📬Australia’s Militarization: From Strategic Backwater to Military Power🌍

📚The TL;DR📝

1. Australia: Population of 26,768,598, GDP of $1.588 trillion (2023), led by Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party since 2022.

2. Australian foreign policy has made a long break with tradition, shifting from a focus on supporting British and American foreign policy objectives to developing a self-reliant fighting force.

3. Australian strategic planning since the Cold War has sought to emphasize multilateral alliances and the development of a strong independent military.

4. Australia has faced growing tensions with China over trade, maritime security, and cyberattacks, all of which threaten core Australian interests.

5. Australia’s experience demonstrates that militarization takes decades and trillions of dollars to accomplish. A state’s willingness to build up its military will depend on the size and nature of the threat they face. However, only states with the necessary foresight decades ago are able to face today’s mounting threats.

📌Australia’s Militarization: From Strategic Backwater to Military Power📌

Last week, as the new U.S. administration finalized its cabinet, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reaffirmed America’s commitment to the Australia-US-UK (AUKUS) pact. The pact, designed to foster security cooperation between the three nations, paved the way for Australia to purchase up to 5 U.S. made nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines that will be delivered in the 2030s. The two nations recently finalized the first $500 million payment for this transaction. 

This step is part of a larger program that will hopefully enable Australia to produce its own nuclear-powered submarines by the late 2050s. The program is expected to cost Australian taxpayers between $268 and $368 billion dollars over the next 30 years. This purchase is Australia’s largest-ever defense investment, signaling a seismic shift: a nation once reliant on foreign protectors is militarizing. But why? Some experts say it is primarily to counter Chinese naval dominance in the Indo-Pacific, reflecting concerns over Chinese maritime expansion and trade practices. The move certainly demonstrates a broader global trend where states are turning to militarization to ensure their national security. However, the key takeaway from the story of Australian militarization is that while strategic goals are quick to change, building an adequate fighting force takes a long time, especially when there is no active war. 

🦘The Roots of Australian Defense Policy 🦘

As a former colony, Australia has traditionally bet its security on protection from Great Britain, and later the United States. Despite relying on foreign powers for defense, Australia gained a reputation as a formidable fighting force early in its independent history. Australian forces first proved their mettle in the arduous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during WWI. Although it was a quagmire, Australians won respect for an “Anzac spirit” and during the Second World War, Australia contributed nearly one million troops to the fight against the Axis Powers.  

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Australia sought to quickly align itself with the United States-led world order. In 1951, Australia, along with New Zealand, signed the ANZUS defense treaty, binding its security to the US. As stipulated by this mutual defense agreement, Australia sent troops to support the American campaigns in Korea and Vietnam. Australian military strategy during this period was characterized by “Forward Defense,” the idea that it would need to contribute manpower overseas to prevent threats from reaching Australian soil. 

Australian policy during this time generally deferred to the strategic interests of the United States, accepting American priorities as their own. Australia was seen as a ‘strategic backwater’, sparsely using its military for its own security objectives. When the United States adopted the Nixon Doctrine, setting the precedent that friendly countries now needed to take primary responsibility for their defense, Australian leadership recognized the need to develop an autonomous security policy.

During the tenure of Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, the 1986 Dibb Report was published, fundamentally transforming Australian defense. Written by Paul Dibb, a former Ministry of Defense employee and consultant, it sought to identify potential weaknesses in Australia’s military structure and strategy. Dibb concluded that Australia would have to develop a self-reliant defense policy, including expanding its military force and deepening links with Southeast Asian nations.

By the late 1990s, it became apparent that Australia's armed forces were ill-equipped to meet the requirements of the new self-reliant policy. In 1999, Australia intervened in East Timor to repel the pro-Indonesian militia occupying the country since late 1975. The Australians, as a part of a collective UN peacekeeping force, were able to successfully ward off the Indonesian army and project power beyond their own shores. However, during the operation the Australian Defense Force lacked sealift capacity, forcing them to rely on U.S. transports. 

