September 21, 2023 • 58 mins
Originally published with transcript at: https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/paulmonkdefenceofaustralia
In this podcast, Dr Paul Monk and Nick Fabbri discuss Sam Roggeveen’s new book The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, Australia's geopolitical and security context, the rise of China and its increasing militarisation, what the Australian Defence Force force posture would look like under an ‘Echidna Strategy’, what the economic, political, diplomatic, bureaucratic, and social demands of such a transition would be on Australia, the ongoing role of the United States in the Indo-Pacific, and what the Echidna Strategy might teach us about the need to bolster our defensive or ‘spiny’ capabilities while maintaining attacking capabilities through AUKUS and our current alliance systems.
Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilisation in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Bloom,
a Conversations Podcast.
I'm your host,
Nick Fabry.
And it's a delight to be joined again today by Doctor Paul Monk,
an Australian writer,
poet,
and public intellectual,
and longtime friend of the podcast to recap for listeners.
Bloom,
started producing episodes in mid 2018,
making us just over five years old,
which is a bit of a scary thought in the three years before going on hiatus in late 2021.
(00:25):
Due to work and study demands.
Bloom produced nearly 30 episodes with interesting and thoughtful guests on topics as diverse as arts and culture,
history,
politics,
international relations,
mental health,
science,
and much more.
I've recently moved overseas for a master's degree and I'm hoping to get back into a regular routine of producing these episodes and it's something I really love doing and missed a lot over the last two years.
(00:49):
So without further ado,
welcome back to the show,
Doctor Paul Monk and to Bloom two point.
Oh,
thanks very much,
Nick.
I look forward to the conversation.
Um It has been a while and for each of us there's been a lot of water under the bridge in those two years.
Um,
so,
uh,
it's,
uh,
uh,
you know,
it's a,
it's a very rich world for both of us and there's so much to talk about and today's topic is,
(01:13):
um,
one of mutual concern and one of widespread public interest,
I think.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And to come to the topic and substance of the interview,
which I don't think we've actually mentioned yet.
Um,
today we'll be speaking about Australian security in the Indo Pacific um in the wake of the rise of China.
Um and this has been prompted by recent travels of mine from Sydney to Melbourne where I was struck by the ubiquity of Sam Rove's new book called The Echidna Strategy.
(01:40):
Australia's Search For Power and Peace,
which was promptly displayed in airport bookstores in addition to discussions about it being everywhere on Australian news and politics podcasts for those who may not know him,
Sam Roa is the director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program and was founding editor of both the Lowy highly regarded online publication,
the interpreter and is the editor of the Lowy papers following a career in the Australian intelligence community.
(02:07):
Sam's new book seeks to overturn conventional wisdom about Australian security in the Indo Pacific in the wake of a rising and militant China and ultimately reexamines our traditional alliances with the US and other Western liberal democracies advocating that Australia should adopt a more independent na uh national security and defense posture,
(02:28):
Paul monk has written a critical review of the kidney strategy in the rationale and also for the Australian.
And so I thought it'd be great to hear from him today.
Paul.
Can you set the scene for us and tell us a little bit about what's going on and,
and what your response to Rove's new work has been.
Yeah,
the book you're referring to of course is the Echidna Strategy.
And uh it is written by Sam Rogaine of the Lowy Institute.
(02:50):
Some of that I've known for a long time and firm have a high regard.
Um And he has been getting a lot of publicity um almost all favorable as far as I can tell.
Um But it's clear that he's taken a stance and he knows this,
that most of the professionals in the field will disagree with.
And so he's challenging people to a debate.
He,
he sent me a copy of the book or arranged for his publisher to do so in the hope that I would read and review it.
(03:17):
And when it arrived in the post,
I texted him saying I've got a copy of your book at last.
And he replied,
I look forward to being defenestrate,
which I,
I could just see him saying that with a smile on his face,
you know,
he's,
he is an open minded man.
Um And he's aware that I might well be very critical of his book.
Um And I am critical of his book,
(03:38):
but I do think that it's a good book and I think that people should be reading it.
Uh but reading it closely and thinking very hard about what he's saying because this is a debate we need to have.
And I believe that he has put a challenge to those of us who think we more or less know what Australia needs to do to keep thinking.
(03:58):
And so that's what I think this conversation is about.
So,
could you describe what Sam Roger sees as that geopolitical security context that Australia faces itself in,
in a way we need a radical change in our national security,
our systems and structures that can be encapsulated really quite simply.
Um you might almost call it the Hugh White premise because Sam is in many ways a protege of Hugh White.
(04:22):
And for those of you listeners who are not aware of who Hugh is.
He was uh many years ago,
the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Intelligence.
He then became the founding director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and has since been at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University where he's an emeritus professor now Strategic Studies.
(04:43):
And he has for many years now.
Um I would say at least 15 years,
he's been making the case that the rise of China is world changing and that it will require of us that we change our grand strategy.
And the core of this,
as he himself has often said,
and Sam picks this up and uses it as a point of departure is that China's very rapid and and sustained economic growth.
(05:07):
And more recently,
the emergence of its military capabilities as a peer competitor of the United States are game changing now where Sam goes with that.
And he's very open about where that comes from uh in terms of his data and his um being a approach of uh is that not only is China becoming much more powerful but crucially,
(05:30):
the United States will not have the motivation and possibly not have the resources to withstand the China challenge that it will end up withdrawing from the premier position,
the dominant position it held in East Asia since 1945.
And that this completely changes our security outlook and we need to fundamentally rethink our national security in the light of that change.
(05:52):
Mm And so who is Sam Rovi?
Exactly?
You've known him for a number of years.
Um um Who is he?
And how precisely does he fit in this debate,
given his background in the intelligence service but also at the Lowy institute.
That,
that's interesting.
So a personal story in a way.
Uh Sam and I first met in 1998.
So that's 25 years ago.
Now,
he was then tutor in politics at Trinity College,
(06:14):
University of Melbourne and I was introduced to him by a mutual friend and Sam's question to me was,
do you think I would be able to get a job in the intelligence community?
I'd like to work at,
on a,
or maybe Dio,
and you've worked in Dio,
you know,
where,
as your audience may not know,
I was head of the China desk in the last couple of years,
I was there and we had this conversation and,
(06:35):
and I said to him,
we need good analysts.
the intelligence community to be brutally.
Frank is a bit of a shambles.
I don't find it all that impressive in a lot of ways,
but that's not a reason to not go into it in some ways.
It's precisely why we need good people to go into it.
Um So he did and he worked for a number of years at O and a then he worked at Dio and then he got a job at the Lowy institute,
(06:57):
which was then 15 years ago,
relatively new.
Uh And he has been active there as the editor of the online blog,
the interpreter and now the head of the International Security program.
And during those years,
as he says,
very plainly in his book,
he has seen he's watched and discussed with other professionals,
(07:19):
the rise of China.
And he says,
uh very plainly,
I don't want to be misunderstood.
I am calling for radical changes in our defense policy,
but I'm not a China dove,
I'm not anti-american and I don't see myself as left wing.
I see myself as a conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott.
Um And uh so that's,
(07:41):
that's the author we're talking about.
And,
and what I can say is I've known him through those 25 years.
I've followed his career,
I've stayed in touch.
Um I read his book very closely.
Um And my first reaction to the book is this is really well written.
It's very thoughtful.
It's very bold but not in a effect this way.
He's,
he's not making on the whole rash statements.
(08:04):
He's making a clear argument from first principles and what he believes to be fundamental geopolitical realities.
And then he's saying it won't do to just assume that,
that a patch up of the old alliances will work because he thinks it won't.
And,
and I would add of Sam,
ah,
he has to be seen by those who unlike me,
(08:27):
don't know him,
uh,
as a highly intelligent,
honest,
uh,
and very decent human being.
I,
you know,
he's,
he's the best kind of Australian.
And he says in his book,
I have a great respect for the profession of arms.
He's not an anti war pacifist.
You know,
he's,
he's not a surrender monkey,
you might say.
So,
we should,
it seems to me do him,
uh,
(08:47):
and ourselves the favor of,
uh,
of reading his book with an open mind and then engage in a considered response.
And that's certainly what I've attempted to do and what exactly does Sam propose as the remedy for what he sees as Australia's unpreparedness for the increasingly complex and challenging security situation.
(09:08):
We find ourselves in such that it's been called a,
a revolutionary or an overturning of conventional wisdom.
Well,
uh let me say two things um off the bat in response to that.
So the first thing,
the most fundamental answer to your question is he suggests that we completely abandon the idea of forward defense,
uh an alliance with the US and its system of alliances and the US bases and uh put our heads in sense into our foxhole and,
(09:37):
and make Australia singularly um uh difficult for China to directly attack but otherwise not provoke China in any way and operate on the assumption that China will be for more or less the indefinite future,
the dominant power in Asia,
we're just going to have to live with that.
He says the second thing he says is that um we shouldn't go it completely alone.
(10:01):
We cannot depend and should not depend on the United States for all the things that it's provided for our security since the Second World War.
But we should make Indonesia our new,
great and powerful friend.
Um And he acknowledges that that would require a lot of work,
er acknowledges that we would have to rethink our policies regarding immigration,
(10:21):
foreign policy,
security policy strategy,
etcetera.
Um and cultivate Indonesia.
Why?
Well,
because it's it's a kind of huge archaic screen to our north and has um what might at least be seen as a common interest with us in keeping China honest as it were and keeping it from being aggressive south of the east of,
(10:45):
of the South China Sea.
So you'd have to say those two eyes overarching statements and then one could explore,
well,
exactly how would that work,
but let's just step back slightly from that to hammer home that what he anticipates is that China's capabilities which have grown very deliberately and rapidly from a very low base,
(11:08):
um are linked to an explicit ambition on the part of China to exclude the United States from the East Asian literal and the Western Pacific and to be the dominant power,
certainly in Asia and possibly the world,
these are soaring ambitions in China.
And uh where are they grounded in,
in terms of um direct political rhetoric or is this policy?
(11:33):
But if one takes the trouble to read into this,
one can see that over decades now the Chinese Communist Party has had this ambition.
It sees China as naturally and historically,
the single greatest power in the world.
And it sees the last 200 years of Western dominance or the last 500 years if you like.
(11:53):
But it's 200 years since China was,
you know,
uh humbled by the Western powers in the wars.
Um It,
it sees this as a blip on the screen,
you know,
and this is a view that many people in the West have bought into.
You know,
they say this is the end of the Vasko to Gama era.
The year that began with,
with the Western explorers coming out and finding that they had better navigation,
(12:14):
better guns,
China's sing its natural place,
natural place in the head of the World Order.
That's the,
that's the narrative.
And what Deng Xiaoping used to say in the 19 nineties is we need to hide our ambitions and strengths and buy our time.
And that was something adhd to by Jiang and Hu Jintao,
his successors.
(12:35):
Um Xi Jinping is not hiding and is not biting,
he's come right out and he said,
we're gonna be it and anybody who gets in their way will suffer the consequences.
It's very bold rhetoric and it's very militaristic rhetoric.
Um And it's distinctly anti American.
Um and at the same time,
and this is something that,
(12:55):
that Sam of course dwells upon.
And many of us have been aware of the United States has stumbled a few times in the 21st century from its unipolar moment.
It,
it appears many would say to have fumbled the ball not only in terms of international security policy with the difficulties it ran into when it invaded Iraq with its decision finally to give up in Afghanistan.
(13:17):
Um but domestically,
um with deepening political divisions,
a kind of legislative deadlock and of course,
the phenomenon of Donald Trump,
which is immensely controversial,
uh and beyond the personality of Donald Trump.
Um the challenges to the constitutional order and a growing sense of isolationism that the US is over committed,
(13:37):
that its allies are free riders that,
um,
that it should pull back and look after itself,
heal its domestic wounds,
et cetera.
Uh,
pretty much as it did after the first World War.
Um All of that,
Sam says we need to understand very clearly and think very coolly about where that leaves us because it does leave us in a precarious position indeed.
(13:58):
And to sort of step back at a meta level,
why has Australia um in particular,
but also other uh Western allies under the,
the canu arrangements or the um the US as well?
But why have the liberal Western democracies been kind of so slow to wake up to this real threat of,
of,
of China,
which seems to me to be the main game in terms of geopolitics and the,
(14:19):
um,
I suppose the,
the broader realignment of those tectonic plates if you want to think about in that way,
and we've kind of been distracted by,
you know,
Iraq and Afghanistan regional frontier historic conflicts really.
