A call to arms for uncertain future
RICHARD Marles was watching the opening sequence of Tom Cruise’s box office smash Top Gun when it occurred to him how in the 36-year wait for the sequel, little had changed.
The F-14 Tomcat had been replaced with the F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35 Lightning, but on the aircraft carrier flight deck, operations in that first scene mirrored that of the original flick.
Having himself landed on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan off Brisbane in 2019 during a goodwill visit, the Defence Minister knew it was not just a Hollywood nod to nostalgia, and more that war fighting rituals remained largely unchanged.
“It was a wonder how little had changed – that is what it looks like,” he said of both the movie scene and his 2019 experience, which as a hobby photographer he had captured in an image framed on the wall of his new office.
But Mr Marles is clear, that is about all that remains the same about Australia’s security outlook today.
For one thing the 10-year strategic warning time for a conflict no longer applies, and longrange strikes in which a single hypersonic missile can destroy a city in a blink is real.
In simple terms, the world is in a different place, and this requires different thinking on our national defences, and for Mr Marles a real sense of urgency to understand what we need to defend ourselves.
“The world was a very different place back then,” Mr Marles said.
“We were using (the same) language then but it does feel more acute now, that this is the most complex set of strategic circumstances that we have ever faced, and it really is.
As China, our biggest trading partner, sought to shape the world around it in a way we had not seen before, we “would want the relationship to be in the best place that it can be”.
“It presents challenges for us and it is really important that Australia builds its strategic space, has the ability to articulate our national interest when it differs from Chinese action,” he said.
Mr Marles said Russia’s invasion and war on Ukraine highlighted the importance of a rules-based order, which in this case was abandoned “by a big country imposing itself on a smaller neighbour”.
When asked if Australia was potentially “a Ukraine”, he said the principles at stake were applicable, and that’s why he had ordered Defence to produce a new strategic posture review by next March.
“It’s a different circumstance to here, but there are lessons to be learnt from the conflict in Ukraine, and again that’s where I think we really do need to be looking at what kind of defence force we have in the context of the strategic circumstances we face,” he said.
“We need to be able to project with lethality, we also need to be able to withstand the projection of lethal force, and so there’s obviously things to say.
“What that implies in terms of assets that we have is exactly the sort of question that we need this review to look at.”
And no doubt now needs to be looked at in the context of Ukraine, where long-range missile strikes, some fired at unimaginable speeds and from “near space”, are destroying a nation.
Mr Marles is putting a lot of faith in the review to guide our future military in the face of a rapidly deteriorating outlook in the region. He calls it a “generational reinvestment” in the ADF.
The fact Australia needs another military review just two years after the previous one is telling, and has more to do with the evolution of national secur
threats
than a new government wanting to impress.
Mr Marles understands the threats, knows our shortcomings (not least from a lack of missile defence systems) and has a sense of urgency.
He said no one wanted war and disputes needed to be mediated through international law. That rules-based order, he said, was under stress, notably the UN Convention on the law of the sea around Australia and in the South China Sea.
“The rules-based order in East Asia, through the IndoPacific, has been fundamental to the stability and the economic growth and prosperity of the region in which we live,” he said.
“That’s where clearly our interests lie and it is not an esoteric idea. We are a trading nation, our largest trading partner is within the region, and so it’s about trading in a peaceful activity; it’s so important for our economy, jobs and for living standards.”