Reservists should be integrated with regular forces, not separate

In a military context, the word ‘reserve’ is usually understood as meaning some group on standby for use as field commanders decide. However, in today’s Australian Defence Force it now generally refers to individuals. This is part of a trend of at least 50 years in which the Defence Force Reserves as an organisation have become less important while reservists as individuals have become fundamental to the functioning of the Defence establishment.

It is in fact a trend towards what we need—towards a single, cohesive force, in which reservists are integrated, not ancillary.

The long-term decline of the navy, army and air force reserves organisations may soon culminate in their disappearance. The 2024 National Defence Strategy had a chapter on workforce but no mention of the reserves. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) did recommend a strategic review of the reserves, which was again noted in the 2024 Defence Workforce Plan. This review may report by June 2025.

Regular forces are generally more effective than reservists, as full-time training enables them to reach a higher standard than part-time personnel. Intuitively, having distinctly different groups that are required to work closely only in times of crisis is inefficient and ineffective. Integration would be better.

A 1995 review of the Ready Reserve Scheme considered that if Defence had unlimited resources, ‘the strategic arguments for relying solely on regular forces would be overwhelming.’ This echoed the 1974 Millar report, which said that the principal justification for having the reserves was economic: part-time personnel were cheaper than full-time personnel.

Today, driven by a pressing need to staff the permanent force, many reservists have been integrated into the regular forces under the Total Workforce System, which aims to increase the flexibility of defence personnel. This has been made easier, because many reservists are now ex-regulars, not citizen soldiers. The DSR said that Defence adopting ‘the Total Workforce Model has significantly improved the utilisation of the reserve workforce.’

On the other hand, the DSR also calls for the reserves to ‘provide the expansion base for the ADF in times of crisis.’ Reserve forces will generally need additional training before being used for warfighting tasks. The costs of this are rarely considered, and it isn’t certain whether such ‘times of crisis’ will arise at all. Investing in the reserve forces as an expansion base is an investment in a force that may never be needed.

In the Vietnam War, the government chose conscription and training civilians from scratch rather than activating the available, but only partly trained, reserves. The army’s reserves in the 1960s were strategically irrelevant but still expensive.

The Army Reserve is the largest of the three reserve organisations. Unlike navy and air force reservists, some of the army’s are not ex-regulars. The Millar Report grumbled that the land force’s reserve force ‘for much of its history [had] around 20,000 [personnel], despite the fact that the national population nearly trebled in the past 50 years. This demonstrates a declining level of interest in such service.’ Fifty years on again, the Army Reserve is now about 15,500 and the population has more than doubled again.

Given this steady long-term decline, if the role of reserves becomes more than filling gaps in the regular workforce, their purpose may need to be narrow and specific. The DSR called for army reservists ‘to provide area security to the northern base network and other critical infrastructure.’ The 2024 Integrated Investment Program gives this idea limited support in allotting $200 million to $300 million over the next decade.

Vital area protection shaped discussions about the reserves across most of the 20th century. However, an analysis, noting the long historical antecedents, found that the role had ‘proved somewhat uninspiring’ for the reservists actually involved and that retention was a problem. Sustaining adequately sized reserve forces may be difficult without suitable motivation.

The overall ADF workforce balance between full and part-time defence personnel has steadily moved in favour of the full-time. Indeed, the new workforce plan funds integrating 1000 reservists more closely with the regulars, including through moving them to full-time service. Emphasis is generally placed on reservists as individuals and how they may be integrated within permanent units, rather than on Defence Force Reserves as formed part-time units with specific, long-term roles. They are seen as working effectively on demand, as the ADF requires. If the Australian society has adopted gig economy workforce ideas, in a broad sense so has Defence.

The DSR recommended investigating ‘innovative ways to adapt the structure, shape and role of the Reserves.’ Australia’s more-than-a-century reserve history can be usefully mined to provide different ideas and warn of likely problems. However, any innovations will need to be implemented in the contemporary geostrategic context and against a long-term trend of decline. The long history of Australia’s Defence Reserve Forces does not guarantee them a place in Australia’s future.

