not explicitly, then most certainly implicitly — yet again we have seen little progress to respond.

First and foremost, our policymakers need to take both the concerns of, and the Australian public more seriously — in particular, their demands for a more considered, long-term plan for our national future more seriously, and where there is disagreement, avoid falling into the trap of branding one side “right wing extremists”, “reactionaries” or the other “snowflakes”.

Meanwhile, the Australian public, on the other hand, need to demand better of their decision-makers, but also begin to move away from the malaise of tall poppy syndrome and “she’ll be right” to believe that Australia can become something greater than we currently are.

As the democratic world continues to devolve into a narcissistic clown world, even humble Australia can set itself apart.

Final thoughts

To achieve this, we need bold, ambitious, and exciting leaders who can present an engaging, visionary, and optimistic future direction for the nation. We need our leaders to pull at the heart strings of all Australians and their hopes and dreams, while providing for a clearly communicated path to achieving this vision.

Australia equally needs to stand firm in its values, defend its principles and our history, even the dark spots, because in the absence of darkness, there can be no light.

Equally, the Australian public needs to be educated on the challenges we face in our region and more broadly, the post-Second World War order upon which our wealth and stability is built, because without it, many Australians will blindly simply go with the flow and watch as we fade into the pages of history.

In doing so, we must equally remember this poignant line from Deuteronomy 6:10-12: “We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves by fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know.”

By remembering these points, we can emerge as a new leader. A new light on the hill, and bulwark against the march of totalitarian nations — but in order to achieve this, we need to empower the individual, through the traditional values of democratic nations: liberty, responsibility, and meritocracy, and most importantly, we need to take ourselves, our potential, and our responsibility to preserve the principles, history, and embers of democracy more seriously.

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..