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Australia’s shift to a policy of “impactful projection” has been heralded as a major departure from the previous “continental” strategy for protecting the nation during a comparatively benevolent period in global history, yet across the globe, there are nations who have faced down similar challenges to those we now face, with interesting lessons for Australia’s implementation of “impactful projection”.
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Without sounding hyperbolic, the post-Second World War, US-led global security, economic, and political order is under ever-mounting strain across every major battlefield of ideas and material competition.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the rapidly deteriorating “situationship” that now colours the dynamic between the United States as the world’s incumbent, pre-eminent global power and the rising superpower, the People’s Republic of China, which are tentatively circling one another, jabbing into the air like heavyweight boxers sizing up their adversary before committing.
This environment of uncertainty is only further compounded by increasing competition from emerging multilateral organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS, made up of competing member states including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and a growing number of emerging “partners” or “adjacent” states all of which are now realigning their domestic and foreign policies to hasten the collapse of the post-Second World War order.
For nations like Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Western Europe, the post-Second World War order embodied by the United Nations and other multilateral organisations including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and other organs designed to facilitate an explosion of free trade across the globe paving the way for the modern, interconnected global economy, and period of innovation is coming to an end.
Whether we like it or not and whether we are prepared for it or not, this new paradigm presents new challenges for Australia’s geostrategic policy community and the planning surrounding the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) as for the first time in lived memory, both we, and our great and powerful friend, the United States, face an increasingly contested and competitive world.
However, for many nations, particularly those on the fringes of global centres of power in Europe and Asia, the “new” reality of global economic, political, and strategic great power competition is part of their everyday life and have accordingly shaped their defence and broader strategic policies to maintain their sovereignty and protect their national interests against significantly larger and more powerful great powers.
This approach only becomes more relevant when viewed through the prism of a particular statement articulated in the DSR which escalates the nation’s capacity and status in the global power paradigm: “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.”
Front and centre for this approach to managing and facing down great power competition is the Nordic nation of Sweden, which despite its official policy of “neutrality” has long been recognised as a nation that punches well beyond its relative weight in terms of both direct military capability and its defence industrial base, with the nation of approximately 10.5 million people announcing a host of recent increases to its defence posture and capabilities separate to its recent admittance to NATO.
This is best explained by The Telegraph UK’s Robert Clark in a piece titled, “Sweden’s giant-killer military is built for one thing: fighting Russia”, where he states, “Since the 2020 defence paper, Stockholm has sought to increase both the size of its military and its budget. Last year, Sweden spent 1.3 per cent of GDP on defence, and it aims to meet the NATO 2 per cent target by 2026 at the latest. This money goes a long way; unlike the UK or France, Sweden has few global deployments and no nuclear arsenal to swallow up chunks of its defence budget. It is free to target spending on modernising its conventional forces.
“As such, Sweden’s forces are set to increase by one-third by 2030, to include 90,000 fulltime personnel, whilst 8,000 conscripts are now being trained annually to backfill their Reserve forces ... However, it is Sweden’s ability to harness advanced technology that truly adds weight and credibility to their military posture, particularly in the key elements of speed, surveillance, and stealth,” Clark explains.
With this in mind, what lessons can Australia learn in order to better deter great power aggression against our interests and be fully capable of implementing the government’s concept of “impactful deterrence” against any existing or potential adversary in our primary area of concern: the Indo-Pacific?
Some overlaps, some divergences
While this goes without saying, there are some dramatic and distinct differences between Australia and Sweden, something many strategic policy experts and policymakers will embrace more broadly in a reductive attempt to avoid learning the lessons where there is direct relevance and similarity.
First things first, the differences – geographically, Sweden is the 55th largest country on earth with a total land mass of 447,425 square kilometres, compared to Australia which is the sixth largest nation with a total land mass of 7,692,024 square kilometres. The true disparity of the immediate jurisdiction is only further reinforced when comparing the maritime jurisdiction of both nations, with Sweden having an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 160,885 square kilometres compared to Australia’s EEZ of 10,190,000 square kilometres, according to Geoscience Australia.
Geographically, Sweden shares a land border with Russia, a recognised great power (if only by virtue of its immense nuclear arsenal) along with borders with Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Germany, comparatively peaceful neighbours (despite recent history), and is economically a highly developed, export-oriented global economy heavily geared towards manufacturing, services and resources, compared to Australia which shares no land borders, but enjoys multiple maritime boundaries and a relatively narrow economic base driven largely by resources, agriculture, and services despite ongoing attempts to enhance economic diversity.