The solution to finding the balance between regular and reserve forces may be resolved by simply discarding the reserves while embracing and institutionalising part-time service. The gradual disappearance of Australia’s reserve forces is likely unintentional, but rather a consequence of the steady evolution of strategic thinking and policies over more than a century.

Quite likely, we need reservists but not reserve units.

Putin’s march of folly

In a lengthy address at the annual Valdai Discussion Club meeting this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to outline his view of the world. Rambling on about a global ‘minority’ that is stymying the ambitions of the ‘majority’, he would have us believe that Russia belongs to the latter. Yet when Russia attempted to derail the final communique at the United Nations Summit of the Future this fall, countries from across the Global South firmly rebuffed the attempt.

Throughout his Valdai appearance, Putin struggled to hide the fact that what he really cares about is avoiding a ‘strategic defeat’ in Ukraine. In fact, Russia has already suffered a strategic defeat, inflicted not by the West or even by Ukraine, but by Putin himself. For the past two decades, his own myopic, destructive policies have forced Ukraine to turn toward the West for support and solidarity.

One of Putin’s first blunders came after Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election, when his ham-fisted attempt to choose the winner ended up provoking the Orange Revolution, which swept the moderate former central banker Viktor Yushchenko into the Ukrainian presidency. Putin has been trying to exert influence over the country ever since.

But the pattern is clear: time after time, the Kremlin’s heavy-handed efforts have backfired, leaving Ukrainians even more determined to align themselves with the West. Contrary to what some Western commentators and Kremlin propagandists claim, this was never a case of the West expanding eastward as part of some malevolent plot. It was the Ukrainians who were making the strategic moves, which reflected Putin’s efforts to curtail their sovereignty.

In 2008, proposals to extend NATO membership to Ukraine clearly lacked the necessary support, as both France and Germany opposed the idea at the time. Ukraine took the hint and in 2010 reaffirmed its neutral status as a means of keeping Putin at bay.

But the situation changed again in 2013, after Putin pressured Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, to reject an Association Agreement with the European Union. Closer trade ties with Europe would have boosted Ukraine’s economy and curtailed corruption by requiring it to adapt EU legal norms; but Yanukovych, in exchange for a $15 billion bailout by Russia and lower gas prices, acquiesced to Putin’s demands and abandoned the agreement. In response, Ukrainians took to the streets in what would become the Euromaidan uprising, and Yanukovych soon fled for Russia in the dead of night.

Putin’s response made his intentions all too clear. He deployed Russian special forces—‘little green men’ whose uniforms bore no identifying insignias—in Crimea, a part of Ukraine since 1954, and then illegally annexed it. Left with no other choice, Ukraine responded by ditching neutrality, seeking NATO membership and moving forward with the EU agreement. Moreover, NATO—itself feeling threatened by Putin’s brazen land grab—stationed forces in its Eastern European member states for the first time.

These were perfectly understandable responses to Putin’s acts of aggression. Again, the West was not trying to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia; Putin was doing it to himself. By the early 2020s, with Ukraine moving even closer toward the West, he recognized the grim consequences of his blunders and decided to put an end to the issue. His goal in launching a full-scale invasion was either to transform Ukraine into a Belarus-like satrapy or eliminate it as a nation-state altogether.

It soon became obvious that Putin had miscalculated yet again. He believed that a quick special operation would be enough to topple Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration and install a Kremlin-friendly regime in Kyiv. Instead, his forces encountered a determined nation that they were not prepared to fight. Almost three years later, Russia controls only around 10 percent more of Ukraine’s territory than it had in 2014, when it grabbed 7 percent. It is a pathetic result, especially considering that the occupied areas have largely been destroyed, with probably only half of their pre-2014 population remaining.

