Decline of patriotism, confidence in West impacts willingness to defend ourselves

Famous television mobster Tony Soprano opened the series with a rather poignant quote: “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. And I came too late for that, I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

For many young Australians, whether Millennial or Zoomer, there is an inescapable synergy and intrinsic, instinctive connection to the words of Tony Soprano.

Whether it is being increasingly locked out of the housing market, declining economic opportunity, a collapsing relationship “market”, or concerns about the future of the world, young Australians aren’t alone in facing these challenges as this phenomenon radically reshapes the politics and by extension, the security of the developed world.

Conversely, older generations, mainly the post-war Boomer generation who inherited the shade of trees they didn’t plant, remain obstinate in their belief that these younger generations (generations they raised, I might add) are simply entitled, soft and unwilling to do the hard yards to get ahead.

This intergenerational animosity is only further compounded by the expectation by older generations that young Australians and, indeed, younger people across the developed world should lay down their lives to protect and expand an order they have no investment and, even worse, no trust in.

All of this combines to present a rather bleak outlook for the future as the world continues to devolve into a multipolar, increasingly competitive order.

Highlighting this is former US assistant secretary for defense Owen West and Professor of Political Science at California State University, Kevin Wallsten, in a piece for The Wall Street Journal, titled “Patriotism’s Decline Imperils the Military”, in which they expand on the facing the world’s most powerful military, the United States Armed Forces.

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The findings of both West and Wallsten echo similar findings by the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in a study from March 2022, which identified similar sentiments among Australians.

The system is stacked against us!

Recruitment and retention challenges are nothing new, particularly in the last two decades, with all nations struggling to meet their recruitment and retention quotas. However, in recent years, these issues have become more pronounced, presenting significant challenges to force generation and deployed capability.

Both West and Wallsten highlight this in the American context, stating: “The divisiveness of American politics has undermined our military in a way the Pentagon doesn’t understand or refuses to acknowledge. To attract Generation Z recruits after President Biden’s election, the military changed its marketing strategy. Starting in 2021, the military released advertisements emphasising individualism and diversity over assimilation into a cohesive force with shared martial values. The Army called its campaign ‘a distinct departure’ from traditional recruiting.”

Unpacking this further, West and Wallsten stress the role of a reluctance or perhaps refusal to accept the issues facing the younger generations by older American and, by extension, Australian policymakers: “Yet the military’s recruitment crisis has only grown worse. Generals blame an increasingly overweight, overmedicated and undereducated youth pool. Those factors have contributed for years, but here’s the essential problem now: young white Democrats have lost faith in their country and are rejecting military service.”

This reluctance to listen only serves to reinforce the growing levels of political polarisation and atomisation that is sweeping across the Western world, most malignantly reflected in the United States.

West and Wallsten explain: “The data are clear, but the Pentagon hasn’t dealt with the glaring political gap. One of the oldest and most reliable youth polls, Monitoring the Future, has for decades shown only small differences in the propensity to serve. As recently as 2015, 19 per cent of young white male Democrats wanted to serve, compared with 20 per cent of blacks, Latinos and white Republicans.

“No more. By 2021, white Democrats had plunged to 3 per cent, about one-fourth the level among black and Latino men, and one-eighth that of white Republicans. That’s a loss of about 45,000 young men interested in serving. The total recruiting gap across the Army, Navy and Air Force combined is about 30,000 people.”

Yet the question becomes, what has changed over the past two decades to drive this socio-cultural change and impact the confidence and belief in their nations?

Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag; as previously mentioned, the inability of younger generations to own a meaningful slice of the nation through a family home, coupled with declining economic opportunities, particularly in Australia, where we have progressively seen the nation transition to a “knowledge” and services economy which faces wiping out millions of jobs through the increasing proliferation of artificial intelligence and deflationary pressure on wages as a result of mass migration among others only serve to reinforce the belief that our system has failed.

Highlighting this confluence of factors in the Australian context is David Llewellyn-Smith, the chief strategist with MB Super and Nucleus Wealth, who explains that the Treasurer favoured mechanisms such as increased migration to increase the tax base, while various “sectors” of the economy favour it for their own bottom line.

“That’s at the cost to the vast majority of Australians ... The winners of that immigration model – even in a per capita recession – are the banks, retailers and developers, and if you put those three together, you get what is known as the growth lobby, and they push for the model to continue because it’s good for them,” Llewellyn-Smith said.

The impact of this papering over the cracks inherent in the national economy is reinforced by comments made by AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver, who explained: “We’re pumping more people in, but we’re not producing more stuff per person ... We’re inflating our economy by pumping more people in, but it’s not giving us growth in living standards per person – we’re actually going backwards, and also productivity is going backwards.”

Surging political polarisation, wokeism driving recruitment, retention challenges

Again, shifting back to the American context, West and Wallsten explain the corresponding impact on patriotism among younger generations: “Why did this happen? Because American patriotism is dissolving. Yet Gen Z has been wrongly categorised as monolithically unpatriotic. In fact, beneath its dismal headline is a political divergence. Only 12 per cent of Democrats 18 to 24 are ‘extremely proud’ to be Americans, compared with 42 per cent of Republicans in the same age bracket. If you’re not proud of your country, you won’t fight for it. Wokeism has driven young left-leaning whites away from the military.”

