Login
iscover
It goes without saying that Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel will go down in history as one of the greatest intelligence failures in history, with important lessons for Australia in the era of great power competition.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
It may seem like a strange comparison, but Israel and Australia as nations are more alike than they are different.
Primarily, these similarities are best represented by their comparatively small populations when measured against their respective neighbours, are home to advanced economies, and are located in hotly contested parts of the world.
At the regional level, both nations find themselves in hotly contested parts of the world, where political, ethnic, and religious animosities have been, or are becoming the playground of ambitious great powers seeking to expand their influence and interests in an increasingly multipolar world.
Beneath regional great powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the pseudo-failed state that has become Syria, Israel’s primary adversaries, at least in the kinetic sense over the past three decades, have largely come from guerilla groups funded, trained, and supported by regional great powers across the Middle East.
For organisations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and other regional extremist guerrilla groups, this hatred stems from longstanding historic, territorial, ethnic, and religious hatred of Israel and its largely Jewish population, leaving aside the variable minefield that comes following the creation of the Israeli state in 1948.
Israel has equally struggled with a long history for legitimacy in the eyes of its neighbours, fighting a number of wars that would serve to force an uneasy peace and acceptance of the state’s legitimacy and sovereignty.
In contrast, Australia is a nation who’s legitimacy and sovereignty are accepted within the broader Indo-Pacific.
Where Israel shares exposed land borders with multiple potentially hostile nations, Australia shares vast maritime boundaries with only a small number of nations yet shares interests with some of the world’s fastest-growing and most ambitious rising great powers, whether that is Indonesia, Vietnam, India, China or Thailand.
It is, however, the way in which Israel responds to and confronts the challenges of its proximity to multiple, multifaceted concurrent threats in an increasingly multipolar world where these two nations differ the most and Australia can learn the most.
Nature of the environment determines the response
Where Australia’s regional neighbourhood has, at least since the end of the Second World War, been largely benevolent, mainly as a result of the enduring capacity and commitment of the United States, Israel regularly confronts a high-threat environment.
Further compounding the environment, both nations now face the rising multipolarity of the world, coupled with the declining capacity, stability, and indeed, commitment of the world’s hegemon, the United States (despite confirmed US Navy deployments) to leverage its diplomatic capacity to calm or mediate situations.
Where Australia and Israel diverge though is the fact that Israel has had to confront an environment of competition and existential threat from its creation in 1948.
In response, Israel has spent the last eight decades balancing the need to confront this robust threat environment and ensure the long-term economic prosperity, stability, and survival of the Israeli people.
Successive Israeli governments accordingly invested heavily in developing a vibrant economy, including innovative technology, education and services sectors, advanced manufacturing (including the defence industry), and an increasingly self-sufficient energy and agriculture sectors.
Protecting this, Israel has, arguably, one of the most powerful pound-for-pound militaries in the world and a comprehensive and well-respected (and feared, depending on who you ask) foreign intelligence capability, all backed by a rumoured nuclear weapons capability as the ultimate guarantor of the nation’s security.
Ultimately, the lessons that have shaped the Israeli culture and nation stem from the long and often tragic history of the Jewish people, that is, that no one is coming to save you, no matter how well intentioned or seemingly committed, you have to be capable of doing it yourself.
Israel’s position in the Levant has only served to reinforce this attitude.
In contrast, Australia and the Australian public continue to travel along in a state of blissful ignorance (outside of select circles) at a time when our region and the world is rapidly devolving into an increasingly competitive, contested, and divided multipolar world.
Despite a seeming break in our status quo as governments around the country and the Australian people realised the exceptional vulnerability of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by mounting tensions and competition across the globe, but particularly in the Indo-Pacific, nothing seems to have changed.
Where Israel enjoys bipartisan support for its national resilience and security, our lacklustre response and managed decline is seemingly supported or at least tolerated by both sides of Australia’s political debate and only exacerbated by certain sections of our media, public policy, and academic classes which seek to continue this decline.
While our environment has at least, for the last 80 years, been largely benevolent, this is rapidly changing and the status quo simply won’t do.
Ultimately, Australia will need to be prepared and be vigilant in order to survive and thrive in this new world order.
Final thoughts
As US founding father Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”, and nowhere is this more true than in the world we face today – for Australia, this is particularly important.
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.