Putin’s aim is still to take full control of Ukraine and recreate Imperial Russia. But this effort will fail. Although Bolshevik forces re-established control of Ukraine after the Russian civil war in the early 1920s, even Vladimir Lenin understood that Ukraine is and must remain a separate political entity. And while Putin has rejected Lenin’s belief as a grave error, it was Joseph Stalin who made Ukraine a separate member of the United Nations.

With Putin continuing his war of aggression, the casualties will keep mounting (probably to around ten thousand per week). But the only certain outcome of his misadventure will be the hatred that Ukrainians now bear toward Russia. This will have long-lasting consequences, and it already represents a major strategic defeat for Russia. Responsibility for the situation starts and ends with Putin. The West could never have achieved what Putin has: Ukraine’s total alienation from Russia.

Collaborative planning for Australian food security preparedness

Australia’s food security, commonly assumed safe thanks to our being a net food exporter, is increasingly vulnerable in a world marked by geopolitical and environmental instability. Our reliance on critical imports in food production and the threat of disrupted supply chains expose weaknesses that could impair food accessibility and damage national stability.

To respond to these challenges, ASPI with industry and in collaboration with government is developing a National Food Security Preparedness Green Paper. This initiative aims to safeguard Australia’s food system and ensure resilience in the face of emerging challenges.

The assumption that Australia will always be food-secure is a dangerous fantasy.  Many think that a country that is a net food exporter cannot become short of food. But that mistake distracts us from addressing critical vulnerabilities, especially in inputs, such as fertiliser, needed for production. Our readiness to face future challenges depends on proactive, long-term planning that’s resilient against short-term events, such as elections, at home and abroad. Stability, security and social cohesion are built on strong fundamentals—and access to food is fundamental. Yet planned closure of more Australian production of the fertiliser super phosphate highlights our longer-term strategic vulnerabilities.

The National Defence Strategy says Australia faces its most challenging strategic environment since the World War II, and there is no longer a 10-year window of warning time for conflict. People outside of the defence organisation must also prepare accordingly.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation defines food security as when ‘all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food’. But food security conjures different meanings beyond this definition, depending on where people stand across the fabric of society: a wealthy family in Sydney’s inner east, for example, will experience minor inconvenience when egg supply is limited. But a struggling family in Sydney’s outer west may experience greater stress and frustration at lack of access to one of the healthiest and most affordable sources of protein.

Food insecurity sparks discontent, and discontent breeds instability, the severity depending on the length of insecurity. Restricted access to food is likely to imperil social cohesion and security, including dissatisfaction and further distrust of social institutions. Since 32 percent of Australians already suffer moderate to severe food insecurity, even a few days of disruption to supply could have dire results.

In a business-as-usual operating environment, and even during the Covid-19 pandemic, government and markets demonstrated that they could pivot quickly to resolve potential supply disruptions. But much worse disruption can be imagined—for example, in a war. Then markets may be unable to respond enough, and the government may not have policy levers for helping them. At the very least, that capacity remains untested.

This is why the agriculture sector and food system stakeholders, in partnership with ASPI, have initiated the development of a green paper focussed on Australia’s food security preparedness. The green paper will provide a strategic assessment of challenges to Australia’s food security and identify areas for collaboration between governments, industry and civil society. Importantly, this work will lay the foundation for national food security preparedness planning and will underpin a whole-of-nation approach to food policy.

The green paper will aim to establish a practical pathway to address the core strategic challenges set out clearly by the 2023 parliamentary report Australian Food Story: Feeding the Nation and Beyond. Among the report’s 35 recommendations is a call to develop a national food plan to serve as a food security strategy. This approach has been widely supported by stakeholders, but making sure that such an initiative is appropriately connected to Australia’s broader preparedness activities remains a serious gap. Bringing these lines of thought together is necessary to identify and address the core challenges to maintaining Australian food security and to address the complex effects that disruptions can have on communities.

