The best security money can buy?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The news that Australia is about to spend $24 billion on a new
generation of fighter aircraft has been greeted with remarkably little
critical comment or analysis. It is hard to imagine that any other
public policy initiative on this scale would have been greeted with
quite such equanimity.
But when the defence of the nation is at stake, no-one wants to risk
looking like an unpatriotic strategic illiterate – especially on Anzac
Day.
It is, however, possible to make two predictions with some
confidence. First, if history is any guide, the budget for these planes
will inevitably blow out. As yet unresolved technical difficulties with
the supposedly state of the art Lockheed Martin F35 Joint Strike Fighter
almost guarantee this. Canada and Turkey also look like pulling out of
the project, pushing up the cost for other buyers.
The second prediction is this: it is as near to certain as anything can be that they will never be used in anger.
This is a good thing, no doubt, and the plane’s admirers will no
doubt claim that this is testimony to its deterrent effect. But would
things have been different without the new fighters and the eye-watering
outlay they involve at a time of alleged austerity?
Strategic hard heads and technical experts, of whom there seem to be
no shortage at such times, will claim that national security is simply
too important to be left to chance, and no price is apparently too great
to pay in ensuring it.
And yet, this is not quite as axiomatic or self-evident as they would
have us believe. Not every country subscribes to this logic or feels as
impelled by what Edward Luttwack describes as the “the Anglo-Saxon
trait of bellicosity”.
New Zealand, for example, has not only been expelled from the ANZUS
alliance with Australia and (more importantly) the US, but it has
essentially abandoned the idea of having an independent and effective
air defence capability altogether.
Does anyone seriously think that their security has been materially
diminished as a consequence? Are hostile powers queuing up to invade and
take advantage of its weakened state? Hardly.
Successive New Zealand governments have made the entirely rational
calculation that they are a small nation, a long way from potential
areas of conflict, with limited national resources that might be better
directed toward national development rather than defense.
Even if argument is made that New Zealand somehow freeloads on the
back of Australia’s military spending and benefits from the defense of
its supposedly vulnerable north, does this make their calculation of
their particular national circumstances and interests any the less
rational or wise?
Australia is not New Zealand and a different strategic calculus
potentially applies, but is it one that merits this sort of expenditure
and this sort of equipment? In what possible circumstances could the
possession of 70 or even 100 F-35s make a decisive difference without
which Australia’s national security would be unambiguously compromised?
Would contributing to a regional arms race really underwrite our
long-term security or would it actually make conflict more likely, as
the timely example of World War One reminds us?
Plainly, no-one is thinking about invading Australia. As has been
frequently noted, only the US has the capacity to do so in any
foreseeable circumstances, and they are actually “invading” as a
consequence of enthusiastic bipartisan invitation. In this regard, the
hard heads are undoubtedly correct: with American bases in Australia the
already remote possibility of foreign aggression toward Australia
becomes even less likely.
So if there is widespread agreement that the defence of Australia is
not at stake, why the need for such (potentially) lethal fire power? The
logic underpinning Australian strategy revolves around the alliance and
the need to “do our bit”.
Given that the US is planning to buy something like two and a half
thousand of these planes, Australia’s contribution to any military
effort will, as ever, be largely tokenistic and make no difference to
the outcome of any actual conflict.
Much the same could be said about the equally ruinous proposed
expenditure on new submarines. But whether we buy 12, 20 or 100, it is
worth thinking about the precise circumstances in which such weapons
systems would make a decisive difference or change the behaviour of
potential adversaries.
Playing up the possible benefits to Australia’s beleaguered
manufacturing sector is a but rich from a government that normally has
no time for industry policy, but it is, at least, a potentially tangible
benefit. The same can’t be said about their ostensible strategic
rationale.
Tony Abbot has justified this massive expenditure on the basis that
we “don’t know what may be around the corner”. Actually, we do. It’s
called climate change and it’s coming to a country near you - with
potentially apocalyptic consequences for our collective security.
If the government really is serious about addressing clear and
present dangers, this might be a good place to start. $24 billion is
just the sort of money that might help to underwrite our long-term
economic and environmental security.
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