EDITORIAL: Australia must get serious about its defence

For decades, Australia’s defence strategy has boiled down to “ask the US for help if we need it”.

And for a long time, there has been some sense in that.

The thinking was that Australia was too vast, our population too small and our potential enemies too powerful for us to do much to defend ourselves.

Plus, the world was on the whole, pretty peaceful. The potential for a large-scale global military conflict involving Australia in any meaningful way appeared so remote as to be fanciful. Why would we bother?

So we made mostly tokenistic contributions to our own defence. A handful of planes here and some submarines there. These acquisition programs generally cost a bomb, ran over deadline and delivered less than expected.

The result is an Australia woefully unprepared to defend itself.

Officially, AUKUS remains on track. Even if survives a Trump presidency, Australia won’t receive its first nuclear powered submarines under the deal until 2032.

Last year’s surface fleet review showed our naval capacity was shrinking, and would continue to do so until the next decade — and that’s assuming things go to plan. It’s rarely smooth sailing when it comes to defence procurement projects.

Our lack of military preparedness was thrown into stark relief earlier this year by Australia’s inability to respond to antagonistic actions by China within our waters, including live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea and the circumnavigation of the continent by a Chinese “research vessel”.

Still, we had the luxury of ignoring the alarm bells that were ringing in the background, thanks in large part to our rock solid alliance with the US.

All at once, that has fallen apart.

The other difficult reality is that the US can no longer be seen as a firmly reliable ally.

Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for “starting” the war with Russia, despite Russia’s indisputable position as the aggressor.

We can’t assume he wouldn’t do the same to us.

Without being alarmist, we are living in uncertain times, and our region is becoming less stable thanks to China and Russia’s increasing aggression.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles have both played down worrying reports that Russia has asked Indonesia for permission to station military aircraft at the Manuhua Air Force Base at Biak Numfor, about 1400km north of Darwin.

The Australian ministers have been assured by their Indonesian counterparts that permission has not been granted. But Ms Wong and Mr Marles have been less clear about whether they are aware if the request was made.

“We don’t do that through the media, but I would say this to you … It is the case that there has been a longstanding relationship between Indonesia and Russia,” Ms Wong said.

The ringing of those alarm bells is becoming impossible to ignore.