Preparing an industry-driven Food Security Preparedness Green Paper is a novel approach. Yet some of the best public policy outcomes emerge at the intersection of industry and government—when a need is clear, but before it becomes a crisis. Debunking the myths around Australian food security is important and fostering collaboration to create solutions is a necessary conversation.

This industry-led approach lays the groundwork for the national food security preparedness planning that Australia desperately needs. Collaboration between industry and government is required to underpin a broader approach to food security preparedness and national food policy development. This is achievable and vital to Australia’s resilience and future prosperity.

Putting economics before security leaves us exposed to Trump’s tariffs

World leaders convening at the APEC and G20 multilateral summits this week seemed to be nervously shadow boxing Donald Trump, who was relaxing ringside at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York.

Anthony Albanese recited talking points on ‘free and fair trade’—not to influence any counterparts present but as a message to Trump that Australia was well placed to be exempted from any broad tariffs that the incoming administration might impose. In doing so, he cited the healthy trade surplus that the United States enjoys with Australia, which will indeed be an important starting point.

But the Albanese government needs to reflect a little more deeply on the direction it has taken on economics and security before it assumes its credentials speak for themselves as befitting a reliable global player and partner.

In 2024, it’s not enough just to say we seek maximum economic engagement with all partners, minimising trade restrictions in pursuit of the frictionless flow of money, goods and services. That might have worked as a Platonic ideal of free trade back in the early 2000s but, as an approach to both free and fair trade in the 2020s, it ignores half the picture.

Australia stood its ground on its own security and sovereignty for a number of years and, as a consequence, incurred the wrath of Beijing in the form of several waves of economic coercion and diplomatic unapproachability. We did this not under pressure from Trump during his first administration—nor any other US government—but because it was in our own interests and adhered to our values.

Yet despite Albanese’s insistence that we ‘have not changed our position’ on anything, Australia has steadily become silent and acquiescent on key issues that would risk upsetting Beijing. In return, we have been rewarded with diplomatic charm and trade assurances. We have, in short, chosen domestic economics over our national security and our standing as a stout defender of an international system based on rules. We have all too quickly forgotten that economics and security are inseparable.

How so? We’ve failed to stand up for our neighbours, including the Philippines, as they are bullied by China in the South China Sea. We withdrew from World Trade Organization cases that would have held Beijing to account for its coercive measures and set an example to the rest of the world. We’ve gone completely silent on China’s appalling human rights record. We have stopped referring to the case of Australian Yang Hengjun as arbitrary detention. We say nothing about China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. We are dawdling on defence investment when we should be readying ourselves to make a steadfast contribution to regional security as Beijing flexes its muscle across the Indo-Pacific. We’ve all but lost interest in the diversification that we agreed was vital for our resilience in the wake of the double hit of China’s coercion and the global shockwaves of the Covid pandemic.

We should do all of these first and foremost because they are the right things to do. But they would also mean we could say with real conviction that Australia is not one of those countries that is relying on the US to singlehandedly make the world a fair place for everyone—even those unwilling to carry some of the load themselves by, for instance, investing in their own defence and security.

To be sure, Trump’s global tariffs threats are a blunt instrument, articulated with his characteristic flair for appealing to the sections of US society—a clear majority, as it turns out—who feel that the world is taking advantage of them. We can hope that Trump will distinguish between allies—even if he is right to grumble that some have free-ridden on US security and leadership—and adversaries such as China, which was welcomed onto a level economic playing field only to cheat remorselessly at every turn of the game.

But we shouldn’t easily assume we’d be exempted as we were from Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs in 2017. The fact is, our exemption back then was won by proving we were investing in our own security and were a true partner to the US rather than a hanger-on.

AUKUS provides us with a good starting point this time, demonstrating real investment in our own security and in the alliance. But the partnership is not enough on its own, when we are cutting other defence programs, including in space security, while also criticising countries that can’t harm us economically—whether friends such as  Israel or foes such as North Korea—while excusing China’s malign behaviour as just what ‘great powers do’.

