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Australian strategist Paul Dibb has entered the debate surrounding the impact of COVID-19 upon the established and emerging regional powers, with a particular focus on preparing Australia for an uncomfortable reality and future in an increasingly contested and disrupted world.
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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.
Unlike many of its contemporary and comparable international neighbours, Australia 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.
This has prompted an increasing number of strategic policy experts, journalists and politicians to vocalise the growing demands from the Australian public to do more to ensure Australia's economic, political and strategic integrity.
Defence Connect has sought to play a central role in supporting the furtherance of the public debate regarding the public debate about developing and ensuring true Australian national resilience in the era of global disruption.
As the regional and global dynamics continue to change day-to-day, so too does Australia's position, however, it is important to recognise that we are far from out of the woods as the full impact of the economic, societal and strategic implications are yet to be realised.
In response, famous Australian strategic policy expert, Paul Dibb, author of the Cold War-era 'Dibb Review' that has served as the underlying basis for Australia's strategic and defence policy since the late-1980s, has entered the debate with some stark warnings about the lay of the land post-COVID 19 and the dramatically different new world Australia and Australians will find themselves a part of.
Setting the scene, Dibb paints a vivid picture, stating, "The coronavirus pandemic will affect the power of countries in different ways. The biggest impact will be reductions in the economic, and therefore military, strength and relative power of competing major states.
"The American historian Walter Russell Mead says that ‘the balance of world power could change significantly as some nations recover with relative speed, while others face longer and deeper social and political crises’.
"Henry Kissinger’s view is that ‘the world will never be the same after the coronavirus’. He stresses the need for the democracies to defend and sustain the liberal world order. A retreat from ‘balancing power with legitimacy’ will cause the social contract to disintegrate both domestically and internationally. The challenge for world leaders is to manage this crisis while building the future, he says, and ‘failure to do so could set the world on fire’.
"Most importantly, the pandemic has widened the confrontation between the US and China, with uncertain results for Australia."
Some winners, some losers, but overall we're all losers in this
By far the most important realisation is the limitations of the US and, critically, the still insular manner to global response, despite the promises of globalisation. However, Dibb also identifies the dramatic impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on the world's ascendent superpower, China.
Dibb states, "China stands to be a loser, not because its economic power won’t bounce back, but because its ideology forced this pandemic on the rest of the world when it could have been contained at the very outset. By suppressing information about the outbreak in Wuhan, the authorities lost the world at least four to six vital weeks when Beijing could have contained what is now an unprecedented global disaster.
"In one fell blow, China has fatally undermined the advantages of globalisation — not only in a health sense, but also in Western countries’ dependence on China for medical drugs and equipment. Countries such as the US will diversify away from such reliance on China, even if that increases costs."
Shifting his focus to the US, Dibb issues a stinging rebuke of the Trump administration's handling and response to the crisis, citing delayed response times and a furtherance of the 'America First' agenda as a driving force behind the decline in America's position as a global leader.
Further to this, Dibb identifies growing concerns regarding the rise of nationalism as a major security challenge in the aftermath of COVID-19, stating, "Allan Gyngell, a former head of Australia’s Office of National Assessments, has said that the US ‘looks irrevocably weakened as a global leader’. While China is now belatedly ‘offering its resources and experience in handling the virus to build relationships with other countries’, including in Europe, he notes that the US is ‘absent from any international leadership’.
"President Donald Trump has failed to provide consistent and credible responses as the crisis has unfolded.
"Rather than prompting a multilateral response, the COVID-19 crisis has ramped up extreme nationalism and harsh border-protection measures as the virus spread rapidly from one country to another. Nations are becoming acutely introverted as they give absolute priority to staving off massive deaths and the threat of calamitous economic damage, and even collapse for some."
Looking closer to home – time to reevaluate Australia's challenges
Much like ASPI executive director Peter Jennings, Dibb has recognised that Australia continuing its modus operandi of "she'll be right" is now far too dangerous in the current climate and will become increasingly untenable as the Indo-Pacific bounces back in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Jennings' recent statements highlight these factors perfectly: "What should Australia do? First, Prime Minister Scott Morrison needs to talk with Trump, his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, a recovered UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and any other national leader who is willing to join a coordinated push-back against Chinese military opportunism.
"This is a tough call. Canberra’s deepest instinct is to say nothing and hope all will return to justin-time normality. That won’t happen. COVID-19 exposes the real nature of the CCP, which cannot be accommodated by an Australia that needs to build up practical sovereign capabilities to ensure national security.
"Second, far from thinking that this is a time to cut defence spending, the government needs to double down on strengthening the Australian Defence Force, including by urgently building up ammunition and fuel stocks to have the force as operationally ready as it can be.
"Australia is going to be deeply in debt, but we don’t have to be in debt and insecure. Now is the time to invest in nation-building, sovereignty-enhancing defence capabilities. A defence budget closer to the US’s 3.2 per cent of GDP rather than just under 2 per cent would be a more realistic base from which to deal with the strategic risks we face."
However, these are just components of the nation's response, albeit critical ones for serious consideration. Building on this, Jennings articulates a number of additional supporting responses, stating, "Third, it’s time for new thinking about our national security challenges. For unworthy bureaucratic reasons, we did away with a national security adviser years ago and haven’t seen a national security strategy since 2013, when Prime Minister Julia Gillard produced a flabbergasting document that said Australia faced a ‘positive’ and ‘benign’ security outlook."
This is expanded on by Dibb who articulates a similar need for a consistent, coherent response, stating, "Australia will find itself weaker in the post-pandemic world. Serious economic damage may well have a long-term impact on cohesion and trust in our society. The reputation of our American ally has been badly damaged. And it remains to be seen whether we should allow our trade with China to resume its previous predominance.
"A major lesson we should learn is to diversify our economic relationships and become more self-reliant, including in terms of our national security. This will involve a radical rethinking of the credible circumstances in which we will have to take the lead during security crises in our region without American involvement.
"We will need to re-examine our vulnerabilities in such key areas as fuel supplies, critical infrastructure, and protective and offensive cyber resources. We should rapidly develop a new strategic posture, giving high priority to long-range missile attack capabilities to deter any power from threatening our strategic space."
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.
