Australia should hope for a major shift away from President Trump’s strategy but not an uncritical return to President Obama’s 2015 version. For a start a new NSS should reposition the US as a less crusading nation, one more accepting of difference
It is easy to forget that a central theme of Donald Trump’s project was to oppose, negate or reverse Barack Obama’s legacy. This is nowhere more clear than when the 2017 and 2015 National Security Strategies are compared.
However, it would not be good for Australia, or the world, if the Biden Administration failed to notice the big shifts in the strategic environment over the past four years, and sought to resurrect Obama’s strategic vision.
Not all, or even most, of the changes in the strategic environment have been the result of Trump’s policies. While the pandemic has had some relatively minor direct strategic impacts during 2020, the coronavirus also has revealed some disturbing realities that go to the heart of why Biden should not seek simply to revive Obama’s strategy.
If stability and a workable international system are the outcomes the Biden Administration seeks, and Australia should hope they are, then three deeply interwoven issues need to be given serious attention. They are leadership, democracy and sovereignty.
It is already clear that Biden’s planned foreign policy is centred on the belief that there is a role for US leadership in the world, a position the US once filled, and which can be recaptured. To “once more place America at the head of the table”. The link back to Obama is undeniable. The 2015 NSS spoke of “an undeniable truth — America must lead” and said the “question is never whether America should lead, but how we lead”. The 2015 NSS concludes “American leadership in this century, like the last, remains indispensable”. If ever any of this was true, it is nonsense in today’s reality.
Among the developments that a future NSS must address is that democracy has been demonstrated to be just one option, and not necessarily the teleologically inevitable one, among a number of successful governance models. Outside of the Anglosphere and Western European states, democracy is not as venerated as might be expected.
Throughout the pandemic, people across the world have been able to observe the competence of a number systems of government as nation’s leaders tried to protect their citizens through management of the spread of the virus and then the acquisition, distribution and administration of the vaccines. It will be evident to many observers that China seems to have been more effective. In addition, among the so-called values-sharing like-minded nations, the liberal values touted by many democratic leaders quickly gave way to actions more common to authoritarian regimes.
What might a new NSS look like in practice?
It means accepting that universal rule-based regimes are often counterproductive and arrangements based on regional and geographical solutions can bring about better outcomes. America could commit in the NSS to facilitating a settlement in the South China Sea that separated the strategic and economic issues by abandoning the application of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). By framing the issue in terms of regional states rights to assert UNCLOS claims to potential resources in their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and then conflating those claims with the great power strategic competition, no resolution is possible.
A settlement that recognises China’s legitimate security interests, and accepts the presence of Chinese military assets on the disputed Islands, but which is not associated with EEZ claims, could form the basis for easing tensions. A settlement negotiated between regional claimants which agreed on sharing or jointly exploiting the South China Sea, including new arbitration and collaborative institutions. A separate accompanying agreement on force numbers and deployments between the major powers based on legitimate interests, and not confrontation, might just avoid an Asian war.
The Biden NSS could accord the same level of respect and commitment to the sovereignty of all other nations that it expects in relation to its own. Admittedly that would be difficult for the US as it would mean rejecting American exceptionalism. Yet, notions that self-awarded leadership or democracy promotion licenses the US to interfere in the affairs of other states must be rebuffed by the Biden Administration.
The US should be prepared to renounce the use of the dominance of the US dollar in global finance as a weapon, and in particular give up the use of secondary economic sanctions. The NSS should accept that the dominance of the US dollar does not give the US the right to contravene the sovereignty of third party nations to bilateral disputes in which America is engaged.
Accommodation and pragmatism should be the overall tone of any new NSS. Rhetoric about shared values can no longer drive relationships, not just because it is no longer clear what are the values of the US, but because there are few shared values, at least shared liberal values. That India, Turkey, Egypt, and Sri Lanka and other nations hold elections doesn’t mean they share values among themselves or with the US or Australia. That Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia might share some democratic values doesn’t mean they share strategic interests with the US and Australia.