Albanese only ever answers China questions with the same trope that Australia is ‘cooperating where we can and disagreeing where we must’. This is not good enough when we don’t actually know where we disagree anymore, nor indeed if the ‘must have’ disagreements would arise only if China used military force.

For Albanese to be able to prove his statement in Peru that Australia is a free and fair trading nation, we need to show we are willing not just to reap the benefits of selling goods to China but to share the burden of security requirements.

Instead we are pursuing our economic interests with China while deprioritising security threats to ensure diplomatic meetings, as well as lobster and wine sales. That’s trade, yes. But it’s neither free nor fair.

Relying on the US, as well as other friends such as Japan, to do the heavy lifting on security is not equitable. It is actually an ‘Australia first’ policy—even while we fret about Trump’s putting America first.

India and Philippines speak different strategic languages. Australia must be multilingual

The ‘emerging axis’ of autocratic powers epitomised by China’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine is, as Australia’s top intelligence chief Andrew Shearer recently said, one of the most troubling strategic developments today.

And just as those axis nations—which also include North Korea and Iran—have as many strategic differences as commonalities, countries such as Australia that are worried by, and looking to counter, this malign axis should understand that they’ll need to accept and work with a range of approaches from partners.

This reality was underscored by remarks made at ASPI-hosted events in recent weeks by India and the Philippines—two key regional players who are dealing with China’s assertiveness in their own ways but whom are both important partners to Australia.

First, India. The emerging giant’s stance on the axis is the more complicated. India has had a long strategic partnership with Russia, going back to the early Cold War. Yet it has an equally long history of disputes with China. This has included not just the contest over their unsettled border but also tensions stemming from Beijing’s support to Pakistan and its barely disguised efforts at undermining India on a variety of issues such as refusing to allow India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group which governs transfers of civilian nuclear technology and material, and refusing to back India’s efforts to promote UN Security Council reforms as well as India’s quest for a seat on the Security Council.

So where does that leave India with respect to the new axis? At the Raisina Down Under summit, which ASPI co-hosted with India’s Observer Research Foundation, India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar answered by explaining that the three biggest countries of the Eurasian landmass formed a strategic triangle. This was, he reminded the audience, basic geometry learnt in all schools.

It was in India’s interests, he said, that it ‘never allow two sides to come to a point where the third is utterly disadvantaged’.

‘And I would even argue going beyond that,’ he continued, ‘at a time when … Russia’s relationship with the West is very badly damaged and Russia is turning more and more towards Asia, it’s useful in Asia that we give Russia more options … The more broadly Russia is engaged by Asian countries, frankly, that will allow that much more political, diplomatic flexibility for everybody concerned.’

The implication was that it is a better Indian strategy to tolerate Russia’s aggression and lawlessness, and to engage with both Russia and China through groupings such as the BRICS—which also includes Brazil and South Africa—than leaving India’s Eurasian strategic peers to pursue their no-limits partnership unchecked and without giving Moscow some kind of off-ramp.

Jaishankar’s further implication is that this is not just in India’s interests but the broader region’s and the West’s as well. Of course, whether this undermines the rules-based order intended to protect smaller and weaker states, and whether it’s a convenient excuse for India given its reliance on Russian energy and defence equipment, are both fair questions.

Still, India’s approach can clearly offer strategic balance. Better to have India there than not, Jaishankar is effectively saying. India, he pointed out, is neither Western nor anti-Western.

Our challenge is not to pressure New Delhi to pick a side. We should remember that China represents as much or more of a military and political threat to India as it does to any other country. It’s a principal reason why New Delhi invests in relations with Canberra and Washington, and why it participates in the Quad. We also know New Delhi is genuinely concerned by Russia’s growing closeness to China and by the two authoritarian states’ ‘no limits’ partnership.