And I suppose so why have we been so slow to wake up?
And I guess what is the broad landscape of debate you've got the Sam Vans?
But other,
has there been other thinking going on in Australia?
(14:40):
And the there absolutely has.
I mean,
the agreement is evidence that mainstream opinion is,
is very different to Sam's right.
And he's conscious of that and he directly challenges that opinion quite fearlessly.
And,
and it seems to me quite lucidly,
but let's go back to the fundamental question you're asking there the the question about liberal democracies and the rise of China.
So um the simplest way to put this is that two things have been happening simultaneously.
(15:06):
One is that since the end of the Cold War,
the Western democracy is led by the United States um developed the opinion uh that,
you know,
in the words of Frank Fukuyama back in the early nineties history,
in the sense of conflicts between ideologies and contentions about how human society should be run was essentially over liberal democracy and capitalism had won and they would prevail it was just a matter of time before everybody bought into that in China.
(15:36):
Uh something very different was taking place.
Uh And Rush do in his path breaking book on China's grand strategy.
The Long Game um makes the point that at the end of the long war in 1989 through 91 there was a trifecta of um what from the Communist Party's point of view were uh deeply disturbing if not catastrophic events.
(15:57):
The first was the democracy movement in China which threatened the Communist Party's hold on power and directly called for its removal from power the democratization of China,
they crushed that in Tiananmen Square.
Um And their point of view was that never again,
we're not going down that path.
Um The Western democracies on the other hand,
looked at that with dismay but thought that's a road bump.
(16:19):
They will democratize because they don't really have an option to the extent that they prosper,
which they manifestly want to do and have started to do a middle class will develop and it will demand a greater accountability of its government,
greater political representation,
more civic rights.
The same had happened as other countries developed that South Korea,
Taiwan,
Japan and East Asia,
(16:39):
you know,
and so the assumption setting in the West that that's the path China was on.
And therefore let's cultivate that.
Let's allow China to reach itself.
Let's admit it to the World Trade Organization,
let's invest in China.
And as Bill Clinton said in the 19 nineties democratization will follow as night follows day,
right?
But from the Communist Party's point of view,
(17:00):
not only had it suffered that setback.
The next setback was the collapse of the Soviet bloc,
you know,
which caught them by surprise as indeed it did many people in the West.
But where is the West?
We thought this is wonderful,
this is history heading in the right direction.
The Communist Party of China took it exactly the other way.
This is a disaster.
How can this have happened?
Gorbachev was a fool.
(17:21):
He was a traitor to the cause,
right?
And that was deeply ingrained in the Communist Party.
And,
and we didn't,
as we in the West take sufficient notice of that.
The third thing that occurred and this is crucial to the military scenario is that Chinese military observers watch closely what the US did in the Gulf War where Saddam Hussein said,
you're facing the mother of all battles,
(17:41):
you're gonna get me out of Kuwait.
And he had a veteran large army with Soviet equipment that had just beaten Iran to its corner in an eight year war.
Uh And the expectation that Saddam plenty had that the Chinese Communist Party had is the US is getting in for a real fight.
He US swept Saddam's army off the table like children's toys in a couple of days.
He was awe inspiring and the Chinese were deeply alarmed by this because they said we've got the same military equipment Saddam had.
(18:06):
But we haven't even fought a war in angry in many years.
We would get swept off the table the same way.
That's,
that's terrifying.
So they said we have to modernize our military and they set about doing it and they've continued doing it right.
And they began by developing the capacity uh to deny the US to the best of their ability,
access to their literal seas,
(18:27):
right?
And the capacity to just sail up and down Taiwan straight and deter any move to retake Taiwan as that succeeded.
And their economy continued to grow,
they got more ambitious and they invested in every aspect now of high technology,
21st century military capability to the point where they're very close now to being a direct peer competitor of the United States in military,
(18:49):
as well as economic terms.
That's what's changed and it's not gone the way we expected.
And our thinking about it from a policy,
um and alliance diplomatic sense has been um slow to sort of wake up to that,
but obviously necessarily the the lag,
I suppose in force posture and force structure and also procurement,
(19:10):
um increasing acquisition of defense capabilities capacities as well,
not just here in Australia,
but as a web of alliances of liberal democracies who support the status quo of the of the US has been the security guarantor of the region as it has been since world war two.
So to come back to the status quo,
the fact that we're sort of slow on on the march here to sort of rise to meet the threat.
(19:32):
It seems to me that we're um heading into a bit of an acute danger zone where,
you know,
China might look,
look to get a march on us.
Basically,
if it were to to to seek to aggressively retake Taiwan for instance,
but coming back to Sam and what he proposes in a sort of a concrete substantive sense,
you mentioned,
obviously the total kind of reconceptualizing stumping,
(19:54):
rewiring replumb for one of a bit of term of the AD fs uh capabilities and capacities and sort of assuming more of an an echidna defensive position,
basically securing the homeland as I think Paul Keating and a lot of people in the Labor Caucus,
labor luminaries put it,
but also secondarily in terms of forging that direct alliance with Indonesia,
which is also a keating prescription in terms of security guarantee.
(20:16):
I think he fo the formulation was their people,
our guns or something.
Um But to come back into a concrete sense on what Sam proposes,
what would it actually look like to radically um redesign the status quo of Australia's defense position.
So the first thing is I remarked that he says very pointedly is um the US is unlikely to fight and if it did is unlikely to win a war with China and if we were its ally,
(20:42):
we would get drawn into that war and we would be on the losing side and we cannot afford that,
that would be a disaster.
So he argues,
right.
Therefore,
we should not get the,
the submarines,
the nuclear submarines,
they are the apex predator that,
you know,
if our intention was to have uh forward defense to be part of the US alliance to have uh striking power.
(21:05):
Well,
we would certainly get those and that's why we are getting them,
but we shouldn't.
And he says the thing about those submarines is they would enable,
they're intended to enable us to strike targets in China.
But consider,
if we strike targets in China,
China is far better place than we are to escalate and hit us back.
Right with long range missiles,
et cetera.
And we could suffer severe damage of a kind we've never suffered before.
(21:25):
Um So we shouldn't go there.
We should not get these submarines.
We don't need long-range submarines.
What we need is close in defense and that means more missiles,
more sea mines,
we need cyber capabilities,
we need uh air and sea denial capabilities.
But he says,
and here's the good news.
If that's all we're trying to do,
we don't need to spend a fortune on defense.
(21:48):
If we reallocate our expenditure and prioritize what we need to deter the Chinese from actually attacking Australia,
which he believes we could do,
then we don't need to spend great sums of money.
Um And the key to his argument,
which sounds counterintuitive is that he says distance is our greatest ally.
(22:08):
You know,
Jeffrey Blaney made famous the term the tyranny of distance decades ago.
He says the reality is that,
that Sydney is further from Beijing than London is,
we're a long way from China.
And in the worst case,
it can't send more than,
you know,
a finger of its hand in our direction,
we can deal with that.
And,
and if we're clear enough that all we're seeking to do is to deter invasion to deter direct attack,
(22:31):
Beijing could get that message.
Whereas if we're part of an alliance that is seeking to box China in constrain its actions,
prevent it from taking Taiwan,
et cetera.
Well,
then we're provoking China,
right?
And the cost could be very high.
So uh that's,
that's the net picture,
right?
And um and that would look like perhaps getting um removing pine gap and a lot of the US defensive structures and technological arrangements on Australian soil because we do kind of already fit into that web of alliances.
(23:02):
But also,
I guess the arc,
the security architecture of um you look at um the quad,
for instance,
you know,
I guess,
you know,
strategic lines of,
of defense from the south,
you know,
to the east with Japan,
to the west,
with India and so on.
So we are already in a way built into that and we rotate,
you know,
us,
defense um personnel or security personnel through Australia.
(23:24):
We have deep interlinks um for Australia to withdraw into that,
into its little spiky ball and down its burrow perhaps um would have serious ramifications,
implications for um us security more globally.
It's just absolutely,
it would if we did what Sam recommended and he's conscious of this,
(23:44):
he's not oblivious to it.
It would,
it would totally uproot our role in the US alliance.
Um And the US bases are crucial,
not simply to the defense of Australia,
but to the US global system of order stability and deterrence.
Right.
He's saying we got to abandon it because it's not gonna work anymore.
And,
and this is where his prescription gets more and more alarming because he's really saying that US system is gonna crumble anyway.
(24:09):
Uh,
and it's delusional to believe that it can be sustained.
Um,
and,
and,
you know,
probably I would say the first and most fundamental point of entry for my response to his prescriptions is if that was so,
if the US really um was looking unsustainable in,
(24:30):
in the Eastern East Asia and the Western Pacific,
then one would expect that the South Koreans,
the Japanese,
the Taiwanese,
the Filipinos,
the Vietnamese would all be talking very differently.
They'd all be saying what Sam's saying this,
this is not gonna last.
We have to cut to the chase and change our security policy or count out of China or go nuclear or whatever all of them are saying to the United States.
(24:50):
Don't go away,
don't go away.
Let's talk very seriously about how we constrain China to behave decently and moderately because otherwise this is gonna be a real mess.
It also rebukes that um notion that Paul Keating and others um have put forward that,
you know,
a and the sort of the strengthening of the Australia US,
UK New Zealand sometimes uh alliance system or cooperation systems.
(25:15):
Um intro um is a reversion to the sort of Anglo,
you know,
White European you know,
structures or histories that we've shared.
It's actually a cosmopolitan.
You know,
I've made this point in challenging keating directly in print,
right?
The idea that,
(25:36):
that what we're doing is in his phrasing,
seeking security from Asia rather than security in Asia is a nonsense.
Um,
we're not seeking security from Asia.
We're seeking security in Asia and we're doing it with the other allies of the United States who are Asian.
right?
Uh You know,
he went so far recently as to describe Japan uh South Korea,
(25:59):
Australia and India,
uh which is quad as a bunch of us,
deputy sheriffs.
And I commented in print,
some bunch of deputy sheriffs.
You're talking about uh a group of the richest uh Democratic state in Asia.
If,
if they're getting together and wanting to be partners of the US,
to keep China honest is security from Asia.
(26:22):
What's Asia?
What's Asia China?
I,
I mean,
it's just nonsense,
right?
So this is a fundamental difference of opinion that I hold with certainly with keating and I believe with Sam,
I think that it's an error and,
and I think that if we run of China because of its ambitions and its sudden increase in power,
(26:43):
we are gonna aggravate the situation,
not improve it.
We need to hold our nerve,
we need to be very clear headed.
We need it possible to avoid World War Three.
We don't want World War Three precisely what we want to do is deter China from going down a path that could lead to world war.
And it's interesting to come back to Sam and the the kidney strategy because he couches his text in his own personal philosophical political position as a conservative.
(27:09):
But it seems to me that ultimately,
what he proposes is quite a radical policy,
diplomatic prescription of a kind that has never really occurred in,
in Australia at all.
Really,
because we've always have relied,
you know,
given our isolation and our comparative kind of smallness in terms of,
you know,
mass of population lethality on for want of a better term,
(27:31):
big and powerful friends and a strong alliances of like minded,
um you know,
democracies and other political structures and to radically kind of do away with that would,
would,
well,
this is radical.
Right?
Absolutely.
It is extraordinarily.
So and to an extent that I think he hasn't really thought through,
let's take an analogy,
let's suppose that he was writing not in 2023 but in 1933 for argument's sake,
(27:58):
right?
And he was saying Japan is on the rise,
Japan is just an ex Manchuria,
Japan will be the dominant power in Asia.
And we have to accustom ourselves to that the US is far away.
It's isolationist,
it's not going to intervene and we don't want to provoke Japan.
So Japan will dominate Asia,
we have to live with that.
Let's try and um you know,
get along with the,
(28:18):
uh maybe the Dutch and the East Indies,
you know,
and hope that between us,
we can at least keep Japan honest.
Meanwhile,
let's keep trading with Japan and,
and so on.
Um We,
uh if we were in 1933 how would we respond to that?
That's an interesting question.
But once you draw the analogy in,
you know,
how that ended,
you would surely say,
(28:38):
well,
that didn't work,
right?
Uh If Japan had over on Asia and the US had not intervened,
if there'd been no pearl high,
because the US had said we're not getting into this.
Would Australia have been secure?
Would we have been able to have an Echidna strategy?
Then by 1940 41 that would have deterred Japan from attacking Australia.
