I agree with Ross Babbage about what I take to be the three most important messages in his Strategic Edge report. The first is that China's growing power is fundamentally transforming Asia's strategic order and hence Australia's strategic environment in ways that substantially increase Australia's strategic risks over the next few decades. The second is that Australia's strategic and defence policies today are quite inadequate to meet the demands this will make on us. The third is that Australia needs an open, serious, responsible debate about how we should fix them.
But I think he is too quick to assume that China will become our enemy, and too optimistic about Australia's options if it does. Three points.
First, the report assumes there is nothing we can do to avoid an intense strategic contest with China. If China seeks a much bigger leadership role in Asia as its power grows – and I agree that it probably will – then Ross concludes that intensifying strategic competition becomes inevitable. But that depends on how big a role China seeks, and how the rest of us respond.
If China insists on trying to impose a stern hegemony over Asia, then we have no option but to resist as forcefully as necessary. But we might be able to negotiate a new order in Asia which gives China some increased influence yet still protects our vital interests. Strategic Edge overlooks this possibility. It sees no difference between negotiating with China and surrendering to it, and quite wrongly accuses people like me of advocating surrender when we advocate negotiation.
These negotiations would aim to reach a deal on Asia's future which avoids the dark future Ross predicts for us by satisfying China's ambitions for more influence without conceding hegemony to it. Of course, China might refuse to curb its ambitions. But we will never know unless we offer China the choice between a bigger role in a peaceful Asia where it must share power with others, or the immense costs and risks of confrontation with the rest of us.
There is at least a chance they will prefer peace, and if they do we would all be much better off. If they do not, then the need to confront China will be unambiguously clear. Strategic Edge would have us move straight to strategic competition without exploring the alternatives. That seems to run a big risk of taking a very hard road which we might be able to avoid.
Second, I nonetheless agree with Ross that we need urgently to start developing capabilities to maximise our strategic weight in a more contested Asia if that proves unavoidable. A lot of attention has focused on some of the specific proposals in the Strategic Edge report, but my main concern is the operational concept that underlies them.
The capability proposals in Strategic Edge are based on a concept of deterrence by punishment, which is an old favourite of Ross'. He has long believed that Australia should not aim to use its forces to counter hostile actions directly, but respond indirectly by attacking whatever the adversary leadership holds most dear. It is an attractive idea, and made a lot of sense in the 1980s when we wondered how to best fight Indonesia. But as I have argued elsewhere (A Focused Force, pp.31) there are real limits to its credibility as a core operational concept for Australia against a major power like China.
It is far from clear that Australia, using conventional capabilities, could ever inflict enough damage on a country the size of China to deter its leaders from action against us. Nuclear weapons may be different, but Strategic Edge does not argue that we should go nuclear. Even if it did, there would still be many questions about whether that would achieve what Ross has in mind. I'm not sure it would, against a nuclear armed adversary like China.
Nor does Strategic Edge consider how China might respond to Australia's deterrent attacks on its most vital interests. Ross believes China would do what we ask, but it would have other options. Even leaving nuclear questions aside, we can hardly plan, for example, to mount a trade blockade against China unless we consider how effectively China might be able to apply a trade blockade back against us. Who then hurts most, and blinks first? It is very risky to adopt a strategy of escalation – which this is – when you do not have assured escalation dominance – which we don't.
So I think we need to explore more deeply than Strategic Edge has done the question of how Australia could plan to use armed forces to protect its interests in the Asian century most cost-effectively. I think there are other options which might be more promising — Ross mentioned my favourite, maritime denial, in passing – and we need to spend a lot more effort exploring these options before we can decide which would work best for us.
Finally, I think Strategic Edge is too optimistic about what all this would mean for Australia. It seems to assume, for example, that Australia could adopt the tough approach to China it recommends but still see our trade with China keep growing. It seems to assume that America will remain a staunch ally against China, even while warning that it might not meet China's challenge. Above all, it is confident that Australia will have the economic and demographic weight to support the forces which would make us a middle power in the Asian century.
I do not think we can take any of these things for granted. We have more and tougher choices to make than the ones proposed in Ross' report.
Photo by Flickr user cheesy42.