The Philippines, by comparison, is a smaller player whose main goal right now with respect to China is to preserve its sovereignty. The strategic priorities it articulates are shaped accordingly. Speaking to an ASPI audience in Melbourne just days after the Raisina event, Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr stressed the importance of calling out coercive action by China and the need for like-minded partners to do so together. There were no geometric metaphors—just a demand that the threat be clearly understood and responded to.

The Philippines has its own backstory: a treaty ally of the United States against both the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, and a more recent history in which the mercurial leader Rodrigo Duterte harmed his countries’ interests by trying unsuccessfully to find a modus vivendi with Beijing.

Despite the different approaches, these are both very important partners to Australia. It’s worth noting their common strategic assessments and their emphasis on collective action. We know that limiting our reading of strategic challenges to ‘major power competition’ is wrong. Collaboration among regional powers, including smaller ones, is critical to what Foreign Minister Penny Wong calls ‘strengthening influence, leverage and sovereignty’.

Australia and likeminded countries such as the US and Japan need to assure India, the Philippines and others in the region—with all their varied approaches to the China challenge and the growing axis—that it is in their interests and the region’s to work with us.

The foundation is mutual interest rather than strategic altruism, as Ashley Tellis once characterised it. This doesn’t make it transactional however. Rather it is based on core principles of territorial integrity, democratic sovereignty, individual freedoms and national security. It might be useful for all sides to acknowledge this.

Like biosecurity, cybersecurity is essential for rural industries

When you enter Australia, you meet some of the strictest biosecurity screening in the world. Even domestically, if you travel to South Australia with any kind of fruit in your bag, you could be facing a $375 fine.

These protocols may seem frustrating. But they’re crucial in keeping our unique environment and rural industries—such as food and agriculture—safe from biosecurity threats.

But biosecurity is far from the only threat to rural industries. As these industries evolve and the adoption of new technologies and devices increases, we lack investment and understanding of less visible but equally damaging security threats such as cybercrime.

The agrifood tech industry is rapidly evolving in Australia, attracting $800 million in investment every year. Smart devices and machinery using artificial intelligence and internet of things (IoT) connections are becoming more integrated in supply chains.

They’re also crucial in helping the sector tackle an increasingly difficult production environment. High resolution weather monitors, powered by AI and satellite radar systems, are providing farmers with data to help deal with ever-changing and increasingly severe weather patterns.

Some devices are allowing businesses to be more data-driven, while others are offering previously unthinkable flexibility in distant control of essential devices. Refrigerator temperatures can be controlled from afar, irrigation networks can be managed from elsewhere on the farm, and self-driving tractors are set to hit the market in 2026.

Innovation and technology adoption will be necessary to meet the National Farmers’ Federation’s ambitious plan for the industry to exceed $100 billion farm-gate output by 2030. To achieve this, the industry needs to almost double its current annual growth rate, from 3 percent to 5.4 percent. But the plan fails to mention cybersecurity, a key factor considering these innovations can be susceptible to the deep dark corners of the web.

For food storage, the ability to control temperature storage units from afar increases flexibility and allows for optimised storage of goods. But what if the temperature control system is breached, contaminating all of the product? Worse, what if a breach goes undetected and contaminated food reaches supermarket shelves?

Sometimes these breaches may not even be malicious attacks. They may be unintentional outages. But without systems to find and report these outages efficiently, the effects are exacerbated.

Due to the vertical integration of the food and distribution supply chain, if any of these devices are threatened or outages occur, the breach can ripple throughout the industry, disrupting national and global food supply chains and putting people’s health at risk.

IT, IoT and operational technology (monitoring-and-control systems) have become so embedded in the processing of our food and grocery supply chains that their smooth running is now crucial for business and industry continuity.

In 2023, a cyberattack forced US food giant Dole to suspend production in North America and halt food shipments to grocery stores. Although resolved quickly, the outage caused days of delays.