Biden’s intention to “host a global Summit for Democracy to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World” is anachronistic. It is a facile Cold War idea that doesn’t accord with the contemporary complexities. It is about an agenda that the changing geopolitical and strategic relativities has made redundant. Australia should encourage Biden to view the world in a far less Manichean framework.
A new NSS that repositions the US as a more normal and less crusading nation, and as a nation more accepting of difference would be a huge plus. Putting aside emotional attachments to a legacy world order designed for another time would also be constructive. Australia should hope a new NSS is focused on avoiding war in Asia.
Mike Scrafton was a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, senior Defence executive, CEO of a state statutory body, and chief of staff and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence.
Comments
37 responses to “What should Australia want from a Biden National Security Strategy? Avoiding war in Asia”
Reading some of the comments below, one could be excused for believing one is reading stuff from the extreme left side of politics, as poisonous and as evidence free as the crap spouted from the neo-cons.
Seems a great way of building close relations with the “new” USA!
This is a naive piece. You do not have to be an America-worshipper to recognise certain realities.
Xi is effectively president-for-life. He is already displaying the paranoia which is an inevitable consequence of holding such a position. This will make his regime ever more repressive.
Like all authoritarian personalities he is playing the nationalist card, the Chinese equivalent of Trump’s MAGA. In fact it is not unreasonable to call Xi China’s Trump except that, unlike Trump, he cannot be deposed by a vote of the people.
The Chinese language state-controlled media are Foxnews on steroids. They make Murdoch look almost sane.
The CCP may call itself a “communist” party but it is. in fact, a Fascist party with all that implies and Xi is a more intelligent version of Il Duce.
Paranoid, nationalistic de facto presidents-for-life in charge of great powers are dangerous because they do stupid things like, in this case, invade Taiwan.
The strategy has to be the same as avoiding war in Europe since 1945. Build a powerful alliance to deter the Chinese regime. A good start would be to station US troops and defensive weapons such as anti-ship missiles on Taiwan. If the current Chinese regime does not plan an invasion of Taiwan they should not object to weapons aimed at destroying an invasion fleet.
Just as the Soviet regime was contained within Eastern Europe so the Chinese regime should be contained within the First Island Chain.
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, China’s greatest strategic vulnerability is that much of its trade, especially oil, passes through various choke points and seas controlled by the US Navy. The Biden administration should make it clear that this will be a weapon if the regime invades Taiwan.
Biden should also attempt a rapprochement with Russia. If Putin has any sanity at all he must be getting nervous about Russia being China’s (very) junior partner. Russia will be one of the beneficiaries of global warming. A lot Russian territory is soon-to-be-very-valuable but sparsely populated real estate. Nearby is densely populated China.
Another Chinese weakness is a very rapidly aging population. Unlike the US and Australia I think the Chinese regime will find it difficult to absorb immigrants on a large scale.
This piece is not naive at all. On the contrary it is a realistic assessment of how we can help in ensuring that there is no war in our region.
Xi Jinping and his government is popular with the Chinese masses regardless of what the Western media says. An insistence of “We must lead” means zero accommodation with China’s legitimate regional interests and is a recipe for confrontation.
The USA, like the British before them, has never been true allies with the Russians. The chances of the American Deep State enlisting Russia as a strategic partner against China is next to zero.
China is winning. It’s the most influential country in RCEP, and has practically sewn up the EU-China deal. It is the US that is losing, big time!
That’s the strategic landscape in our region. It is not naive.
The US is not able to bomb China AND Russia and win. That is a fact that Australia needs to face.
How can you possible know that? There is no free media in China, no ability to dissect the regime’s performance. Dissenting voices are silenced. It is easy to be “popular” in these circumstances.
Winning in what sense?
The US enlisted China as a de facto ally against the Soviet Union. After Nixon’s visit to China, the Soviets were forced to shift military resources away from Europe to their southern border.
Why do you think it is beyond their powers to repeat this trick in reverse?