I don't think so.
(28:59):
Yeah.
Right.
But,
but let me add one more thing and this is crucial.
The the world order that the US has held together economically militarily diplomatically in terms of nuclear deterrence since 1945 has generated the greatest era of prosperity,
peace and democratization in human history.
Bar none.
And China has been a beneficiary of that,
(29:20):
China would not have had its explosive growth,
had it not been given an entree to an already rich,
highly developed open trading system which the US created and presided over and welcomed China into in the belief that that would give us China a stake in the system.
Now is saying air bugger that we're gonna make it our own right.
That's a problem.
And Sam's response is to say we have to accept that China will govern the new order.
(29:45):
And in that order,
he explicitly says there will be no room for liberal principles or human rights.
That's the single most alarming statement in his book,
what has modernization been all about?
What has development been all about if we don't and we abandon liberal principles and human rights.
Would you wish to exist in a,
in an Asian Indo Pacific region in which we didn't want to fight for those things and seek to preserve them and uphold them and expand them where other countries wish to do so?
(30:11):
I mean,
you know,
liberal principles and human rights are,
are what made South Korea vastly more attractive than North Korea.
They've made what Japan become a friendly,
attractive place instead of a fascist state.
It's what made Taiwan an open democracy and a thriving peaceful place and a tourist destination instead of a dictatorship under Chang Kai Shek?
(30:32):
And he's saying there will be no place for these Indonesia has made some progress in those directions since the end of Suharto's regime,
an IND distinction also from,
yo.
So is he saying,
forget about all that,
that's a horrendous vision.
That's dystopian.
But this is the,
the paradox that seems to me of the,
of the modern debate around Australia's role in the world,
the whole security geopolitical situation we find ourselves in really,
(30:57):
it's China that whose resurgence and acquisition of new defense capabilities,
um increasing kind of aggressiveness towards its neighbors in the South China Sea and beyond its broader designs on sort of seeking regional he hegemony.
That's,
they're the radical ones,
they're the ones upsetting the Apple Cart.
And too often the debate is cast in Australia being provocative or the Western democracies,
(31:20):
including,
you know,
the Asian democracies as well,
South Korea Japan,
because we're seeking to um acquire new capabilities like,
you know,
submarines or whatever it might be or missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles,
drones and things.
But that's actually we're prudently cautiously trying to meet the threat of a,
(31:42):
of a nation which is frankly radically seeking to overturn the peace,
security,
stability,
relatively of the last 80 years.
Absolutely.
And which in the way it operates internally and the way its rhetoric comes across,
if you're paying close attention to it,
at Xi Jinping's personal rhetoric,
deeply alarming.
(32:02):
I mean,
we need to remind ourselves that at every point in the last 100 years where the best educated people in China have been able to express themselves openly,
they've called for modernization and democracy in China.
And by democracy,
they meant liberal principles and human rights.
They didn't mean Leninism,
which is what the party has imposed on China.
Um And uh uh there's ample evidence that if it wasn't for the Communist Party being so repressive and so systematic in controlling thought.
(32:32):
Uh China probably would democratize the assumption in the West that it would democratize was hinged to the idea.
Well,
it's happened elsewhere.
Other Dictatorships,
Franco's in Spain Park,
Jong Hye's in South Korea,
Tang Kai Shek in Taiwan.
You know,
they've given way to democracy peacefully.
Why would China not do it?
And the answer is the Chinese Communist Party,
that's the roadblock.
(32:53):
It's not western imperialism,
right?
It's not anything about traditional Chinese culture,
it's the Chinese Communist Party.
And if we're not prepared to face it down,
it'll keep going.
And Sam,
you know,
talks about making um a change or basically flicking a switch to,
you know,
if we can radically or substantially change the way we do things in terms of defense,
(33:15):
diplomacy,
politics in Australia,
you know,
as if it was sort of like flicking a light bulb and,
and he points to the example of Olaf Schulz in Germany after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
um you know,
quickly moving towards um you know,
basically increasing Germany's defense capabilities and you know,
(33:36):
is,
is that actually possible to do in such a short amount of time?
And,
and,
and what is the actual,
given the significant revolution basically that I think van is ultimately calling for is Australia fit to make such a radical shift.
The shortest possible entry is no,
but let's start with Schultz,
right?
So um he does,
as you say,
um state uh very explicitly that uh rapid changes can be made as witness what Olive Schultz did in Germany.
(34:04):
But he omits to mention several things.
The first is that uh Olive Schultz um put Germany on the front foot at a time when,
as a leading um member of NATO,
uh he was party to a discussion within NATO that was putting the whole of NATO on the front foot,
right?
He wasn't acting on his own.
Secondly,
he was on the front foot where Sam's saying we should get very much on the back foot.
(34:26):
Thirdly,
uh Schultz knew in saying that that Germany is a highly industrialized state and it has the whole of the eu behind it.
Australia is largely de industrialized state which doesn't have,
particularly if it abandons us lights,
it doesn't have anything around it to buttress it,
right.
Uh He also doesn't mention that Sweden and Finland given Putin's invasion of Ukraine,
(34:48):
which had been neutral,
you know,
for the longest time in Swede's case,
centuries in Finland's case since the Second World War.
So they're saying we want to be part of NATO.
Why?
Well,
look what Putin's doing,
you know,
we don't think we could withstand that on our own.
We want to be able to deter him.
NATO is a much better deterrent,
right?
Sam doesn't even mention this,
you know,
and,
and yet,
um what he's recommending is that we embrace neutralism at a point when,
(35:13):
when Sweden and Finland had the most principled,
prosperous neutral states in the eu are hammering on the door of NATO and being admitted,
right?
So this is deeply counterintuitive,
right?
And one has to say two other things.
The first is if we went down that path,
if we suddenly did an olive shots in reverse,
right?
And said we're going neutral,
(35:34):
I think rather than the rest of Asian countries saying,
oh,
Australia's finally seeing good sense and what security in Asia,
we would be a laughing stock.
They would say Australia is what are they smoking?
They have lost the plot.
And,
and finally,
in order to make that change,
even if it was to be welcomed by others,
we would have to make the most fundamental structural and cultural changes in our,
(35:56):
you know,
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
our Department of Defense,
our armed forces,
our intelligence agencies because everything that's made them function and be orientation forever is suddenly out the window that's just not practicable.
And before we go into the actual capabilities of the Australian economy and,
and society and political um structures to be able to actually uh render such a a substantive massive change.
(36:21):
As Rogovin argues in terms of its industrial base,
its energy,
you know,
fuel security,
et cetera.
Um I'd love to come back to this idea of what do we actually mean by like a forward um what do you mean by by on the front foot or on the back foot or a forward sort of defense structure or just this sort of defensive back foot,
like,
what,
what does that actually look like?
And what does it mean?
And,
(36:42):
and,
and they said,
I think this is where you want to go with it,
that we'll define those terms and then consider that perhaps the benefit of reading and critiquing Sam's radical prescriptions is that there is something to be said for buttressing our spiny capabilities,
but not,
(37:02):
not by way of abandoning,
which is his main premise,
abandoning the US alliance and deterrence.
But to go back to,
um to your primary question.
So when are we talking about getting on the front foot or getting on the back foot?
I clearly what Schultz did is he said,
ah,
we will um actively now without directly declaring war on Russia,
(37:25):
we will actively oppose its active aggression and which we denounce in the strongest terms as unacceptable.
We will arm the Ukrainians,
we will stand with NATO in imposing sanctions on Russia.
You know,
uh we will increase our defense spending in order to demonstrate that,
you know,
if Russia is going to behave like this,
it will face armed opposition ultimately.
Um That's getting on the front foot,
(37:47):
right?
And it has to be said that he declared those things within four days of the invasion of Ukraine.
He's been slower,
his government's been slower to enact those things,
but it's moving in that direction by getting on the back foot.
Sam is essentially saying if we'd been Germany and we were doing what he's recommending.
We would have said,
you know,
we're not getting involved here.
(38:08):
We're not arming Ukraine,
we're not increasing our defense spending.
We,
we're even withdrawing from NATO.
You know,
um,
we,
we won't countenance or support the admission of new members to NATO.
Right.
We,
we will,
we will defer to Russia.
It's the dominant power in Eastern Europe and it's likely to remain.
So that's what Schultz would have done if he was taking Sam's approach.
(38:29):
But I suppose the broader uh import or meaning of what Sam was saying is that whether it's going on the front foot or on the back foot or for leaning defense or,
you know,
um more defense of the homeland,
the,
the fact that those big policy shifts can occur occur rapidly is possible in Germany is why the exact the parallel doesn't work really in my mind because Germany is a,
(38:53):
you know,
um heavily populated country supported by the Eu NATO.
It's deeply industrialized,
one of the most advanced and sophisticated economies in the world.
I actually don't think that parallel exists in Australia in terms of our,
you know,
it absolutely doesn't,
it absolutely doesn't.
And if you take just one index of that,
right,
if we broke with the US alliance to go alone,
(39:14):
we would be um in terms of our intelligence system,
for example,
you know,
we would be um crippling ourselves because we are deeply embedded in five eyes.
We depend on the United States and its global intelligence system and to a lesser extent the British intelligence system and have since the Second World War and in our conferences and exchanges with our English speaking allies to actually understand what's going on in the world.
(39:38):
If we abandon all of that,
we've got,
you know,
do all of that for ourselves.
Now,
Sam might respond,
but we don't need to do all of that.
We're not part of the Earth alliance.
All we need to do are the intelligence capabilities to monitor what's happening in our immediate region,
maybe.
But do we want to do that?
Do we wanna basically withdraw into a cave and say we don't know what's going on?
We don't care,
(39:59):
I wouldn't have thought.
So if,
as he says,
we should get on the front foot in this respect.
Um Diplomatically that is that we should work very hard,
diplomatically to encourage the great powers to form some kind of concert so they can sort out their interests without going to war.
Then we would need uh even better intelligence and certainly better diplomatic service than we have.
(40:22):
Now,
he doesn't even begin to describe how that would take place.
Hm,
so having done a general survey of the Echidna strategy and,
and Sam's overall thesis,
could you outline the merits behind what he's actually saying with regards to the fact that we've just had a defense strategic review,
which is,
and we had this at every decade or so,
you know,
the,
the defense white paper,
I think in 2009,
(40:42):
we often do think about how our defense is structured and whether we can do things differently.
And I must say when I heard about the overall thesis of the echidna strategy,
some of it struck me as being seductive and compelling.
like the idea of the fact we need um you know,
uh sea mines,
a greater investment in drones and missiles.
So this denial capability of our homeland,
which uh as a defense service personnel or person myself,
(41:06):
I see is like sorely lacking.
So what,
what would you say is the merit to what Sam's saying?
I think there's certainly merit we've always had as a fundamental axiom about defense policy that if,
if it comes right down to it,
we must be able to defend the continent of Australia.
That's what the defense force is primarily for a and if,
what Sam is saying is we currently are so committed to forward defense and possible operations in us,
(41:30):
wars that we haven't thought through,
how would we have defended Australia that's worth visiting?
Right.
And,
and because of the way military technology has gone ahead by leaps and bounds in the 21st century,
there's a very good case to be made that we should rethink and rebalance what we're doing in that regard.
And that's a complex debate itself.
(41:50):
My biggest misgiving about the strategic review and white papers over the years is that uh they appear to me to basically be papers written for a government where the test of understanding is,
this is what we're prepared to spend on the fence.
Um tell us what you can get within that budget.
(42:11):
So it's such a political document rather than a rigorously strategic one.
Whereas the question should be,
what is it we really need to do?
Um Not in terms of wish lists,
but in terms of,
of sober scenario planning and capability,
then we need to spend that amount,
right?
And it could be not one or 2% of GDP,
(42:31):
which our governments have tended to be,
you know,
content to spend maybe five or 6% of GDP.
South Korea used to spend 6% of its GDP,
right?
Um So the question is,
uh given all of that background,
what could we be doing?
Well,
we clearly could be developing area denial capabilities on the general lines that Sam has suggested without prejudice to alliance with the United States because he could be saying that's a scenario that could occur,
(42:58):
suppose he's correct and,
and a war took place in Taiwan which we lost and we would need to fall back on being able to,
to deter attack on Australia.
We'd want to have that in place.
We wouldn't want to start trying to prepare at that point.
Right.
And nobody with an airline system could reasonably say,
well,
we shouldn't have those capabilities and he himself says they wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.
