The earth has moved under our feet, and our massive security gamble is crumbling, but the government pretends nothing has happened, writes Michael Pascoe.
Tits on a bull, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, all same same. The former committee is a random mix of odds and sods – even Ralph Babet – as could be assembled, the latter stacked with fans of last century’s security stories, devotees of Pax Americana, fed and watered by the local and American security establishment
to think no further than their outdated Anglosphere prejudices.
This was the year the earth moved for Australia’s security, while our timid government kept its head under the pillows, desperately hoping it would not have to face up to the changes and challenges, praying its political strategy of copying coalition policy would help keep it safe at the polls. What’s Labor’s main security concern? How it looks in khaki on election day.
Can the opposition come up with a more pro-American defence spokesman than Richard Marles? No. Labor remains safe on the security right flank that was traditionally Liberal high ground.
With the Albanese/Marles/Wong government devoted to exerting discipline, quashing dissent and going all the way with Donald J, Australia’s national security future goes unexamined while its current blueprint burns.
Strategic failure
We have proven ourselves to be rich in the greatest strategic failure: lacking imagination. Our defence establishment – politicians, spooks, bureaucrats, military, salespeople, foreign agents – could not imagine the change that has been foisted on them, could not conceive any future for Australia other than one embedded in the American military armpit,
can’t grasp that the game has irreversibly changed.
Now, as America changes faster than anyone dared guess, we pursue the path of failure that comes from not believing what is happening. Having explicitly bet our strategic future on America always protecting us, that that is our only hope for survival, it is too painful for the establishment to face up to America withdrawing, to being proven wrong.
Australia Deputy Sheriff
There have been rare and largely ignored voices forecasting what is happening under Trump. A decade ago, Geoff Raby warned of the US eventually withdrawing from Western Pacific domination, leaving Deputy Dawg Australia an orphaned shag on a rock. Hugh White, more recently, has made the case that America is in retreat to its core interests.
That has now been spelt out in the Trump administration’s National Security Statement and by its “Secretary for War” Pete Hegseth. America is to be about the Americas, with Europe left to itself, or Russia, and China’s military rise acknowledged and accepted in Asia.
No fog, no war. Hegseth’s war crimes put Australian soldiers at risk
A new reality
Crikey’s Bernard Keane summarised the new reality ($) while highlighting local mainstream media’s failure to examine it, citing a speech last weekend in which Hegseth said the quiet bits out loud:
“Our interests in the Indo-Pacific are significant, but also scoped and reasonable … this includes the ability for us, along with allies, to be postured strongly enough in the Indo-Pacific to balance China’s growing power.
“President Trump and this administration seek a stable peace, fair trade and respectful relations with China…this involves respecting the historic military buildup they are undertaking.”
Keane concluded Hegseth had said the unthinkable: the US aims merely to be present in the Pacific, not to dominate it. It merely seeks to balance China’s power, not defeat it. And it “respects” China’s military build-up.
“Imagine the absolute uproar from the media — and not just from News Corp — if Anthony Albanese had talked about ‘respecting’ China’s military build-up,” Keane posited.
Like the US blatantly committing war crimes and now piracy off the Venezuelan coast, America’s declared security strategy is an embarrassment Australia doesn’t want to see. This is the America which preferences Russia over Europe.
Not “just a phase”
The optimistic view within the defence establishment clinging to American coattails is that Trump, too, will pass and everything will get back to just the way it was.
It won’t. That’s not the way it happens when the world changes. Much of MAGA will prove sticky even if the Democrats reclaim the White House and Congress.
Having given ground, it’s very difficult to reclaim it.
Not much of Trump 1.0 was overturned by Biden. The tax cuts and Chinese tariffs remained. The domestic chaos created by Trump will be more than enough for a Democrat administration to wrestle with, if there is a Democrat administration next.
America is set for so many problems by 2028, China’s role in Asia won’t register.
In little ol’ Australia, we’ll watch the cricket and slumber through summer. Prime Minister Albanese’s interview on the final Insiders program for 2025 was typical, being purely domestic. A minister’s expensive airfares was a major issue, American war crimes and the national strategic statement Russia applauded didn’t rate a mention.
And with an iron grip on Labor Party members and an irrelevant opposition, Albanese/Marles/Wong will continue to treat the somnambulant Australian public with contempt, refusing to be open about our AUKUS fantasy,
refusing to risk a public inquiry,
refusing to tell us what more the US is demanding of its South Pacific vassal.
Oh well, we can concentrate on the cricket, ignore our complicity in piracy and war crimes and just keep handing over the billion-dollar cheques.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.