Countries do not have buddies, they have interests. The extent of Russian nervousness can be seen in the way they are selling arms to India which they seem reluctant to supply to their Chinese “buddies”. They are aware that the Chinese are reverse-engineering and often improving on the equipment they sell the Chinese military.
Russia today is a relative pipsqueak next door to an authoritarian great power. It’s economy is not much bigger than Italy’s. It has a population aging even faster than China’s. You do not have to be a brilliant strategist to figure out it is in Russia’s interests to seek allies elsewhere. Putin is letting his hatred of the US blind him to what is in Russia’s best interests.
I just want to make one thing clear.
I am not anti-Chinese
I am very wary of the present Chinese regime and despise Xi in the same way I despise Trump.
I am especially wary of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan which could set off a catastrophic chain of events.
No, I didn’t expect you to be anti-Chinese.
The official name of Taiwan is “Republic of China”. Taiwan is only a problem because the US made it a problem… .
The disdain towards Russia as a country is a very deeply-ingrained British/Anglo attitude. It’s all there in the historical literature. Of course, anything is possible, but the chances are very very low that Russia can be recruited as a sidekick to the US. Putin offered Russia to be an equal partner to NATO in the nineties, and he was flatly rejected.
China may not have as robust a media as the West, but it would be wrong to say they are repressed. They have the biggest social media in the world. For quite a few years before the pandemic, 150 million Chinese tourists travelled overseas every year, and everyone of them returned home to China. That is enough evidence that China is no gulag. Also VPNs are widely used in China to bypass the Chinese internet firewall which means millions are able to access YouTube, etc.
China’s standard of living has improved 400% in the last 30 years or so. You don’t need a survey to tell you that most people in China are happy with that. As long as the government can continue to do that, it will retain its legitimacy (And when you can’t, even a robust democracy like the US’s cannot retain its legitimacy, with probably 40% of American voters doubting their election process).
China is winning, 2% percent growth in 2020, and projected 8% in 2021. Blind Freddy can also see that in so many of their cities… .
Of course, if your media sources only consist of our Western media, I can totally understand where you are coming from!
BTW, I am not anti-Australia, and will not need to be registered in the Foreign Agent register!!
Thank you for taking my word on that. I am not blind. I have seen and heard some of the racist remarks against Australian Chinese people in the wake of the COVID pandemic. I understand that some Australians of Chinese origin must be feeling a bit sensitive.
And, no, it never entered my head that you were anti-Australian.
So far as the Chinese regime is concerned we have both said our pieces and shall have to agree to differ.
You seem to have a bad case of confusing causation and correlation. The current Western Mickie Mouse political system isn’t the root cause of all this prosperity and big backyards, it’s the mass genocide and invasion of foreign lands that did it. Ever wondered why England and all its decedents are never very good at sharing borders?
If you want China follow the path of the Anglos into prosperity, then it needs to start colonising weaker nations, perform mass genocide so they can completely takeover the land they conquer so that there is no chance of resurgence by the natives.
Unlike say the Spaniards, we have the five Anglo eyes, but we don’t have five Latino eyes today do we?
Just FYI, the Mickie Mouse political system is to keep plebs’s dirty paws away from nobility and for nobility to mix in with the plebs so nobody ends up like Marie Antoinette. There is a lot of vested interest in the nobility class to keep the plebs thinking that this arrangement is for everyone’s benefit.
Do you accept the Brookings Institute?
Cheng Li, director of the Brookings Institution’s John L Thornton China
Centre in Washington, said Xi’s popularity is stronger among poorer
citizens. “But Xi Jinping’s popularity is solid among the laobaixing
[common folk]. They see him as a strong leader … He gets things done.
He makes Chinese people proud. There is a tendency to view him as the
third great leader since Mao, Deng and then Xi.”