So I think there's everything to be said for saying,
(43:20):
let's do that,
let's have asymmetric capabilities that could be relied upon to deter a direct assault on Australia and its maritime territories by an aggressive China.
Right.
That's well worth thinking through.
But that's quite independent of his major premise and,
and it's not his fundamental prescription,
which is the radical idea that we just pull in and look after number one and forget everything else.
(43:43):
Human rights,
liberal principles,
us,
alliance us,
bases Taiwan democracy,
whatever,
forget it just hunker down and defend ourselves and,
and believe or cross our fingers and hope that China won't get serious about attacking Australia because then we could deter it,
you know,
if it's not really serious,
if it's really serious and we have no allies and no fundamental abilities other than a bit of a denial,
(44:05):
we,
we're cooked,
but you can't even assume such a defensive um struct uh posture without foregoing all the,
all the things that I think make Australia worthwhile,
which is a free and open economy,
you know,
trade,
interpersonal connections and exchanges,
a diplomatic cultural shared.
I don't think we could maintain all those good things if we kind of don't pull our weight basically,
(44:28):
in terms of looking after the peace and order of the region,
part of a global system of liberal principles and free trade.
Exactly.
So,
and of democracies.
And it seems to me if we did in fact embrace Sam's prescription and I don't accuse him of foreseeing and,
and accepting this.
I think it's a blind spot on this path.
I think if we went down that path,
we would suffer an attack of cultural despair.
(44:50):
We,
we would implode politically and socially.
Um And uh that's not to be welcomed.
The,
the benign way which I suspect is what he imagines is if we were adopting a kind of Finland stance,
right.
And Finland was neutral through the Cold War and it did have armed forces in the belief that it would defend itself if it really had to.
(45:12):
And that what it had would at least deter the U uh Soviet Union from having another crack at it as it did in 1939 the winter war.
But what that overlooks is that Finland was only able to do that because NATO was there keeping the Soviet Union at bay,
right.
Whereas what he's saying is the US is not gonna be there and in any case,
we shouldn't encourage it to be there.
Well,
that's a wholly different world.
(45:33):
You know,
it's a disturbing thought.
But I think,
I mean,
to link this to the debate with,
um,
a lot of the arguments of the late Jim Molin,
Senator Jim Mulan.
Um,
and also I think even Treasurer Josh Frydenberg,
in terms of,
I think a lot of the,
the rhetoric that came out about national resilience across,
um,
you know,
basically securing the independence of our manufacturing base,
(45:54):
food security,
fuel security,
um,
you know,
advanced manufacturing to be able to make missiles,
drones,
other things like that.
I think there's a big gap until the Australian economy is actually able and society is able to actually support,
um a either a mid-range,
you know,
change in our defense as you've described,
which is sort of important,
(46:14):
a lot of the self sufficient defense capabilities,
but not sort of throwing away the US alliances and systems and nuclear subs and or basically,
um there's a huge way to go there for us to actually meet that enhanced sovereign capability,
I think is the expression.
But also I think a huge gap in the public's expectation about what might be required in terms of allocation of public resources.
(46:39):
And maybe you are going to be spending 4 to 6 per cent of GDP on defense.
So I just think we're so far away from any of those two kind of conditions being met to actually one meet what van is putting forward and two,
maybe even meeting the I think sensible midpoint between the two positions that you are over where I cutting it today.
Yeah.
So it's,
you know,
Jim Molin,
(47:00):
as you say before he died,
did argue this in danger on the doorstep,
Ross Babbage,
who is another veteran of the defense and intelligence system has written,
written,
written or published a book recently called The Next Major War in which it makes a similar case.
And,
and that case,
you know,
pivots on the observation that Australia is so accustomed to security and so completely engaged in the International Liberal Order that the US has created and defended,
(47:29):
that we have run down all our capacities for any serious national security resilience.
And that's alarming in what appears to be an increasingly dangerous world,
right?
Um And it seems to me that,
that what Sam is saying,
well provided,
we got a bit of extra kit at the margin um will be fine.
(47:50):
Well,
I don't think so.
Um And,
and I think that there's a very good point to be made that because of the liberal International order and because of the strong complementarities between our resource bases and China's development,
we have allowed our manufacturing to wither away and we've profited net handsomely from China's growth.
(48:11):
But that depends on China remaining open and part of an integrated order.
If that starts to come apart as it has started to come apart,
we're very vulnerable.
And I think we're more vulnerable than people think we are because it seems to me that that sort of danger zone for uh catastrophe,
a catastrophic war is going to come sooner than people think.
(48:32):
And certainly sooner than the um all of our new defense um equipment coming on stream like the Tomahawk missiles or the new sub,
which is decades away.
Um because China is facing,
you know,
some serious long-term structural issues,
whether they be economic or demographic,
which might force it.
And obviously the fact that the Western liberal um defense capabilities will improve over the next 10 to 20 years.
(48:56):
But it's almost like the time is right for them to do something if they were to,
you know,
seek to take Taiwan or radically re reorder the South China Sea.
And so the danger is on our,
on our doorstep as Moon said,
it is,
it is.
And,
and um it is worth uh emphasizing this.
There,
there's a book which uh you're clearly aware of by Hal brands and Michael Beckley published in the past 12 months called uh Danger Zone.
(49:20):
Um And their argument is that um the Chinese Communist Party is well aware that it faces the looming challenges to which you referred.
Um then beyond 2030 it's gonna face a rapidly aging population,
uh a decline in its productivity,
very serious problems with environmental deterioration.
(49:40):
Um And it doesn't have a welfare system to cope with the rapidly aging population,
shrinking workforce.
Uh and it's refused to undertake the economic reforms that would liberalize the system and ease some of that pressure.
And therefore it is going to face growing challenges of uh you know,
fiscal kind.
How does it allocate resources.
(50:01):
Does it allow old people to just die on the vine without care?
Do,
does it um does it ignore its environmental problems serious as they are massive pollution and so on or does it reallocate resources?
If it reallocate resources,
it will not have the same amount of resources to spend on the military and in internal security and,
(50:23):
and if it doesn't cope well with the internal challenges,
then it may need to double down the internal security or face political crisis,
perhaps regime implosion.
This has happened to China before and why?
Because of its fundamental and long lasting governance model,
the Communist Party is an exaggerated version of old Chinese autocracy.
And while people talk about how China was supposed to be really well governed.
(50:45):
Historically,
it wasn't dynasties kept failing and imploding,
right?
Because past a certain point,
corruption,
brittleness,
ignorance of what's really going on,
frustration on the part of people and they can't get redress,
they can't change the government,
et cetera.
It leads to a system to implode.
We could well see that they argue beyond 2030 the Communist Party uh therefore may decide that this is peak China.
(51:08):
Now if they want Taiwan back,
they better take it while the going is good.
So our best bet is to be really clear about all of this and seek to make clear to China that the costs of going to war,
win,
lose or draw would be very high and ongoing.
Don't go there,
work this out intelligently that can be done,
(51:28):
right?
We need to do that and,
and,
and,
and Babbage,
of course,
like others and,
and Brandon Beckley emphasized the military deterrence and possibly war fighting aspects of this.
I think that the economic and diplomatic are just as important.
Um I,
I think,
I think that's true and I think as well.
(51:49):
Uh,
one thing that worries me is the actual um perhaps the fragility of I,
I believe the political consensus in Australian political media,
civil society to actually see through what,
what we need to see through in order to safeguard the nation.
Because we had recent commentary in the media from Bob Carr um saying that,
(52:11):
you know,
the worst thing that happened to Taiwan was the imposition of the kind of civil um restrictions and someone that's been experienced in Hong Kong since China sort of seized the legislature there.
And you know,
took it,
took it back essentially 20 odd years earlier than it was meant to.
Then Bob Carr could,
could live with that new model um on our doorstep in the South China Sea,
(52:32):
in the Asian community,
which are a part.
And then obviously you had Paul Keating saying that you know the whole Taiwan question like Xinjiang like Hong Kong like Tibet was really a civil matter for,
for uh for China.
And it was not,
and he referred to Taiwan as and I quote a so-called democracy.
Yeah.
So cool.
Yeah.
And so these views do have roots right in the Australian policy in the media.
(52:55):
A lot of Rove's um work has I think been reported on and sort of,
you know,
lapped up,
I would say quite uncritically.
I mean,
you're really the first person that I know of to sort of substantially critiqued and,
and uh and engage with the work.
Um So do you think there are?
And obviously,
I mean,
that's in the Australian,
right,
domestic setting.
(53:16):
But then we've obviously got the,
the specter of Donald Trump haunting the haunting the Republican party and the,
and the,
and the,
and the White House too,
if he comes,
what happens to the alliance system.
So it's not clear to me that there's one like a,
a firm resolve here in Australia domestically and too,
it's not clear that even internationally in terms of relations with the state that we'll be able to see through the web of alliances.
Yeah.
Sure.
(53:36):
And,
and,
and you know,
the best part of what Sam's um offering us is precisely that concern,
right?
Um And so it's not as you indicated earlier,
it's not all nothing we can read Sam conservatively,
let's say,
and say,
well,
we can adjust at the margin,
we can do good scenario planning,
(53:56):
we can prepare to,
you know,
have a fullback position if things really do deteriorate in the way that you suggest.
But we,
we shouldn't even contemplate doing this preemptively and quickly because that would be a,
a mess frankly,
right?
But to go back to your observation about Bob Carr,
the,
it's disturbing enough and I said this in print,
(54:16):
in response to that remark of his,
that a man who takes his own civil and political liberties entirely for granted would say,
but he can live with it if,
if another country with the same population,
the same civil liberties loses them right?
As Hong Kong has lost its.
Um but it gets worse because Sam has implied,
Hugh White has even said at times and and Bob Carr appears to be of the same school of thought that we ourselves would have to restrict the way in which we speak about China,
(54:44):
criticize human rights abuses,
et cetera.
Uh in order to live in such a world,
in other words,
we would have to more or less impose on ourselves,
the kinds of restrictions that China is imposing in Hong Kong and says it will impose on Taiwan.
And,
and to quote Sam's phrase in the world in which we would be an echidna,
there would be no room for liberal principles or human rights.
(55:07):
And we at times he says another phrase have to be more ruthless,
more ruthless in our approach to what to our neighbors,
to our own censorship regime.
He doesn't really spell that out.
But it seems to me that's a,
that's a really unpleasant future to look at and,
and I would resist going there any way I could,
but there are reasons to think very hard about our national security,
(55:30):
our integrated national security policy and our resilience and just to bring the interview to an end,
um I also,
you know,
am concerned there's one thing to,
to,
it's good that we're thinking seriously about it and that the defense strategic Review has happened that I think AUS is underway with the status quo seems to be maintained despite a little,
you know,
a bit of rattling at the,
(55:51):
you know,
political branches and at the,
within the caucuses and things.
But it's not really clear to me that anything substantially has changed,
whether they're actually spending the money,
they're actually sort of rolling out these programs.
Um,
you know,
are we,
are we sort of going to actually deliver what we've promised on the path that we're currently on regardless of what Sam and,
and you and others might come up with as alternative or middle ways.
(56:13):
It's like,
it's sort of like even the path we're on today,
it doesn't seem to be like it's got traction,
you know,
I think it's true and I think it's partly because,
whereas the labor party when they came into office a year or so ago,
made clear from day one that they were not going to break with the AUS Agreement and with the national security settings,
that coalition had put in place nevertheless,
(56:35):
as a party.
Uh and as a matter of longstanding social policy,
their preference is to spend more on social welfare,
health and education than on defense.
And that's in fact what they're doing.
Right.
So the,
the they're talking the talk,
it's not clear,
they're walking the walk,
right.
Um And that's why we can see,
it's one of the reasons why we can see Beijing being more accommodating towards the Albanese government than they were towards the,
(57:00):
you know,
the uh the Morrison government.
Um Albanese is now set to visit Beijing.
What will he say?
Well,
it seems clear that he will not even raise the question of,
of Yang,
he and who were Chinese Australian citizens in in pr C jails uh who have never got anything that we would call procedural justice,
(57:22):
right?
Who,
who don't have the normal civil and legal rights,
right?
Of them that any such person would be given in a Western democracy?
Um to not even raise that question,
that's appeasement of the Communist Party,
pure and simple,
right?
And it's not a good look if,
if what we're saying is we're standing up to China.
(57:42):
It it's compromising right up front on those very things.
