Reflections on Australian Foreign and Defense Policy

Strategic Independence

Following from the legacy of the assault weapons ban, and the relative peace and stability of our increasingly unequal society we should forge a path to strategic independence;

• • an aggressively anti-war and anti-militaristic Foreign Policy

  • which leverages Australian multiculturalism for international peacemaking and peacekeeping 

  • utilises forward diplomacy by prioritising the development of close alliances with neighbouring countries in Asia-Pacific

  • seeking progressive integration with New Zealand, ASEAN and Pacific Island countries

  • and forging a pathway towards the development of a Pacific Republic/Federation/Confederacy/Union that would act as a counterbalance to US and BRICS influence (however there may be a possible world where we retain our partnership with the US and successfully join BRICS too)

  • offering Australia's diplomatic services to mediate and settle disputes in the region

  • by performing joint-exercises with the USA, China and ASEAN nations in the Strait of Malacca and establishing mutual guarantees for trade security in the Asia-Pacific region

  • serving as first-responders for diplomatic crises internationally

  • using our Foreign Aid budget to target development which prevents conflicts and natural disasters, reducing the flow of asylum seekers and refugees

  • enabling the self-determined development of Australian Foreign and Defense Policy on the principles of 

  • mutual cooperation and prosperity, and a disavowing of any military action that is not in direct self defense, or the defense of a member of the Pacific Republic/Federation/Confederacy/Union

  • justice, fairness and boundaries of reasonable disagreement as expressed by John Rawls' original position and Elizabeth Anderson's principles of Democratic Equality, to end the era of neoliberal plutocracy once and for all (though something tells me the plutocrats won't like this latter point), and begin the era of maximising people's liberty, regardless of their postcode

  • enabling us greater remit to identify mistreatment of peoples in other countries once we have closed the gap for our First Nations people and all other Australians
    
    

Liberty Alliance

An alternate direction (which is the one Australia has been moving towards so far) involves progressive defense integration with the United States leading to Australia;

• Staying as 'independent' as it is now - a defense arm of the United States, and their good cop, with a greater say on the policy objective of the collective West

• Becoming the 51st state or an overseas territory of the United States (retaining our constitution, or having an input in rewriting a new one that is shared with the USA and any other interested parties), or retaining our titular independence

• Establishing a 'Liberty Alliance' which includes other plutocracies that used to call themselves Western Liberal Democracies such as

• The US, EU, UK, Australia and New Zealand  

• Based on the principles of justice, fairness and boundaries of reasonable disagreement as expressed by John Rawls' Original Position and Elizabeth Anderson's principles of Democratic Equality, to end the era of neoliberal plutocracy once and for all (though something tells me the plutocrats won't like this latter point), and begin the era of maximising people's liberty, regardless of their postcode

• Accepting greater US influence and military presence in Australia, as well as a continuation of the status quo of them essentially having near total control over the direction of our Defense Policy, and outsized influence over our Foreign Policy 
  
  

Strategic Equilibrium

Australia's current foreign policy is of strategic equilibrium. In my view this is the best foreign policy platform that Australia has had for a long time. This is because our domestic circumstances preclude us from having a moral high ground. We can't highlight specific issues with human rights, inequality and oligarchy if we ourselves aren't up to scratch with them (and we are most certainly not). The benefits of the current Foreign Policy principles are:

• Enables pragmatic deal making

• Facilitates strong outreach into Asia-Pacific (an area previously deeply neglected by Australia)

• A reformist approach to international and multilateral institutions

• Trade and de-escalation focus on foreign and bilateral relations
  
  

Stagnant Australia

A third direction is stagnation in the preceding status quo (from which the current Government emerged) is;

• Australia continuing to play a significant peripheral role in world affairs (albeit one the power of which well exceeds its population)

• Acting as an informal extension of US diplomatic and military hegemony in Asia-Pacific

• That appears independent but in fact is unable to make to make its own decisions since the end of WWII, with the discovery of its citizens being surveilled only made by Gough Whitlam, many Prime Ministers after Federation

• And is constantly wedged as a casualty in the trades between the US, China and other great powers in their perpetual quest to compete for influence in the world
  
  

Defense Policy

Australia's defense policy should not be based on the flavour of the military-industrial complex consultants of the day, or who's city submarines and assets will be built in but on variables such as its geography and strategic needs which are shaped by current and future challenges. The reality is that currently we do not have any adversaries which would consider us as a target for a ballistic missile strike, land invasion or a naval blockade, however should this change the following technologies should be the backbone of our defense policy;

• Modular multi-purpose submersible and aerial drones (of various sizes) capable of naval, aerial and terrestrial monitoring and surveys as well as for continental mapping for resource and archaeological purposes, as well as naval and aerial carrier craft for said drones. Monitoring and survey technologies should include LIDAR, gravitometers, magnetometers, radiometers and other technologies that can be used for the identification of ore reserves and First Nations sacred sites

• Highly capable rapid response land forces with the capacity to perform high-risk disaster preparation, mitigation and relief operations, and equivalent operations in defense scenarios as well as rapid long-distance transportation capability for such operations in Asia-Pacific 

• Missile defense shield capable of neutralising ballistic and other long-range missiles from a sufficiently large distance

• A multi-purpose transport/surveillance/ordinance navy capable of performing rapid and high-risk disaster preparation, mitigation and relief operations, and equivalent operations in defense scenarios

• Electromagnetic and cyber ordinances capable of remotely and non-lethally neutralising the assets of potential adversaries 

• Electronic defense shield which enables the detection and neutralisation of hostile internet traffic

AUKUS
Aukus is coercive and waste of money because: 

• the current government when in opposition had less than 48 hours to consent to $368 billion in spending in their election platform (so much for genuine bipartisanship). It also appears that there was no cost-benefit analysis done on this spending or its cost-effectiveness, or an evaluation of any alternative measures that would advance Australia's Defense capability and National Security 

• it makes us reliant on foreign countries and their nuclear fuel for our self-defense

• it is not cost-effective for the very limited capabilities that it delivers (exclusively water-water strike capability)

• it is designed for naval engagements when we have a defense 'partnership' with the United States which has the largest navy, air force and military on Earth, and the largest number of bases of any country ever which have completely encircled China and Russia, constantly borrowing money, including from China, to fund its military engagements and maintain global power projection at the expense of the living standards of its own people

• it does not address emerging capabilities in technologies such as Burevestnik and Poseidon, which should be the focal point of our defense capability, however against such technology the best defense capability is diplomacy because if they are ever used they are likely to start a chain reaction in which we will all lose. The military doctrine that led to these technologies was conceived during the era of Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy (who also wrote a really cool book - The Will of the Universe: Unknown and Intelligent Forces) and advanced during the era of Nikita Khruschev to prepare the Soviet Union and later Russia for asymmetric military engagements. This is why the world needs to demilitarise and move towards giving the custodianship of such technologies to credible international defense institutions which should only use it against extraterrestrial threats like asteroid and comet impacts.