Quoted in the Financial Times. Out of Rupert’s stable.
https://www.ft.com/content/2b449400-413a-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b
O dear
Xi Jingping is not “effectively” President for life. The two term restriction rule which was introduced during the presidency of Deng Xiaoping was removed by the vote of the National Peoples Congress, not the Communist Party of China. You are literally getting desperate about the PRC. Choke points, aging population – this is out of the Gordon Chang book of PRC collapse. Do you seriously think Biden would go to war with PRC if it exercises its right of sovereignty with the PLA? Taiwan is being peacefully integrated into the PRC economy and nation. I guess contemporary reality must be a nightmare for you. The dominant world power is Asian and led by commies. The US empire is visibly collapsing. You are in for an unhappy rest of the century champ. The Chinese people have stood up. The Anglo white domination of Asia (called “shared values” by the knob from marketing) is over. I hear weeping all over the land.
Gordon Chang has made a stellar career out of his book from 2001, “The Coming Collapse of China”. You would think the American corporate media would reasonably ask him why we are still waiting for the collapse after 20 years of his emphatic forecasting! But no; when they need a real China hater as a talking head, Gordon would invariably be among the top of the list.
Gordon always delivers plenty. He has enough of the bile for China. We have to speculate if this is because he really hates it that he is half Chinese, and not a “real” American like how his white mother is.
Poor old Gordon. The most spectacularly wrong ‘economist” in the history of economics. He perhaps has one competitor for that title in Clive Hamilton whose classic work “Affluenza” which is defined as “that strange desire we feel to spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t know” is read throughout the teeming slums of Manila, by the billions of workers, peasants and other victims of neo-liberal capitalism as their incomes have remained stagnant for forty years whilst the super rich exploit them. His classic work can be purchased at a greatly reduced price online so i guess he has done something towards price control. But Clever Clive has moved seamlessly onto another campaign hasnt he?
If any country needed another mass movement/revolution to make things better for the masses, it would be the Philippines. Always depressing to read about Filipino women folk being badly treated in other better off countries where they serve as domestic help.
The Philippines to eliminate poverty and the economic basis of sexual exploitation, child sex abuse and a high infant mortality rate must for the next twenty years lift its GDP growth to over 6%. And redistribute wealth away from the oligarchs in Manila (much loved by the Australian so called left). There are only two countries in Asia that have achieved this GDP growth over a 20 year plus period. PRC and Singapore. Guess where the Philippines is shifting politically and economically? To the PRC. Expect a full on “human rights” onslaught against the overwhelmingly popular Duterte government from the US led by a senile war criminal. Interesting times.
I am not getting desperate about anything. Nor am I anticipating an imminent collapse of the regime.
I am simply pointing out a few realities of what is a horrible nationalistic regime. While the CCP may call itself “communist” it is, in fact, an old fashioned fascist-nationalist party and Xi looks like a smarter version of Il Duce.
Another claim of desperation. The Communist Party of China isnt communist? So 91 million members are delusional or dishonestly parading under the images of Marx, Lenin, Engels and Mao. Why they would do this is never explained. No link is made to the basics of fascist ideology which are racism, wars of colonial aggression and sheer hatred of marxism. Apparently the PRC, a nation of 1.2 billion people is under a huge conspiracy to claim to be socialist but is in fact fascist. This is tin foil hat stuff mate. Even the evangelical lunatic Pompeo knows the PRC is governed by a communist party and is socialist. You have gone from comparing Xi Jingping to Trump to Mussolini. Maybe you should read Xue Muqiao in regard to underdeveloped socialism and his Marxist classic “China’s Socialist Economy”. Xue published his landmark treatise on economic policy in 1979, “Research On Questions About China’s Socialist Economy” which sold an astonishing 9.92 million copies by 1984. Have you read it? The brilliant marxist Chinese economists of the Deng Xiaoping era Zhao Renwei, Wu Jinglian, Sun Yefang, Ma Hong and the outstanding Du Runsheng who wrote brilliantly on rural reforms should be read or at least understood in regard to the reshaping of contemporary marxist economics. You dont even know who Xue is do you?
https://archive.org/details/ChinasSocialistEconomy19
Around 50 million Americans are delusional in their belief that the election was stolen.