We said that Sam would jettison that his liberal principles and human rights.
Well,
thanks very much for your time today,
Paul,
we are beaten by the buzzer,
unfortunately,
have a,
a lunch to get to which will be delightful,
but I'm sure we'll continue the conversation at another time.
Absolutely.
We've covered a lot of ground.
It's been terrific.
Welcome back to Bloom,
a Conversations Podcast.
I'm your host,
Nick Fabry.
And it's a delight to be joined again today by Doctor Paul Monk,
an Australian writer,
poet,
and public intellectual,
and longtime friend of the podcast to recap for listeners.
Bloom,
started producing episodes in mid 2018,
making us just over five years old,
which is a bit of a scary thought in the three years before going on hiatus in late 2021.
(00:25):
Due to work and study demands.
Bloom produced nearly 30 episodes with interesting and thoughtful guests on topics as diverse as arts and culture,
history,
politics,
international relations,
mental health,
science,
and much more.
I've recently moved overseas for a master's degree and I'm hoping to get back into a regular routine of producing these episodes and it's something I really love doing and missed a lot over the last two years.
(00:49):
So without further ado,
welcome back to the show,
Doctor Paul Monk and to Bloom two point.
Oh,
thanks very much,
Nick.
I look forward to the conversation.
Um It has been a while and for each of us there's been a lot of water under the bridge in those two years.
Um,
so,
uh,
it's,
uh,
uh,
you know,
it's a,
it's a very rich world for both of us and there's so much to talk about and today's topic is,
(01:13):
um,
one of mutual concern and one of widespread public interest,
I think.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And to come to the topic and substance of the interview,
which I don't think we've actually mentioned yet.
Um,
today we'll be speaking about Australian security in the Indo Pacific um in the wake of the rise of China.
Um and this has been prompted by recent travels of mine from Sydney to Melbourne where I was struck by the ubiquity of Sam Rove's new book called The Echidna Strategy.
(01:40):
Australia's Search For Power and Peace,
which was promptly displayed in airport bookstores in addition to discussions about it being everywhere on Australian news and politics podcasts for those who may not know him,
Sam Roa is the director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program and was founding editor of both the Lowy highly regarded online publication,
the interpreter and is the editor of the Lowy papers following a career in the Australian intelligence community.
(02:07):
Sam's new book seeks to overturn conventional wisdom about Australian security in the Indo Pacific in the wake of a rising and militant China and ultimately reexamines our traditional alliances with the US and other Western liberal democracies advocating that Australia should adopt a more independent na uh national security and defense posture,
(02:28):
Paul monk has written a critical review of the kidney strategy in the rationale and also for the Australian.
And so I thought it'd be great to hear from him today.
Paul.
Can you set the scene for us and tell us a little bit about what's going on and,
and what your response to Rove's new work has been.
Yeah,
the book you're referring to of course is the Echidna Strategy.
And uh it is written by Sam Rogaine of the Lowy Institute.
(02:50):
Some of that I've known for a long time and firm have a high regard.
Um And he has been getting a lot of publicity um almost all favorable as far as I can tell.
Um But it's clear that he's taken a stance and he knows this,
that most of the professionals in the field will disagree with.
And so he's challenging people to a debate.
He,
he sent me a copy of the book or arranged for his publisher to do so in the hope that I would read and review it.
(03:17):
And when it arrived in the post,
I texted him saying I've got a copy of your book at last.
And he replied,
I look forward to being defenestrate,
which I,
I could just see him saying that with a smile on his face,
you know,
he's,
he is an open minded man.
Um And he's aware that I might well be very critical of his book.
Um And I am critical of his book,
(03:38):
but I do think that it's a good book and I think that people should be reading it.
Uh but reading it closely and thinking very hard about what he's saying because this is a debate we need to have.
And I believe that he has put a challenge to those of us who think we more or less know what Australia needs to do to keep thinking.
(03:58):
And so that's what I think this conversation is about.
So,
could you describe what Sam Roger sees as that geopolitical security context that Australia faces itself in,
in a way we need a radical change in our national security,
our systems and structures that can be encapsulated really quite simply.
Um you might almost call it the Hugh White premise because Sam is in many ways a protege of Hugh White.
(04:22):
And for those of you listeners who are not aware of who Hugh is.
He was uh many years ago,
the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Intelligence.
He then became the founding director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and has since been at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University where he's an emeritus professor now Strategic Studies.
(04:43):
And he has for many years now.
Um I would say at least 15 years,
he's been making the case that the rise of China is world changing and that it will require of us that we change our grand strategy.
And the core of this,
as he himself has often said,
and Sam picks this up and uses it as a point of departure is that China's very rapid and and sustained economic growth.
(05:07):
And more recently,
the emergence of its military capabilities as a peer competitor of the United States are game changing now where Sam goes with that.
And he's very open about where that comes from uh in terms of his data and his um being a approach of uh is that not only is China becoming much more powerful but crucially,
(05:30):
the United States will not have the motivation and possibly not have the resources to withstand the China challenge that it will end up withdrawing from the premier position,
the dominant position it held in East Asia since 1945.
And that this completely changes our security outlook and we need to fundamentally rethink our national security in the light of that change.
(05:52):
Mm And so who is Sam Rovi?
Exactly?
You've known him for a number of years.
Um um Who is he?
And how precisely does he fit in this debate,
given his background in the intelligence service but also at the Lowy institute.
That,
that's interesting.
So a personal story in a way.
Uh Sam and I first met in 1998.
So that's 25 years ago.
Now,
he was then tutor in politics at Trinity College,
(06:14):
University of Melbourne and I was introduced to him by a mutual friend and Sam's question to me was,
do you think I would be able to get a job in the intelligence community?
I'd like to work at,
on a,
or maybe Dio,
and you've worked in Dio,
you know,
where,
as your audience may not know,
I was head of the China desk in the last couple of years,
I was there and we had this conversation and,
(06:35):
and I said to him,
we need good analysts.
the intelligence community to be brutally.
Frank is a bit of a shambles.
I don't find it all that impressive in a lot of ways,
but that's not a reason to not go into it in some ways.
It's precisely why we need good people to go into it.
Um So he did and he worked for a number of years at O and a then he worked at Dio and then he got a job at the Lowy institute,
(06:57):
which was then 15 years ago,
relatively new.
Uh And he has been active there as the editor of the online blog,
the interpreter and now the head of the International Security program.
And during those years,
as he says,
very plainly in his book,
he has seen he's watched and discussed with other professionals,
(07:19):
the rise of China.
And he says,
uh very plainly,
I don't want to be misunderstood.
I am calling for radical changes in our defense policy,
but I'm not a China dove,
I'm not anti-american and I don't see myself as left wing.
I see myself as a conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott.
Um And uh so that's,
(07:41):
that's the author we're talking about.
And,
and what I can say is I've known him through those 25 years.
I've followed his career,
I've stayed in touch.
Um I read his book very closely.
Um And my first reaction to the book is this is really well written.
It's very thoughtful.
It's very bold but not in a effect this way.
He's,
he's not making on the whole rash statements.
(08:04):
He's making a clear argument from first principles and what he believes to be fundamental geopolitical realities.
And then he's saying it won't do to just assume that,
that a patch up of the old alliances will work because he thinks it won't.
And,
and I would add of Sam,
ah,
he has to be seen by those who unlike me,
(08:27):
don't know him,
uh,
as a highly intelligent,
honest,
uh,
and very decent human being.
I,
you know,
he's,
he's the best kind of Australian.
And he says in his book,
I have a great respect for the profession of arms.
He's not an anti war pacifist.
You know,
he's,
he's not a surrender monkey,
you might say.
So,
we should,
it seems to me do him,
uh,
(08:47):
and ourselves the favor of,
uh,
of reading his book with an open mind and then engage in a considered response.
And that's certainly what I've attempted to do and what exactly does Sam propose as the remedy for what he sees as Australia's unpreparedness for the increasingly complex and challenging security situation.
(09:08):
We find ourselves in such that it's been called a,
a revolutionary or an overturning of conventional wisdom.
Well,
uh let me say two things um off the bat in response to that.
So the first thing,
the most fundamental answer to your question is he suggests that we completely abandon the idea of forward defense,
uh an alliance with the US and its system of alliances and the US bases and uh put our heads in sense into our foxhole and,
(09:37):
and make Australia singularly um uh difficult for China to directly attack but otherwise not provoke China in any way and operate on the assumption that China will be for more or less the indefinite future,
the dominant power in Asia,
we're just going to have to live with that.
He says the second thing he says is that um we shouldn't go it completely alone.
(10:01):
We cannot depend and should not depend on the United States for all the things that it's provided for our security since the Second World War.
But we should make Indonesia our new,
great and powerful friend.
Um And he acknowledges that that would require a lot of work,
er acknowledges that we would have to rethink our policies regarding immigration,
(10:21):
foreign policy,
security policy strategy,
etcetera.
Um and cultivate Indonesia.
Why?
Well,
because it's it's a kind of huge archaic screen to our north and has um what might at least be seen as a common interest with us in keeping China honest as it were and keeping it from being aggressive south of the east of,
(10:45):
of the South China Sea.
So you'd have to say those two eyes overarching statements and then one could explore,
well,
exactly how would that work,
but let's just step back slightly from that to hammer home that what he anticipates is that China's capabilities which have grown very deliberately and rapidly from a very low base,
(11:08):
um are linked to an explicit ambition on the part of China to exclude the United States from the East Asian literal and the Western Pacific and to be the dominant power,
certainly in Asia and possibly the world,
these are soaring ambitions in China.
And uh where are they grounded in,
in terms of um direct political rhetoric or is this policy?
(11:33):
But if one takes the trouble to read into this,
one can see that over decades now the Chinese Communist Party has had this ambition.
It sees China as naturally and historically,
the single greatest power in the world.
And it sees the last 200 years of Western dominance or the last 500 years if you like.
(11:53):
But it's 200 years since China was,
you know,
uh humbled by the Western powers in the wars.
Um It,
it sees this as a blip on the screen,
you know,
and this is a view that many people in the West have bought into.
You know,
they say this is the end of the Vasko to Gama era.
The year that began with,
with the Western explorers coming out and finding that they had better navigation,
(12:14):
better guns,
China's sing its natural place,
natural place in the head of the World Order.
That's the,
that's the narrative.
And what Deng Xiaoping used to say in the 19 nineties is we need to hide our ambitions and strengths and buy our time.
And that was something adhd to by Jiang and Hu Jintao,
his successors.
(12:35):
Um Xi Jinping is not hiding and is not biting,
he's come right out and he said,
we're gonna be it and anybody who gets in their way will suffer the consequences.
It's very bold rhetoric and it's very militaristic rhetoric.
Um And it's distinctly anti American.
Um and at the same time,
and this is something that,
(12:55):
that Sam of course dwells upon.
And many of us have been aware of the United States has stumbled a few times in the 21st century from its unipolar moment.
It,
it appears many would say to have fumbled the ball not only in terms of international security policy with the difficulties it ran into when it invaded Iraq with its decision finally to give up in Afghanistan.
(13:17):
Um but domestically,
um with deepening political divisions,
a kind of legislative deadlock and of course,
the phenomenon of Donald Trump,
which is immensely controversial,
uh and beyond the personality of Donald Trump.
Um the challenges to the constitutional order and a growing sense of isolationism that the US is over committed,
(13:37):
that its allies are free riders that,
um,
that it should pull back and look after itself,
heal its domestic wounds,
et cetera.
Uh,
pretty much as it did after the first World War.
Um All of that,
Sam says we need to understand very clearly and think very coolly about where that leaves us because it does leave us in a precarious position indeed.
(13:58):
And to sort of step back at a meta level,
why has Australia um in particular,
but also other uh Western allies under the,
the canu arrangements or the um the US as well?
But why have the liberal Western democracies been kind of so slow to wake up to this real threat of,
of,
of China,
which seems to me to be the main game in terms of geopolitics and the,
(14:19):
um,
I suppose the,
the broader realignment of those tectonic plates if you want to think about in that way,
and we've kind of been distracted by,
you know,
Iraq and Afghanistan regional frontier historic conflicts really.
And I suppose so why have we been so slow to wake up?
And I guess what is the broad landscape of debate you've got the Sam Vans?
But other,
has there been other thinking going on in Australia?
(14:40):
And the there absolutely has.
I mean,
the agreement is evidence that mainstream opinion is,
is very different to Sam's right.