🚢The Importance of the Indo-Pacific and the Dilemma of China⚓

Australia has multi-fold interests in the Asia-Pacific region, including close trade links with Southeast Asian nations and China and a long historical kinship with New Zealand. 90% of Australian trade flows through the region, and any hindrances to the free movement of cargo would massively impact Australia’s economy. Furthermore, Australia remains heavily dependent on trade with China, with sanctions from Beijing often imposing catastrophic effects on critical Australian industries like ranching and wine production. In response, Australia has sought to decouple from China and find new trading partners among Southeast Asian nations.

In 2009, Australia announced a defense strategy emphasizing that Canberra’s foremost threat is China and that it must work with like-minded countries to prevent threats in the Indo-Pacific and its broader waters. These concerns did not arise out of nowhere. China has begun a massive shipbuilding and military development campaign to control Taiwan and emerge as a “great maritime power” by 2035. The Chinese navy is now the largest in the world by hull count, and China’s missile and nuclear weapon stockpiles have also grown significantly. Since 2013, China has constructed ‘artificial islands’ in the South China Sea, encroaching upon the maritime borders of nations like the Philippines and Vietnam. Australia has criticized these actions, arguing that building these islands is illegal and fears that the construction of the islands threatens the security of Australian trade with southeast Asian and Oceanian nations. Nearer to home, state-backed Chinese hackers have targeted infrastructure, and Chinese ships have conducted maneuvers near Australian waters. 

Australia has tried to secure itself from China's leverage through collaboration with economic and military powers in the region. Among these include the QUAD (The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), a strategic consortium comprising Australia, India, the United States, and Japan. Each of these countries, while disparate in their culture and location, is united by the Chinese threat to their own economic and security concerns that undermine regional stability in the Indo-Pacific. 

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also plays a pivotal role in shaping Australia’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific, serving as both a strategic partner and a stabilizing force in the region. Australia and ASEAN nations like Vietnam and Malaysia share an interest in countering Chinese expansion into the South China Sea. ASEAN also represents a significant proportion of Australia’s trade, making up 13% of their two-way trade in 2022.

Australia and the United States have a mutually beneficial relationship and extensive security partnership dating back to the post WWII era.  The AUKUS partnership is especially important. Established in 2021, the program builds on older traditions of Anglosphere collaboration like the Five Eyes and represents a deep and comprehensive partnership between the three countries. Under the agreement, the United States will provide Australia with three of the newest Virginia-class nuclear submarines, a formidable deterrent to the Chinese threat Australia views as an ever-growing reality.

Japan, lacking a sufficient military of its own, has vowed to prioritize Australian naval modernization over its own in an attempt to deter China. Article 9 of the 1946 Japanese constitution forever renounces war “as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” Japan has offered the first-of-class upgraded Mogami-class frigates to the Royal Australian Navy ahead of its own maritime forces. By accelerating delivery to Australia, a first for Japan’s defense exports, Tokyo underscores the strategic urgency of countering China’s naval assertiveness.

📔Learning from Australia’s Example🖋

In the 1990s while U.S. scholars were celebrating the fall of the USSR, the End of History, and the birth of Democratic Peace, Australia was beginning the process of developing a self-assured fighting force. Australia finds itself in a challenging position, both ahead of its time and yet still lacking the military assets needed to achieve its strategic goals. There is much to be said about the way the world is remilitarizing, the fact that global defense spending has increased nine percent, and the return of war to Europe. However, this is not the lesson we should derive from the development of Australia's military deterrent. 

In the same oceans as Australia, Japan is beginning to take a startling turn away from its self-dictated policy of pacifism toward a military force capable of projecting power beyond its shores. Similarly, countries like Finland and Sweden joined NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, admonishing that long-standing policies of neutrality are no longer sustainable. 

The biggest takeaway from the story of Australia's military build up is that these efforts take a long time. It has been 29 years since the Dibb Report was released and Australia is still working to create a fighting force able to accomplish its strategic goals in the Indo-Pacific. Australia has engaged in a commendable diplomatic effort, building relationships and multilateral alliances with all the major economic and military powers in the region. Additionally, it brandishes a treaty alliance with the United States, the world’s most formidable fighting force. And still, Australia is scrambling to create a military force able to deter China. 

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