People are often delusional.
So it goes.
Yep right. They fought a revolution, rebuilt their country and are now the worlds leading economic power with the brilliance of their marxist economists (who you have obviously never read) and the strength of their political party. And you equate this historic achievement with ill educated inbred southern US racists. Fair enough mate. Everyone is out of step except you. A common belief in the tin foil brigade. Ignorance is forgivable in Murdoch dominated Australia. But not the pinching of the great Bob Ellis catch phrase.
Actually Communist Party of China isn’t Communist. CCP briefly followed an ideology during the Cold War which failed since ideology is really a Western thing born out of theological underpinnings of Western culture.
There is no such thing as ideology in the Chinese language until it was imported from Japan who had to create a word for it during Meiji restoration.
Communism was attractive at the time China was weak, mainly because it has a lot in common with Confucianism. The label stuck and CCP was never good at marketing so left it as is.
China is the only political system that follows the scientific method to governance. Look at how your R&D department works in a private enterprise, that’s pretty much how CCP works. This is the secret to its success. Don’t get sucked in by the labels.
More interestingly, the way Steven thinks is 100% the product of domestic propaganda. It’s quite amazing to witness just how thoroughly brainwashed the average pleb is.
Another way to view this is that the Chinese Communist Party has transformed and developed Marxism away from its western enlightenment origins and integrated marxism into Confucianism. Western so called marxists just havent caught up. Steve isnt Confucionist just confused.
Mr Skilts, I reckon that if Xi is indeed a fascists, as has been claimed by many ill informed opinionated people, then he is exactly what the starving people of the third world needs. Many of these well fed people who have not experienced privation or not even seen real poverty talk so grandly of freedom, democracy, free speech. Just tell that to a man who works himself to the bone and still can hardly feed his family! You and I know that there is a hierarchy of needs like Maslow’s – food, shelter, and education must come first before the luxuries. Like Deng Xiaopeng said what does it matter, the colour of the cat, as long as it catches the rat. Call it what one may – CCP, PCC, Cat, Democracy, Socialism, Fascism or Autarky. What matters is that the government should take care of its people. The rest is window dressing. The louder conservatives are at pointing fingers at others, the less time they spend on taking care of the basic needs of their people. To people who are spoiled by affluence, everything is taken for granted. It is only when they lose it will they realise that what is precious must be carefully tended and preserved.
Spot on mate. In the Philippines the poor want jobs, a decent wage and a viable transport system. They want to be free from the shebu gangs and slum war lords much loved by the Sydney Morning Herald. Duterte with the economic programs backed by Belt and Road is delivering. The rest is BS.
These are the weird conclusions you get if you follow the mainstream narrative looking at everything from a lens that was set up years ago designed to make plebs like yourself be subservient to nobility without questioning after nobility replaced the monarchy.
The way it works is, does not matter how bad things get here (400K death and counting), it’s always worse over there! Seems to be working too. Solving domestic problems internationally, that’s the Anglo way.
It takes years if ever to unpluck yourself from cradle to grave domestic propaganda. Hope you have enough of an open mind to start climbing out of the well you are in.
So a geriatric war criminal who is installed as President of the Wiemar US Republic behind 30,000 troops wants to convene a summit for democracy. You couldnt make this stuff up could you?
They are leadership, democracy and sovereignty.
We have a Plutocracy in the United States and the leadership in that Plutocracy is selected for an election by that Plutocracy.
Now sovereignty ! The deep state under the neocons are firmly back in control with significant control of all media pathways! The neocons with their neoliberal economic dogma allowed Wall Street to promote a multitude of multi-national corporations to invade China and Indo-China who reaped billions of profits exploiting cheap labor; ripped and gutted and exploited Russian infrastructure in the 1990’s; riding over sovereignty with Free Trade agreements attempting to subdue states rights at any opportunity, to support their own agenda! Biden was there during all that and thoroughly supported it!
