Ideas@TheCentre
Defence-lite is sound policy
Defence suffered one of the biggest cuts in the 2012 Budget. These cuts, totalling $5.4 billion, together with delays in military acquisitions, prompted Greg Sheridan, foreign editor at The Australian, to exclaim that we had witnessed the ‘worst day for Australia’s national security since the fall of Saigon in 1975.’
Setting aside Sheridan’s hyperbole, taking the razor to defence spending might be judged unwise given a rising China and increased geo-political jockeying in Asia.
There are, however, reasons for thinking that reduced defence spending is sound public policy. Not only is the world increasingly peaceful, but Australia also remains safe under America’s security embrace.
We are in the midst of the longest period of major power peace in centuries. Notwithstanding chatter about a US-China confrontation, this peace between major powers is likely to continue.
Maintaining peaceful relations between the world’s major powers will admittedly require careful manoeuvring. Just as the United States will need to accommodate China’s rise, China must not seek to dismantle in to the architecture of the Pax Americana under which Asia has prospered. As deft as the requisite diplomatic and security posturing might be, there is every reason to think that Beijing and Washington have the necessary policy acumen.
Peaceful major power relations to one side, the world at large is also a more peaceful place. There were fewer deaths from war in the first decade of this century than in any decade in the last century. Today, wars are typically low-intensity conflicts that kill approximately 90% fewer people than the wars of the 1950s.
Perhaps most importantly, even if the world was not increasingly pacific, and even if the United States and China were unable to peacefully navigate the new geo-political terrain, it is unlikely that Australia’s security would be seriously threatened. As a party to the ANZUS treaty, Australia sits under a thick US security blanket.
The US military remains pre-eminent: The US defence budget is larger than the combined defence budgets of the next 14 countries, and the United States maintains a weapons system that was designed to combat a global super-power. Although China has pretensions to military grandeur, and recently announced an 11% increase in military spending, one of our closest allies will remain the global hegemon for the foreseeable future.
At the start of what looks to be an unprecedentedly peaceful century, the federal government’s embrace of a more modest defence program is no cause for alarm. The optimistic approach to defence policy planning also seems to be the realistic one.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