At a population level, Australia is significantly larger than Sweden, with Australia having a population of approximately 26.5 million compared to the aforementioned 10.5 million people of Sweden, with Sweden planning to grow its relatively small military to approximately 90,000 by 2030, with Australia’s own plans to boost the Australian Defence Force to “almost 80,000 personnel” by 2040.
Diplomatically, Sweden, despite its recent pursuit of NATO membership, has traditionally defaulted to a policy of neutrality backed by a highly capable – and during the height of the Cold War – sizeable deterrence-focused military capability to protect its sovereignty. In contrast, Australia has long defaulted to a relationship of dependency upon larger powers (historically, the British Empire and the United States, and more broadly, other multilateral organisations) to guarantee its strategic security from larger, more powerful adversaries, with the aforementioned statement in the DSR heralding a shift towards a more, sovereign approach to deterrence in the contemporary context.
By far, the most important similarity is the comparative size of Sweden and Australia when measured against their most immediate neighbours, particularly their most likely threats, namely Russia, in the case of Sweden, and China, in the case of Australia, although Australia is increasingly finding itself surrounded by a host of nations with their own immense populations, rapidly growing economies, and historic ambitions for the Indo-Pacific region that may pose a threat either directly or indirectly to Australia’s national interests in the coming decades.
This rapidly deteriorating threat environment will necessitate a more considered and methodical response from Australia, with similar conviction and uncomfortable realism to that embodied by the Swedes.
Let’s be real about our environment and our threats
Ultimately, Australia is significantly more vulnerable to the changes reshaping the modern geopolitical, economic, and strategic paradigms at home and abroad than Sweden is, in particular, our insistence on remaining “part of” Oceania as our main economic, political, and strategic measuring stick allows Australia’s policymakers and the Australian public to live in a state of arrested development when compared to the reality of us being geographically closer and more interconnected with Southeast Asia than the South Pacific.
This reality, coupled with our geographic isolation, particularly from our “great and powerful friends”, necessitates a dramatic reassessment and realignment of Australia’s capacity to act independently across the domains of national power, whether it is economically, politically, diplomatically or in a military capacity to defend and further our own interests in the region, which goes to the very definition of “impactful projection” as defined by the Albanese government and its ambitions for the implementation of the Defence Strategic Review.
Nevertheless, there remains a significant disconnect between the recommendations of the DSR and the actual implementation of the findings across the domains of national power.
This only becomes more important as we continue to grapple with the uncomfortable reality of the declining power of the United States and the comparative increase in national power across the region, something articulated in the DSR, which states: “Regional countries continue to modernise their military forces. China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the Second World War. This has occurred alongside significant economic development, benefiting many countries in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia. This build-up is occurring without transparency or reassurance to the Indo-Pacific region of China’s strategic intent. China’s assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea threatens the global rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific in a way that adversely impacts Australia’s national interests. China is also engaged in strategic competition in Australia’s near neighbourhood.”
Aussies have long prided themselves on never shirking their responsibility or being afraid of a bit of hard work, well, we certainly have our work cut out for us, whether it is facing down the economic headwinds of a burgeoning global recession and a global shift away from the post-Second World War economic order (read the US dollar), mounting domestic political and socio-economic tensions, and of course, the geostrategic competition between the world’s great powers.
The reality of these multifaceted challenges necessitates an equally multifaceted response and a rather abrupt shift away from Australia’s standard operating procedure, dominated by an attitude of passivity and deference towards a more active, intentional role, backed by significant capacity to enforce our interests and deter hostilities across the vast Indo-Pacific.
While the Albanese government has presented initiatives like it’s long-awaited Defence Strategic Review, various net zero strategies, Rewiring the Nation, and advanced manufacturing plans as a shift away from the “she’ll be right” attitude towards a more “intentional” strategy of engagement, collaboration and “impactful projection” in the Indo-Pacific, these often vague, nebulous initiatives fail to shift the dial and account for the realities facing the nation.
In light of these mounting challenges, it is becoming increasingly clear that both Australia’s policymakers and the Australian public need to mature their thinking and begin a long-required shift from passive actor towards an intentional actor on the global stage, but most importantly, in the Indo-Pacific.
Final thoughts
With a new understanding, 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?
Importantly, in this era of renewed competition between autarchy and democracy, this is a 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.
This requires a greater degree of transparency and a culture of collaboration between the nation’s strategic policymakers and 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.
Equally, it is important for us to recognise that while we don’t face these challenges in isolation, each and every nation is and will put its own interests first, the COVID-19 pandemic proved that, therefore we can no longer afford to be blindly altruistic in our approach to the nation’s future, to do so is willful ignorance at best and national vandalism at worst.
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
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.