And he's conscious of that and he directly challenges that opinion quite fearlessly.
And,
and it seems to me quite lucidly,
but let's go back to the fundamental question you're asking there the the question about liberal democracies and the rise of China.
So um the simplest way to put this is that two things have been happening simultaneously.
(15:06):
One is that since the end of the Cold War,
the Western democracy is led by the United States um developed the opinion uh that,
you know,
in the words of Frank Fukuyama back in the early nineties history,
in the sense of conflicts between ideologies and contentions about how human society should be run was essentially over liberal democracy and capitalism had won and they would prevail it was just a matter of time before everybody bought into that in China.
(15:36):
Uh something very different was taking place.
Uh And Rush do in his path breaking book on China's grand strategy.
The Long Game um makes the point that at the end of the long war in 1989 through 91 there was a trifecta of um what from the Communist Party's point of view were uh deeply disturbing if not catastrophic events.
(15:57):
The first was the democracy movement in China which threatened the Communist Party's hold on power and directly called for its removal from power the democratization of China,
they crushed that in Tiananmen Square.
Um And their point of view was that never again,
we're not going down that path.
Um The Western democracies on the other hand,
looked at that with dismay but thought that's a road bump.
(16:19):
They will democratize because they don't really have an option to the extent that they prosper,
which they manifestly want to do and have started to do a middle class will develop and it will demand a greater accountability of its government,
greater political representation,
more civic rights.
The same had happened as other countries developed that South Korea,
Taiwan,
Japan and East Asia,
(16:39):
you know,
and so the assumption setting in the West that that's the path China was on.
And therefore let's cultivate that.
Let's allow China to reach itself.
Let's admit it to the World Trade Organization,
let's invest in China.
And as Bill Clinton said in the 19 nineties democratization will follow as night follows day,
right?
But from the Communist Party's point of view,
(17:00):
not only had it suffered that setback.
The next setback was the collapse of the Soviet bloc,
you know,
which caught them by surprise as indeed it did many people in the West.
But where is the West?
We thought this is wonderful,
this is history heading in the right direction.
The Communist Party of China took it exactly the other way.
This is a disaster.
How can this have happened?
Gorbachev was a fool.
(17:21):
He was a traitor to the cause,
right?
And that was deeply ingrained in the Communist Party.
And,
and we didn't,
as we in the West take sufficient notice of that.
The third thing that occurred and this is crucial to the military scenario is that Chinese military observers watch closely what the US did in the Gulf War where Saddam Hussein said,
you're facing the mother of all battles,
(17:41):
you're gonna get me out of Kuwait.
And he had a veteran large army with Soviet equipment that had just beaten Iran to its corner in an eight year war.
Uh And the expectation that Saddam plenty had that the Chinese Communist Party had is the US is getting in for a real fight.
He US swept Saddam's army off the table like children's toys in a couple of days.
He was awe inspiring and the Chinese were deeply alarmed by this because they said we've got the same military equipment Saddam had.
(18:06):
But we haven't even fought a war in angry in many years.
We would get swept off the table the same way.
That's,
that's terrifying.
So they said we have to modernize our military and they set about doing it and they've continued doing it right.
And they began by developing the capacity uh to deny the US to the best of their ability,
access to their literal seas,
(18:27):
right?
And the capacity to just sail up and down Taiwan straight and deter any move to retake Taiwan as that succeeded.
And their economy continued to grow,
they got more ambitious and they invested in every aspect now of high technology,
21st century military capability to the point where they're very close now to being a direct peer competitor of the United States in military,
(18:49):
as well as economic terms.
That's what's changed and it's not gone the way we expected.
And our thinking about it from a policy,
um and alliance diplomatic sense has been um slow to sort of wake up to that,
but obviously necessarily the the lag,
I suppose in force posture and force structure and also procurement,
(19:10):
um increasing acquisition of defense capabilities capacities as well,
not just here in Australia,
but as a web of alliances of liberal democracies who support the status quo of the of the US has been the security guarantor of the region as it has been since world war two.
So to come back to the status quo,
the fact that we're sort of slow on on the march here to sort of rise to meet the threat.
(19:32):
It seems to me that we're um heading into a bit of an acute danger zone where,
you know,
China might look,
look to get a march on us.
Basically,
if it were to to to seek to aggressively retake Taiwan for instance,
but coming back to Sam and what he proposes in a sort of a concrete substantive sense,
you mentioned,
obviously the total kind of reconceptualizing stumping,
(19:54):
rewiring replumb for one of a bit of term of the AD fs uh capabilities and capacities and sort of assuming more of an an echidna defensive position,
basically securing the homeland as I think Paul Keating and a lot of people in the Labor Caucus,
labor luminaries put it,
but also secondarily in terms of forging that direct alliance with Indonesia,
which is also a keating prescription in terms of security guarantee.
(20:16):
I think he fo the formulation was their people,
our guns or something.
Um But to come back into a concrete sense on what Sam proposes,
what would it actually look like to radically um redesign the status quo of Australia's defense position.
So the first thing is I remarked that he says very pointedly is um the US is unlikely to fight and if it did is unlikely to win a war with China and if we were its ally,
(20:42):
we would get drawn into that war and we would be on the losing side and we cannot afford that,
that would be a disaster.
So he argues,
right.
Therefore,
we should not get the,
the submarines,
the nuclear submarines,
they are the apex predator that,
you know,
if our intention was to have uh forward defense to be part of the US alliance to have uh striking power.
(21:05):
Well,
we would certainly get those and that's why we are getting them,
but we shouldn't.
And he says the thing about those submarines is they would enable,
they're intended to enable us to strike targets in China.
But consider,
if we strike targets in China,
China is far better place than we are to escalate and hit us back.
Right with long range missiles,
et cetera.
And we could suffer severe damage of a kind we've never suffered before.
(21:25):
Um So we shouldn't go there.
We should not get these submarines.
We don't need long-range submarines.
What we need is close in defense and that means more missiles,
more sea mines,
we need cyber capabilities,
we need uh air and sea denial capabilities.
But he says,
and here's the good news.
If that's all we're trying to do,
we don't need to spend a fortune on defense.
(21:48):
If we reallocate our expenditure and prioritize what we need to deter the Chinese from actually attacking Australia,
which he believes we could do,
then we don't need to spend great sums of money.
Um And the key to his argument,
which sounds counterintuitive is that he says distance is our greatest ally.
(22:08):
You know,
Jeffrey Blaney made famous the term the tyranny of distance decades ago.
He says the reality is that,
that Sydney is further from Beijing than London is,
we're a long way from China.
And in the worst case,
it can't send more than,
you know,
a finger of its hand in our direction,
we can deal with that.
And,
and if we're clear enough that all we're seeking to do is to deter invasion to deter direct attack,
(22:31):
Beijing could get that message.
Whereas if we're part of an alliance that is seeking to box China in constrain its actions,
prevent it from taking Taiwan,
et cetera.
Well,
then we're provoking China,
right?
And the cost could be very high.
So uh that's,
that's the net picture,
right?
And um and that would look like perhaps getting um removing pine gap and a lot of the US defensive structures and technological arrangements on Australian soil because we do kind of already fit into that web of alliances.
(23:02):
But also,
I guess the arc,
the security architecture of um you look at um the quad,
for instance,
you know,
I guess,
you know,
strategic lines of,
of defense from the south,
you know,
to the east with Japan,
to the west,
with India and so on.
So we are already in a way built into that and we rotate,
you know,
us,
defense um personnel or security personnel through Australia.
(23:24):
We have deep interlinks um for Australia to withdraw into that,
into its little spiky ball and down its burrow perhaps um would have serious ramifications,
implications for um us security more globally.
It's just absolutely,
it would if we did what Sam recommended and he's conscious of this,
(23:44):
he's not oblivious to it.
It would,
it would totally uproot our role in the US alliance.
Um And the US bases are crucial,
not simply to the defense of Australia,
but to the US global system of order stability and deterrence.
Right.
He's saying we got to abandon it because it's not gonna work anymore.
And,
and this is where his prescription gets more and more alarming because he's really saying that US system is gonna crumble anyway.
(24:09):
Uh,
and it's delusional to believe that it can be sustained.
Um,
and,
and,
you know,
probably I would say the first and most fundamental point of entry for my response to his prescriptions is if that was so,
if the US really um was looking unsustainable in,
(24:30):
in the Eastern East Asia and the Western Pacific,
then one would expect that the South Koreans,
the Japanese,
the Taiwanese,
the Filipinos,
the Vietnamese would all be talking very differently.
They'd all be saying what Sam's saying this,
this is not gonna last.
We have to cut to the chase and change our security policy or count out of China or go nuclear or whatever all of them are saying to the United States.
(24:50):
Don't go away,
don't go away.
Let's talk very seriously about how we constrain China to behave decently and moderately because otherwise this is gonna be a real mess.
It also rebukes that um notion that Paul Keating and others um have put forward that,
you know,
a and the sort of the strengthening of the Australia US,
UK New Zealand sometimes uh alliance system or cooperation systems.
(25:15):
Um intro um is a reversion to the sort of Anglo,
you know,
White European you know,
structures or histories that we've shared.
It's actually a cosmopolitan.
You know,
I've made this point in challenging keating directly in print,
right?
The idea that,
(25:36):
that what we're doing is in his phrasing,
seeking security from Asia rather than security in Asia is a nonsense.
Um,
we're not seeking security from Asia.
We're seeking security in Asia and we're doing it with the other allies of the United States who are Asian.
right?
Uh You know,
he went so far recently as to describe Japan uh South Korea,
(25:59):
Australia and India,
uh which is quad as a bunch of us,
deputy sheriffs.
And I commented in print,
some bunch of deputy sheriffs.
You're talking about uh a group of the richest uh Democratic state in Asia.
If,
if they're getting together and wanting to be partners of the US,
to keep China honest is security from Asia.
(26:22):
What's Asia?
What's Asia China?
I,
I mean,
it's just nonsense,
right?
So this is a fundamental difference of opinion that I hold with certainly with keating and I believe with Sam,
I think that it's an error and,
and I think that if we run of China because of its ambitions and its sudden increase in power,
(26:43):
we are gonna aggravate the situation,
not improve it.
We need to hold our nerve,
we need to be very clear headed.
We need it possible to avoid World War Three.
We don't want World War Three precisely what we want to do is deter China from going down a path that could lead to world war.
And it's interesting to come back to Sam and the the kidney strategy because he couches his text in his own personal philosophical political position as a conservative.
(27:09):
But it seems to me that ultimately,
what he proposes is quite a radical policy,
diplomatic prescription of a kind that has never really occurred in,
in Australia at all.
Really,
because we've always have relied,
you know,
given our isolation and our comparative kind of smallness in terms of,
you know,
mass of population lethality on for want of a better term,
(27:31):
big and powerful friends and a strong alliances of like minded,
um you know,
democracies and other political structures and to radically kind of do away with that would,
would,
well,
this is radical.
Right?
Absolutely.
It is extraordinarily.
So and to an extent that I think he hasn't really thought through,
let's take an analogy,
let's suppose that he was writing not in 2023 but in 1933 for argument's sake,
(27:58):
right?
And he was saying Japan is on the rise,
Japan is just an ex Manchuria,
Japan will be the dominant power in Asia.
And we have to accustom ourselves to that the US is far away.
It's isolationist,
it's not going to intervene and we don't want to provoke Japan.
So Japan will dominate Asia,
we have to live with that.
Let's try and um you know,
get along with the,
(28:18):
uh maybe the Dutch and the East Indies,
you know,
and hope that between us,
we can at least keep Japan honest.
Meanwhile,
let's keep trading with Japan and,
and so on.
Um We,
uh if we were in 1933 how would we respond to that?
That's an interesting question.
But once you draw the analogy in,
you know,
how that ended,
you would surely say,
(28:38):
well,
that didn't work,
right?
Uh If Japan had over on Asia and the US had not intervened,
if there'd been no pearl high,
because the US had said we're not getting into this.
Would Australia have been secure?
Would we have been able to have an Echidna strategy?
Then by 1940 41 that would have deterred Japan from attacking Australia.
I don't think so.
(28:59):
Yeah.
Right.
But,
but let me add one more thing and this is crucial.
The the world order that the US has held together economically militarily diplomatically in terms of nuclear deterrence since 1945 has generated the greatest era of prosperity,
peace and democratization in human history.
Bar none.