Going further, West and Wallsten add: “To solidify its traditional support, the military needs to end its naive attempt to lure young liberals by featuring drag queens, rainbow bullets representing ‘pride’ and anime depicting the military as a refuge from childhood trauma. As Bud Light and other companies have discovered, running woke campaigns risks losing core customers.”

Yet despite the seemingly common sense of rectifying these challenges, the US military has in recent years moved to double down on this emphasis, something both West and Wallsten detail, saying: “Internally, the military has to roll back divisive policies that challenge traditional military values ... In the past few years, however, the Pentagon has mimicked the social changes sweeping through the academy. The Pentagon’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies – and the proliferation of DEI officers throughout the ranks – have heightened individualism and rendered obsolete the principle that the US military is a colourblind meritocracy.”

Standing diametrically opposed to this, the pair detail the success of the US Marines recruitment programs by remaining true to the values of the Corps and its traditional approach to recruitment, with West and Wallsten stating: “By contrast, the Marine Corps exceeded its 2022 recruiting goals by sticking to its traditional recruiting model. The Marines focused on recruiting those eager to serve, emphasising team over self and discipline instead of rose gardens. One result is that Latinos will comprise 25 per cent of enlisted recruits. The traditional ethos of duty, honour and country remains the basis for our ethnically diverse military, a distinct American advantage.”

But how does this play out in the Australian context?

Well, we don’t fair much better when it comes to the sentiment of young Australians, and indeed, more broadly, the Australian public when it comes to confidence, belief in and willingness to defend the nation and system.

Highlighting this, Daniel Wild, director of research at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), states: “As a result of years of relentless attack on our values by the cultural and media elites, young Australians are now so ashamed of themselves and their country that they would rather flee Australia than stay and fight if the need arose.”

The report and polling commissioned of 1,000 Australians by the IPA details: “Only 32 per cent of those aged 18–24 said they would stay and fight, and 40 per cent said they would leave the country (28 per cent were unsure), and 35 per cent of those aged 25–34 said that would stay and fight, while 38 per cent said they would leave the country (27 per cent were unsure).”

Wild adds: “Young Australians don’t want to fight for Australia because the cultural elites in schools, universities, and the media have convinced them that there is nothing worth fighting for.”

This uncomfortable reality is only further compounded by the aforementioned financial and economic factors that disproportionately impact young Australians.

As if to prove this, public commentary on the IPA’s own report highlighted this, with comments ranging from, “Young people can’t afford a home to live here, it should be land owners’ primary responsibility to put up the fight”, and “Our youth of fighting age are the poorest of any of the generations previously before them. Again, I say, why would they stay and fight?”

With other public feedback including comments, “Why would they stay and fight? This country has no national identity, no culture and poor leadership in both the main political parties.”

Understanding the national security implications

Despite the rhetoric and lofty ambition highlighted by both sides of the political debate, this all paints a fairly gloomy picture for the average Australian, no matter the demographic group in which they fall, but especially the younger generations.

Declining economic opportunity, coupled with the rapidly deteriorating global and regional balance of power and the increased politicisation of every aspect of contemporary life, only serves to exacerbate the very reality of disconnection, apathy, and helplessness felt by many Australians – this attitude and growing sentiment of facing a predestined outcome and the futility of confronting seemingly insurmountable challenges for little to no benefit and at a high risk/reward calculation.

Taking into account the costs and implications, it is therefore easy to understand why so many Australians, both in the general public and within our decision-making circles, seem to have checked out and are quite happy to allow the nation to continue to limp along in mediocrity because, well, it is easier than having lofty ambitions.

All of this combines to form a rather confronting and disconcerting outcome for our long-term national security and one that requires remedying immediately if Australia is to be positioned to capitalise on the truly epoch-defining industrial, economic, political, and strategic shifts currently underway across the globe.

After all, how can we ask and reasonably expect Australians, particularly young Australians, to put the national interest ahead of their own when the nation doesn’t seem to account for their own interests, particularly when taken to the end of its logical extension, the national interest is at its core, the individual’s interest?

Ultimately, Australia and Australians face these two concurrent yet interconnected challenges, which stand as the greatest challenges of our age, so which way, Australia? Do we want to be competitive, consequential and thriving, or do we want to be “steady and sturdy” in our managed decline?

Final thoughts

We have to accept that while the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar”, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world. Underpinned by the emerging economic, political, and strategic might of powers like China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the established and re-emerging capability of both South Korea and Japan, in particular, are serving to create a hotbed of competition on our doorstep.

Recognising this array of challenges and opportunities, both the Australian public and its policymakers need to look beyond the myopic lens that has traditionally dominated our diplomatic, strategic, and economic policymaking since Federation.

Ultimately, we need to see Australia begin to play the long game to fully capitalise on the opportunities transforming the Indo-Pacific. The most important question now becomes, when will we see a more detailed analysis and response to the challenges and opportunities facing Australia, and when will we see both a narrative and strategy that better helps industry and the Australian public understand the challenges faced and opportunities we have presented before us?

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?