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As the Australian public settles into the ‘new normal’, many Australian public policy thinkers and journalists have picked up on the growing groundswell of support within the community to chart a path towards establishing and maintaining true economic and strategic sovereignty in the era of disruption.
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With each passing day the impact of the coronavirus upon global supply chains is becoming painfully apparent, with Australia’s economy teetering on the edge of disaster – however, viewing the impact of the pandemic in isolation to Australia’s broader national security and national resilience further exposes the nation at a point in time when such distinctions are increasingly blurred.
Australia is unlike virtually every other developed nation, it has enjoyed a record near three decades of economic prosperity and stability, buoyed by the immense mineral and resource wealth of the landmass and the benevolence of the post-Second World War political, economic and strategic order.
As a result, both the public and government are relatively unaccustomed to the economic, political and strategic realities of mass social isolation, a comparatively mild form of rationing and what seems to be a relatively low, albeit tragic body count, however, it isn't all doom and gloom as the COVID-19 predicament seems to have shaken the Australian public's confidence in the public policy status quo.
Across the Indo-Pacific, competing economic, political and strategic interests, designs and ambitions are beginning to clash, flying in contrast to the projections of many historians at the end of the Cold War – further compounding these issues is the continued instability caused by the coronavirus and concerns about ecological collapse.
Driven by an unprecedented economic transformation, propelling once developing nations onto the world stage, the region, the globe and its established powers are having to adjust to a dramatically different global power paradigm – one committed to undermining and influencing the fabric of Australian and Western democracies.
Without sounding like a broken record, in this era of increasing nation-state competition, driven largely by the great power competition between the US and China and the subsequent impact on nations, Australia is finding itself at the epicentre of the new global paradigm with unique economic, political and strategic implications for the nation’s national security.
This has prompted an increasing number of strategic policy experts, journalists and politicians to increasingly vocalise the growing demands from the Australian public to do more to ensure Australia's economic, political and strategic integrity.
Understanding the difference between 'national security' and 'national resilience'
The increasing vulnerability and shortfalls of Australia's infrastructure networks, broad sectors of the national economy, environment and the population as a whole all serve as visible challenges to the nation's resilience and capacity to withstand not only increasing global and regional competition, but equally thrive in an age of disruption.
National resilience, as opposed to national security, takes on a more diverse array of challenges for national political and strategic leaders to accommodate, directly impacting the future stability and viability of nations and populations.
Accordingly, the subject of National Resilience has traditionally focused on the impact of natural disasters and similar national emergencies and the capacity of a nation to survive and thrive post-disaster.
Australia has recognised this factor, and formed the National Resilience Taskforce in April 2018 under the former minister for law enforcement and cyber security, now Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, with the focus on "national direction needed to underline climate and disaster risk and improve national resilience across all sectors in Australia".
This taskforce identified key drivers impacting the nation's resilience, including:
- Natural hazards are more frequent and intense;
- Essential services are interconnected and interdependent;
- People and assets are more exposed and vulnerable;
- Disaster impacts are long-term and complex;
- The costs of disasters are growing; and
- The momentum to address the financial impacts of a changing climate is building.
It is clear that given the impact of Australia's cyclical droughts, monsoonal rains and ravaging bushfires, these natural disasters that would traditionally fall under the 'national resilience' category are equally important factors in maintaining long-term national security objectives.
Equally important factors that traditionally fall under the 'national security' category but would be equally at home in the resilience category are factors like energy, water and resource security, infrastructure and industry development, diversity and economic competitiveness and traditional 'hard power' concepts like defence and intelligence all serve as essential components for a nation's resilience.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth
Each of these factors is touched upon by respected strategist and policy expert Alan Dupont in a piece for the Weekend Australian titled, 'Coronavirus: Golden opportunity to broaden and strengthen our national security', in which Dupont sets the scene, stating: "Despite its terrible toll, the pandemic provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unite the country around a security agenda that will reshape how we live in a post-COVID-19 world.
"How this agenda will be constituted and implemented is for debate. But security experts increasingly believe national security policy should be more holistic, integrated and focused on making us resilient to such shocks."
Building on this, Dupont proposes a number of possibilities to both stimulate public debate and prompt Australia's political leaders into taking action at a time when the Australian public is demanding not only leadership, but also a plan to capitalise upon the immense opportunity presented by the rise of the Indo-Pacific.
"In recent weeks, there have been calls for 'smart' sovereignty, less dependence on global supply chains, rejuvenating our vanishingly merchant navy, building a non-military system of national service, hardening the nation’s infrastructure and adopting the idea of total defence," Dupont articulates.