And China has been a beneficiary of that,
(29:20):
China would not have had its explosive growth,
had it not been given an entree to an already rich,
highly developed open trading system which the US created and presided over and welcomed China into in the belief that that would give us China a stake in the system.
Now is saying air bugger that we're gonna make it our own right.
That's a problem.
And Sam's response is to say we have to accept that China will govern the new order.
(29:45):
And in that order,
he explicitly says there will be no room for liberal principles or human rights.
That's the single most alarming statement in his book,
what has modernization been all about?
What has development been all about if we don't and we abandon liberal principles and human rights.
Would you wish to exist in a,
in an Asian Indo Pacific region in which we didn't want to fight for those things and seek to preserve them and uphold them and expand them where other countries wish to do so?
(30:11):
I mean,
you know,
liberal principles and human rights are,
are what made South Korea vastly more attractive than North Korea.
They've made what Japan become a friendly,
attractive place instead of a fascist state.
It's what made Taiwan an open democracy and a thriving peaceful place and a tourist destination instead of a dictatorship under Chang Kai Shek?
(30:32):
And he's saying there will be no place for these Indonesia has made some progress in those directions since the end of Suharto's regime,
an IND distinction also from,
yo.
So is he saying,
forget about all that,
that's a horrendous vision.
That's dystopian.
But this is the,
the paradox that seems to me of the,
of the modern debate around Australia's role in the world,
the whole security geopolitical situation we find ourselves in really,
(30:57):
it's China that whose resurgence and acquisition of new defense capabilities,
um increasing kind of aggressiveness towards its neighbors in the South China Sea and beyond its broader designs on sort of seeking regional he hegemony.
That's,
they're the radical ones,
they're the ones upsetting the Apple Cart.
And too often the debate is cast in Australia being provocative or the Western democracies,
(31:20):
including,
you know,
the Asian democracies as well,
South Korea Japan,
because we're seeking to um acquire new capabilities like,
you know,
submarines or whatever it might be or missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles,
drones and things.
But that's actually we're prudently cautiously trying to meet the threat of a,
(31:42):
of a nation which is frankly radically seeking to overturn the peace,
security,
stability,
relatively of the last 80 years.
Absolutely.
And which in the way it operates internally and the way its rhetoric comes across,
if you're paying close attention to it,
at Xi Jinping's personal rhetoric,
deeply alarming.
(32:02):
I mean,
we need to remind ourselves that at every point in the last 100 years where the best educated people in China have been able to express themselves openly,
they've called for modernization and democracy in China.
And by democracy,
they meant liberal principles and human rights.
They didn't mean Leninism,
which is what the party has imposed on China.
Um And uh uh there's ample evidence that if it wasn't for the Communist Party being so repressive and so systematic in controlling thought.
(32:32):
Uh China probably would democratize the assumption in the West that it would democratize was hinged to the idea.
Well,
it's happened elsewhere.
Other Dictatorships,
Franco's in Spain Park,
Jong Hye's in South Korea,
Tang Kai Shek in Taiwan.
You know,
they've given way to democracy peacefully.
Why would China not do it?
And the answer is the Chinese Communist Party,
that's the roadblock.
(32:53):
It's not western imperialism,
right?
It's not anything about traditional Chinese culture,
it's the Chinese Communist Party.
And if we're not prepared to face it down,
it'll keep going.
And Sam,
you know,
talks about making um a change or basically flicking a switch to,
you know,
if we can radically or substantially change the way we do things in terms of defense,
(33:15):
diplomacy,
politics in Australia,
you know,
as if it was sort of like flicking a light bulb and,
and he points to the example of Olaf Schulz in Germany after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
um you know,
quickly moving towards um you know,
basically increasing Germany's defense capabilities and you know,
(33:36):
is,
is that actually possible to do in such a short amount of time?
And,
and,
and what is the actual,
given the significant revolution basically that I think van is ultimately calling for is Australia fit to make such a radical shift.
The shortest possible entry is no,
but let's start with Schultz,
right?
So um he does,
as you say,
um state uh very explicitly that uh rapid changes can be made as witness what Olive Schultz did in Germany.
(34:04):
But he omits to mention several things.
The first is that uh Olive Schultz um put Germany on the front foot at a time when,
as a leading um member of NATO,
uh he was party to a discussion within NATO that was putting the whole of NATO on the front foot,
right?
He wasn't acting on his own.
Secondly,
he was on the front foot where Sam's saying we should get very much on the back foot.
(34:26):
Thirdly,
uh Schultz knew in saying that that Germany is a highly industrialized state and it has the whole of the eu behind it.
Australia is largely de industrialized state which doesn't have,
particularly if it abandons us lights,
it doesn't have anything around it to buttress it,
right.
Uh He also doesn't mention that Sweden and Finland given Putin's invasion of Ukraine,
(34:48):
which had been neutral,
you know,
for the longest time in Swede's case,
centuries in Finland's case since the Second World War.
So they're saying we want to be part of NATO.
Why?
Well,
look what Putin's doing,
you know,
we don't think we could withstand that on our own.
We want to be able to deter him.
NATO is a much better deterrent,
right?
Sam doesn't even mention this,
you know,
and,
and yet,
um what he's recommending is that we embrace neutralism at a point when,
(35:13):
when Sweden and Finland had the most principled,
prosperous neutral states in the eu are hammering on the door of NATO and being admitted,
right?
So this is deeply counterintuitive,
right?
And one has to say two other things.
The first is if we went down that path,
if we suddenly did an olive shots in reverse,
right?
And said we're going neutral,
(35:34):
I think rather than the rest of Asian countries saying,
oh,
Australia's finally seeing good sense and what security in Asia,
we would be a laughing stock.
They would say Australia is what are they smoking?
They have lost the plot.
And,
and finally,
in order to make that change,
even if it was to be welcomed by others,
we would have to make the most fundamental structural and cultural changes in our,
(35:56):
you know,
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
our Department of Defense,
our armed forces,
our intelligence agencies because everything that's made them function and be orientation forever is suddenly out the window that's just not practicable.
And before we go into the actual capabilities of the Australian economy and,
and society and political um structures to be able to actually uh render such a a substantive massive change.
(36:21):
As Rogovin argues in terms of its industrial base,
its energy,
you know,
fuel security,
et cetera.
Um I'd love to come back to this idea of what do we actually mean by like a forward um what do you mean by by on the front foot or on the back foot or a forward sort of defense structure or just this sort of defensive back foot,
like,
what,
what does that actually look like?
And what does it mean?
And,
(36:42):
and,
and they said,
I think this is where you want to go with it,
that we'll define those terms and then consider that perhaps the benefit of reading and critiquing Sam's radical prescriptions is that there is something to be said for buttressing our spiny capabilities,
but not,
(37:02):
not by way of abandoning,
which is his main premise,
abandoning the US alliance and deterrence.
But to go back to,
um to your primary question.
So when are we talking about getting on the front foot or getting on the back foot?
I clearly what Schultz did is he said,
ah,
we will um actively now without directly declaring war on Russia,
(37:25):
we will actively oppose its active aggression and which we denounce in the strongest terms as unacceptable.
We will arm the Ukrainians,
we will stand with NATO in imposing sanctions on Russia.
You know,
uh we will increase our defense spending in order to demonstrate that,
you know,
if Russia is going to behave like this,
it will face armed opposition ultimately.
Um That's getting on the front foot,
(37:47):
right?
And it has to be said that he declared those things within four days of the invasion of Ukraine.
He's been slower,
his government's been slower to enact those things,
but it's moving in that direction by getting on the back foot.
Sam is essentially saying if we'd been Germany and we were doing what he's recommending.
We would have said,
you know,
we're not getting involved here.
(38:08):
We're not arming Ukraine,
we're not increasing our defense spending.
We,
we're even withdrawing from NATO.
You know,
um,
we,
we won't countenance or support the admission of new members to NATO.
Right.
We,
we will,
we will defer to Russia.
It's the dominant power in Eastern Europe and it's likely to remain.
So that's what Schultz would have done if he was taking Sam's approach.
(38:29):
But I suppose the broader uh import or meaning of what Sam was saying is that whether it's going on the front foot or on the back foot or for leaning defense or,
you know,
um more defense of the homeland,
the,
the fact that those big policy shifts can occur occur rapidly is possible in Germany is why the exact the parallel doesn't work really in my mind because Germany is a,
(38:53):
you know,
um heavily populated country supported by the Eu NATO.
It's deeply industrialized,
one of the most advanced and sophisticated economies in the world.
I actually don't think that parallel exists in Australia in terms of our,
you know,
it absolutely doesn't,
it absolutely doesn't.
And if you take just one index of that,
right,
if we broke with the US alliance to go alone,
(39:14):
we would be um in terms of our intelligence system,
for example,
you know,
we would be um crippling ourselves because we are deeply embedded in five eyes.
We depend on the United States and its global intelligence system and to a lesser extent the British intelligence system and have since the Second World War and in our conferences and exchanges with our English speaking allies to actually understand what's going on in the world.
(39:38):
If we abandon all of that,
we've got,
you know,
do all of that for ourselves.
Now,
Sam might respond,
but we don't need to do all of that.
We're not part of the Earth alliance.
All we need to do are the intelligence capabilities to monitor what's happening in our immediate region,
maybe.
But do we want to do that?
Do we wanna basically withdraw into a cave and say we don't know what's going on?
We don't care,
(39:59):
I wouldn't have thought.
So if,
as he says,
we should get on the front foot in this respect.
Um Diplomatically that is that we should work very hard,
diplomatically to encourage the great powers to form some kind of concert so they can sort out their interests without going to war.
Then we would need uh even better intelligence and certainly better diplomatic service than we have.
(40:22):
Now,
he doesn't even begin to describe how that would take place.
Hm,
so having done a general survey of the Echidna strategy and,
and Sam's overall thesis,
could you outline the merits behind what he's actually saying with regards to the fact that we've just had a defense strategic review,
which is,
and we had this at every decade or so,
you know,
the,
the defense white paper,
I think in 2009,
(40:42):
we often do think about how our defense is structured and whether we can do things differently.
And I must say when I heard about the overall thesis of the echidna strategy,
some of it struck me as being seductive and compelling.
like the idea of the fact we need um you know,
uh sea mines,
a greater investment in drones and missiles.
So this denial capability of our homeland,
which uh as a defense service personnel or person myself,
(41:06):
I see is like sorely lacking.
So what,
what would you say is the merit to what Sam's saying?
I think there's certainly merit we've always had as a fundamental axiom about defense policy that if,
if it comes right down to it,
we must be able to defend the continent of Australia.
That's what the defense force is primarily for a and if,
what Sam is saying is we currently are so committed to forward defense and possible operations in us,
(41:30):
wars that we haven't thought through,
how would we have defended Australia that's worth visiting?
Right.
And,
and because of the way military technology has gone ahead by leaps and bounds in the 21st century,
there's a very good case to be made that we should rethink and rebalance what we're doing in that regard.
And that's a complex debate itself.
(41:50):
My biggest misgiving about the strategic review and white papers over the years is that uh they appear to me to basically be papers written for a government where the test of understanding is,
this is what we're prepared to spend on the fence.
Um tell us what you can get within that budget.
(42:11):
So it's such a political document rather than a rigorously strategic one.
Whereas the question should be,
what is it we really need to do?
Um Not in terms of wish lists,
but in terms of,
of sober scenario planning and capability,
then we need to spend that amount,
right?
And it could be not one or 2% of GDP,
(42:31):
which our governments have tended to be,
you know,
content to spend maybe five or 6% of GDP.
South Korea used to spend 6% of its GDP,
right?
Um So the question is,
uh given all of that background,
what could we be doing?
Well,
we clearly could be developing area denial capabilities on the general lines that Sam has suggested without prejudice to alliance with the United States because he could be saying that's a scenario that could occur,
(42:58):
suppose he's correct and,
and a war took place in Taiwan which we lost and we would need to fall back on being able to,
to deter attack on Australia.
We'd want to have that in place.
We wouldn't want to start trying to prepare at that point.
Right.
And nobody with an airline system could reasonably say,
well,
we shouldn't have those capabilities and he himself says they wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.
So I think there's everything to be said for saying,
(43:20):
let's do that,
let's have asymmetric capabilities that could be relied upon to deter a direct assault on Australia and its maritime territories by an aggressive China.
Right.
That's well worth thinking through.
But that's quite independent of his major premise and,
and it's not his fundamental prescription,
which is the radical idea that we just pull in and look after number one and forget everything else.