The biggest threat to Australia is domestic terrorism. It has been on the rise for years fuelled by far-right ideologies implicitly supported by the Morrison Government and LNP governments before them, and the rise of anti-feminism epitomised by the rise of conservative right wing pentecostal religion that treats women as inferior beings. These two things have been trumpeted by the far right media such as Fox and Newscorp, and consequently, have dominated the conversation.
Biden’s biggest task is to get the USA going again domestically, and that means action against Covid, right wing extremists groups, alleviating poverty, combating climate change and overseeing the demise of fossil fuels. On a smaller scale, these are exactly the same things that Australia faces.
Jeremey Kuzmarov, in the revived Covert Action Magazine, on the lovely Biden:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/19/bidens-key-role-in-the-crime-of-the-century-the-2003-u-s-invasion-of-iraq/
Thanks for the link mate. The old war criminal will attempt to use the WMD playbook against the PRC. This time it will be the Uighur “genocide’. The aim of US Wiemar Republic will be regime change in Beijing.
I gather you do not like the US or Biden. Fair enough. But do not make the mistake of thinking my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Or that the enemy of one set of bad guys is a good guy.
The current Chinese regime is abominable and Xi is in many ways the Chinese equivalent of Trump except that he cannot be deposed by a vote of the people.
Australia, a small relatively powerless country in a dangerous region, has to navigate the world as it is, not as you or I may wish it to be.
Thanks for the tip. I just dont like war criminals like Biden. Or a country that has over one thousand military bases throughout the world and has killed 12 million people in 19 wars of aggression since WWII. Help me out please. Precisely what war of aggression has the PRC been involved in? Precisely what sexual assault, financial fraud racism or fascist demagoguery has Xi Jinping engaged in?
I am not defending Biden. Nor am I defending the US. But the sins of the US do not blind me to the nature of the CCP regime.
I will take that as a complete failure to justify your outrageous equivalence of the President of the PRC to the racist, fascist, rapist, criminal former US President soon to be imprisoned.
As I learned, Trump fans are immune to evidence about the nature of their hero. I guess the same applies to Xi fans.
So it goes.
I am not a fan of anybody except Buddy Franklin. For sheer gall in debate you take the chocolates mate. Not only do you present absolutely no evidence that Xi Jinping is either a Trump or a Mussolini but you accuse me of having no evidence. You are the prosecution here mate. And using the great Bob Ellis phrase is absolutely unforgivable. Please desist.
Electoralism would be nice, if it doesn’t always become a whore to capitalist interests.
Good luck. Biden is Obama 2.0. War will be his top priority, both globally and domestically against his own people. Biden’s record is atrocious – a man without principles. Compare the rubbish by Wolpe in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Dead right Mr Farthington. Wolpe is part of the US Studies Centre’s Democrat cheerleading. Do I have to read it?
It’s in the US’ interest to have a hot war in the South China Sea away from the US mainland and attacking China to keep them busy and distracted so they can’t exploit the US’ current internal chaos and their overextended military and hollowed out economy. It’s in Australia’s interest not to have a hot war in our backyard including any limited war that can disproportionately affect our exports and increase the pressure from refugees.
It is in the US’ interest to have a cold war with China, assuming that it is possible to poke them enough to get them to adopt a bamboo curtain strategy, because it’s much easier to dominate a balkanised world where China’s success can’t give uppity third world states the courage to speak up for their rights. It’s in Australia’s interest not to have a cold war with the one economy that has had positive growth over the past year, with a trajectory that suggests it is going to grow further, and has a trade deficit with Australia.
There needs to be a robust – read “fearless”, not the current coward state of public conversation we have – debate about what the difference is between Australian and American interests and our government should communicate that difference strongly to the new US administration. Tell them to find a solution to their problems that enables us not disables us. Stand up for Australia, and while I’m at it, stand up for Australians, stop persecuting Julian Assange!@#@#%