"All these ideas have merit, and bringing the best of them together in a revamped security strategy won’t be as difficult, or expensive, as traditionalists think. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, provided governments are willing to learn from our mistakes, build on the national security machinery already in place and work across the political divide to build a new strategic consensus."
Further supporting these claims is former prime minister Tony Abbott, who recently spoke in Japan highlighting the growing need for Australia and, more broadly, the West to reclaim its national independence, security and resilience in the face of disruption.
A shortened version Abbott's speech, turned into an article for The Australian titled 'The Real 'China virus' killed us years ago', kick starts the debate with a poignant statement: "Australia has traded off long-term national security for short-term economic gain. If good is to come from this crisis, it must focus countries’ minds on the need to be self-reliant as well as rich."
Giving context, Abbott explains, "It’s not freer trade that’s the problem, but freer trade with people who don’t really believe in it: its one-sided implementation by countries that see trade as a strategic weapon and the somewhat naive way most democracies have let our strategic rivals exploit it.
"So if good is to come from this crisis, it must focus countries’ minds on the need to be self-reliant as well as rich.
"This has been the real 'China virus': not the contagion sweeping out of the wet market of Wuhan, but our over-dependence on just one country, not just for inexpensive finished goods, but for vast swathes of our supply chain.
"This has been our deepest complacency, trading off long-term national security for short term economic gain; giving up deep things for shallow ones."
Responding to shocks, hardening the nation
It is becoming abundantly clear to the Australian public that the nation is struggling to respond to the myriad economic, political, strategic, environmental and infrastructure challenges that are arrayed against it and, accordingly, the public discourse and Australia's leaders need to take a direct role in designing, implementing and communicating a coherent national response.
Air Vice-Marshal (Ret’d) John Blackburn AO, chair of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research – Australia, spoke with Defence Connect to explain in detail the breadth of Australia's vulnerability and susceptibility to external shocks to global supply chains and global growth markets the nation is dependent upon for long-term economic stability.
"The Western world has incrementally moved manufacturing to China because it is cheaper, without thinking about the resilience impact in the face of disasters such as pandemics or conflict. Countries like Finland have analysed their supply chain risks and as a result they stockpile medicines, fuel and some foods. That shows a much more sophisticated approach to national resilience than ours," he said.
Blackburn explained the necessity of such an approach, telling Defence Connect, "I think the very first thing we have to have is an honest conversation with Australians about our vulnerabilities and our lack of resilience.
"We need the government to have a mature conversation with us. Perhaps they could say that we are facing some complex risks and that our economy will probably stagnate, at best. We have a deteriorating security situation in the region. We need to discuss what realistic options exist to address these risks and to improve our resilience to future shocks."
He added, "We can keep promising jobs and growth, but that's just slogan. We will have to make some hard decisions in the next decade and as previous generations had to when faced with similar situations. The hard economic decisions taken by the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments positioned us to be able to withstand the GFC. We do not have the same economic strength today to deal with the challenges we now face, from bushfires, to floods to a pandemic, and we do not appear to have the political will to proactively address them."
Equally important factors that traditionally fall under the national security category but would be equally at home in the resilience category are factors like energy, water and resource security, infrastructure and industry development, diversity and economic diversity, competitiveness and traditional hard power concepts like defence and intelligence all serve as essential components for a nation’s resilience.
Australia has recently undergone a period of modernisation and expansion within its national security apparatus, from new white papers in Defence and Foreign Affairs through to well-articulated and resourced defence industrial capability plans, export strategies and the like in an attempt to position Australia well within the rapidly evolving geostrategic and political order of the Indo-Pacific.
Each of the strategies in and of themselves serve critical and essential roles within the broader national security and national resilience debate.
Your thoughts
Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically.
Despite the nation’s virtually unrivalled wealth of natural resources, agricultural and industrial potential, there is a lack of a cohesive national security strategy integrating the development of individual yet complementary public policy strategies to support a more robust Australian role in the region.
Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia.
However, 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?
Further complicating the nation’s calculations is the declining diversity of the national economy, the ever-present challenge of climate change impacting droughts, bushfires and floods, Australia’s energy security and the infrastructure needed to ensure national resilience.
Let us know your thoughts and ideas about the development of a holistic national security strategy and the role of a minister for national security to co-ordinate the nation’s response to mounting pressure from nation-state and asymmetric challenges in the comments section below, or get in touch with
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.