(43:43):
Human rights,
liberal principles,
us,
alliance us,
bases Taiwan democracy,
whatever,
forget it just hunker down and defend ourselves and,
and believe or cross our fingers and hope that China won't get serious about attacking Australia because then we could deter it,
you know,
if it's not really serious,
if it's really serious and we have no allies and no fundamental abilities other than a bit of a denial,
(44:05):
we,
we're cooked,
but you can't even assume such a defensive um struct uh posture without foregoing all the,
all the things that I think make Australia worthwhile,
which is a free and open economy,
you know,
trade,
interpersonal connections and exchanges,
a diplomatic cultural shared.
I don't think we could maintain all those good things if we kind of don't pull our weight basically,
(44:28):
in terms of looking after the peace and order of the region,
part of a global system of liberal principles and free trade.
Exactly.
So,
and of democracies.
And it seems to me if we did in fact embrace Sam's prescription and I don't accuse him of foreseeing and,
and accepting this.
I think it's a blind spot on this path.
I think if we went down that path,
we would suffer an attack of cultural despair.
(44:50):
We,
we would implode politically and socially.
Um And uh that's not to be welcomed.
The,
the benign way which I suspect is what he imagines is if we were adopting a kind of Finland stance,
right.
And Finland was neutral through the Cold War and it did have armed forces in the belief that it would defend itself if it really had to.
(45:12):
And that what it had would at least deter the U uh Soviet Union from having another crack at it as it did in 1939 the winter war.
But what that overlooks is that Finland was only able to do that because NATO was there keeping the Soviet Union at bay,
right.
Whereas what he's saying is the US is not gonna be there and in any case,
we shouldn't encourage it to be there.
Well,
that's a wholly different world.
(45:33):
You know,
it's a disturbing thought.
But I think,
I mean,
to link this to the debate with,
um,
a lot of the arguments of the late Jim Molin,
Senator Jim Mulan.
Um,
and also I think even Treasurer Josh Frydenberg,
in terms of,
I think a lot of the,
the rhetoric that came out about national resilience across,
um,
you know,
basically securing the independence of our manufacturing base,
(45:54):
food security,
fuel security,
um,
you know,
advanced manufacturing to be able to make missiles,
drones,
other things like that.
I think there's a big gap until the Australian economy is actually able and society is able to actually support,
um a either a mid-range,
you know,
change in our defense as you've described,
which is sort of important,
(46:14):
a lot of the self sufficient defense capabilities,
but not sort of throwing away the US alliances and systems and nuclear subs and or basically,
um there's a huge way to go there for us to actually meet that enhanced sovereign capability,
I think is the expression.
But also I think a huge gap in the public's expectation about what might be required in terms of allocation of public resources.
(46:39):
And maybe you are going to be spending 4 to 6 per cent of GDP on defense.
So I just think we're so far away from any of those two kind of conditions being met to actually one meet what van is putting forward and two,
maybe even meeting the I think sensible midpoint between the two positions that you are over where I cutting it today.
Yeah.
So it's,
you know,
Jim Molin,
(47:00):
as you say before he died,
did argue this in danger on the doorstep,
Ross Babbage,
who is another veteran of the defense and intelligence system has written,
written,
written or published a book recently called The Next Major War in which it makes a similar case.
And,
and that case,
you know,
pivots on the observation that Australia is so accustomed to security and so completely engaged in the International Liberal Order that the US has created and defended,
(47:29):
that we have run down all our capacities for any serious national security resilience.
And that's alarming in what appears to be an increasingly dangerous world,
right?
Um And it seems to me that,
that what Sam is saying,
well provided,
we got a bit of extra kit at the margin um will be fine.
(47:50):
Well,
I don't think so.
Um And,
and I think that there's a very good point to be made that because of the liberal International order and because of the strong complementarities between our resource bases and China's development,
we have allowed our manufacturing to wither away and we've profited net handsomely from China's growth.
(48:11):
But that depends on China remaining open and part of an integrated order.
If that starts to come apart as it has started to come apart,
we're very vulnerable.
And I think we're more vulnerable than people think we are because it seems to me that that sort of danger zone for uh catastrophe,
a catastrophic war is going to come sooner than people think.
(48:32):
And certainly sooner than the um all of our new defense um equipment coming on stream like the Tomahawk missiles or the new sub,
which is decades away.
Um because China is facing,
you know,
some serious long-term structural issues,
whether they be economic or demographic,
which might force it.
And obviously the fact that the Western liberal um defense capabilities will improve over the next 10 to 20 years.
(48:56):
But it's almost like the time is right for them to do something if they were to,
you know,
seek to take Taiwan or radically re reorder the South China Sea.
And so the danger is on our,
on our doorstep as Moon said,
it is,
it is.
And,
and um it is worth uh emphasizing this.
There,
there's a book which uh you're clearly aware of by Hal brands and Michael Beckley published in the past 12 months called uh Danger Zone.
(49:20):
Um And their argument is that um the Chinese Communist Party is well aware that it faces the looming challenges to which you referred.
Um then beyond 2030 it's gonna face a rapidly aging population,
uh a decline in its productivity,
very serious problems with environmental deterioration.
(49:40):
Um And it doesn't have a welfare system to cope with the rapidly aging population,
shrinking workforce.
Uh and it's refused to undertake the economic reforms that would liberalize the system and ease some of that pressure.
And therefore it is going to face growing challenges of uh you know,
fiscal kind.
How does it allocate resources.
(50:01):
Does it allow old people to just die on the vine without care?
Do,
does it um does it ignore its environmental problems serious as they are massive pollution and so on or does it reallocate resources?
If it reallocate resources,
it will not have the same amount of resources to spend on the military and in internal security and,
(50:23):
and if it doesn't cope well with the internal challenges,
then it may need to double down the internal security or face political crisis,
perhaps regime implosion.
This has happened to China before and why?
Because of its fundamental and long lasting governance model,
the Communist Party is an exaggerated version of old Chinese autocracy.
And while people talk about how China was supposed to be really well governed.
(50:45):
Historically,
it wasn't dynasties kept failing and imploding,
right?
Because past a certain point,
corruption,
brittleness,
ignorance of what's really going on,
frustration on the part of people and they can't get redress,
they can't change the government,
et cetera.
It leads to a system to implode.
We could well see that they argue beyond 2030 the Communist Party uh therefore may decide that this is peak China.
(51:08):
Now if they want Taiwan back,
they better take it while the going is good.
So our best bet is to be really clear about all of this and seek to make clear to China that the costs of going to war,
win,
lose or draw would be very high and ongoing.
Don't go there,
work this out intelligently that can be done,
(51:28):
right?
We need to do that and,
and,
and,
and Babbage,
of course,
like others and,
and Brandon Beckley emphasized the military deterrence and possibly war fighting aspects of this.
I think that the economic and diplomatic are just as important.
Um I,
I think,
I think that's true and I think as well.
(51:49):
Uh,
one thing that worries me is the actual um perhaps the fragility of I,
I believe the political consensus in Australian political media,
civil society to actually see through what,
what we need to see through in order to safeguard the nation.
Because we had recent commentary in the media from Bob Carr um saying that,
(52:11):
you know,
the worst thing that happened to Taiwan was the imposition of the kind of civil um restrictions and someone that's been experienced in Hong Kong since China sort of seized the legislature there.
And you know,
took it,
took it back essentially 20 odd years earlier than it was meant to.
Then Bob Carr could,
could live with that new model um on our doorstep in the South China Sea,
(52:32):
in the Asian community,
which are a part.
And then obviously you had Paul Keating saying that you know the whole Taiwan question like Xinjiang like Hong Kong like Tibet was really a civil matter for,
for uh for China.
And it was not,
and he referred to Taiwan as and I quote a so-called democracy.
Yeah.
So cool.
Yeah.
And so these views do have roots right in the Australian policy in the media.
(52:55):
A lot of Rove's um work has I think been reported on and sort of,
you know,
lapped up,
I would say quite uncritically.
I mean,
you're really the first person that I know of to sort of substantially critiqued and,
and uh and engage with the work.
Um So do you think there are?
And obviously,
I mean,
that's in the Australian,
right,
domestic setting.
(53:16):
But then we've obviously got the,
the specter of Donald Trump haunting the haunting the Republican party and the,
and the,
and the,
and the White House too,
if he comes,
what happens to the alliance system.
So it's not clear to me that there's one like a,
a firm resolve here in Australia domestically and too,
it's not clear that even internationally in terms of relations with the state that we'll be able to see through the web of alliances.
Yeah.
Sure.
(53:36):
And,
and,
and you know,
the best part of what Sam's um offering us is precisely that concern,
right?
Um And so it's not as you indicated earlier,
it's not all nothing we can read Sam conservatively,
let's say,
and say,
well,
we can adjust at the margin,
we can do good scenario planning,
(53:56):
we can prepare to,
you know,
have a fullback position if things really do deteriorate in the way that you suggest.
But we,
we shouldn't even contemplate doing this preemptively and quickly because that would be a,
a mess frankly,
right?
But to go back to your observation about Bob Carr,
the,
it's disturbing enough and I said this in print,
(54:16):
in response to that remark of his,
that a man who takes his own civil and political liberties entirely for granted would say,
but he can live with it if,
if another country with the same population,
the same civil liberties loses them right?
As Hong Kong has lost its.
Um but it gets worse because Sam has implied,
Hugh White has even said at times and and Bob Carr appears to be of the same school of thought that we ourselves would have to restrict the way in which we speak about China,
(54:44):
criticize human rights abuses,
et cetera.
Uh in order to live in such a world,
in other words,
we would have to more or less impose on ourselves,
the kinds of restrictions that China is imposing in Hong Kong and says it will impose on Taiwan.
And,
and to quote Sam's phrase in the world in which we would be an echidna,
there would be no room for liberal principles or human rights.
(55:07):
And we at times he says another phrase have to be more ruthless,
more ruthless in our approach to what to our neighbors,
to our own censorship regime.
He doesn't really spell that out.
But it seems to me that's a,
that's a really unpleasant future to look at and,
and I would resist going there any way I could,
but there are reasons to think very hard about our national security,
(55:30):
our integrated national security policy and our resilience and just to bring the interview to an end,
um I also,
you know,
am concerned there's one thing to,
to,
it's good that we're thinking seriously about it and that the defense strategic Review has happened that I think AUS is underway with the status quo seems to be maintained despite a little,
you know,
a bit of rattling at the,
(55:51):
you know,
political branches and at the,
within the caucuses and things.
But it's not really clear to me that anything substantially has changed,
whether they're actually spending the money,
they're actually sort of rolling out these programs.
Um,
you know,
are we,
are we sort of going to actually deliver what we've promised on the path that we're currently on regardless of what Sam and,
and you and others might come up with as alternative or middle ways.
(56:13):
It's like,
it's sort of like even the path we're on today,
it doesn't seem to be like it's got traction,
you know,
I think it's true and I think it's partly because,
whereas the labor party when they came into office a year or so ago,
made clear from day one that they were not going to break with the AUS Agreement and with the national security settings,
that coalition had put in place nevertheless,
(56:35):
as a party.
Uh and as a matter of longstanding social policy,
their preference is to spend more on social welfare,
health and education than on defense.
And that's in fact what they're doing.
Right.
So the,
the they're talking the talk,
it's not clear,
they're walking the walk,
right.
Um And that's why we can see,
it's one of the reasons why we can see Beijing being more accommodating towards the Albanese government than they were towards the,
(57:00):
you know,
the uh the Morrison government.
Um Albanese is now set to visit Beijing.
What will he say?
Well,
it seems clear that he will not even raise the question of,
of Yang,
he and who were Chinese Australian citizens in in pr C jails uh who have never got anything that we would call procedural justice,
(57:22):
right?
Who,
who don't have the normal civil and legal rights,
right?
Of them that any such person would be given in a Western democracy?
Um to not even raise that question,
that's appeasement of the Communist Party,
pure and simple,
right?
And it's not a good look if,
if what we're saying is we're standing up to China.
(57:42):
It it's compromising right up front on those very things.
We said that Sam would jettison that his liberal principles and human rights.
Well,
thanks very much for your time today,
Paul,
we are beaten by the buzzer,
unfortunately,
have a,
a lunch to get to which will be delightful,
but I'm sure we'll continue the conversation at another time.
Absolutely.
We've covered a lot of ground.
It's been terrific.
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