The most notable and largest attack on the agriculture, food and distribution industry was the cyber attack on the world’s largest meat supplier, JBS in May 2021. For five days, the attack caused JBS to temporarily close factories in the US, Canada and Australia. To unlock its systems and continue production, JBS had to pay hackers around $16.5 million.

Not only are products and goods at risk from malicious cybercrime in the industry, but business critical data is stored throughout the extensive supply chain network. And in cybersecurity, data is the prize.

In 2020, there was a ransomware attack on Talman Software, the IT system underpinning auctions and exports used by 75 percent of Australia and New Zealand’s wool industry. Although this attack did not affect the distribution of perishable products, the system shutdown prevented wool sales that the week, withholding $70 million worth of product from the marketplace. Once up and running again, this caused an increased supply of wool in following weeks and drove prices down. The consequences of one business outage shook the entire industry.

We know how important agriculture, food and distribution companies are for Australia. That’s why we need to view cyber-physical system security in IT, operational technology and IoT as essential.

Protecting this critical infrastructure from cybercrime is critical, and there are important legislative requirements such as the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act to which these industries need to adhere.

The increased integration of technology is necessary for Australia to remain a leader in these industries and should be encouraged.

But with innovation there is often risk, and as we do at the border with biosecurity, we need to pay close attention to how we can proactively prevent threats from infiltrating our supply chains.

How the government can engage youth on AUKUS

AUKUS Pillar 1 won’t go anywhere without today’s young people. They’re the ones who will carry the decades-long program into action through industry and diplomacy. The Australian government had better get them on board.

This requires a communications plan that begins with finding out what they think: comments, questions and concerns. University and technical-college student bodies should be a focus.

The assertion that young people are sceptical of the prospect of nuclear-propelled submarines (SSNs) under the AUKUS partnership is not new. Polling finds lower levels of support from the 18-24 age group than from older people. These young critics believe AUKUS Pillar 1 will contribute to tensions and drive a dangerous arms race in the Indo-Pacific. The 2023 Lowy Institute Poll found that more young Australians believe Australia’s acquisition of SSNs will increase the risk of military conflict and regional instability (32.6 percent) than deter conflict and ensure stability (17.3 percent). Conversely, in all older age groups, more people believe the latter. Protests at the Australian National University (ANU) echo arguments of Australian ‘militarism’.

Some young critics argue that the government must first do more to tackle the rising cost of living, which directly affects student quality of life, rather than increasing defence spending. Anti-AUKUS posters seen at the ANU cite ‘Welfare, not warfare’, calling for the government to better address inflation. Only 17 percent of the 18–24 age group believe SSN-AUKUS is worth its estimated cost of $268 billion to $368 billion. Again, this approval rate steadily increases in older age groups.

The evidence that students cite in their criticisms reflect a general misunderstanding of the reasoning for AUKUS. The fault for this lies with the government in failing to be clear and transparent about the threats that Australia faces. But it isn’t too late.

So, what should the government do?

Greater awareness of Australia’s strategic environment among young people is needed, fostered through inclusive conversations and clear language on the purpose of AUKUS. The first step is to conduct large-scale focus group interviews and surveys nationwide, to assess students’ knowledge, misunderstandings and perceptions of AUKUS. By gauging understanding, the government can begin to inform their communication strategies and seek policy feedback. Using university channels such as online forum and announcement pages or mass emails would be a great place to start.

The next step is to work with universities to conduct town hall meetings. Creating a space for moderated dialogue between the government, academics and students will empower young people to feel a sense of urgency and responsibility for the future of national security. It will also create a more informed student body equipped to navigate the Australia’s strategic landscape. Explaining AUKUS in the university setting can dilute the complexity of its goals and make it more accessible to those studying a range of courses.

An action plan on communication is needed, and fast. Young people cannot be expected to support, and eventually deliver, an endeavour they know nothing about. The government should use digital platforms such as YouTube or Instagram. Short, informative videos or infographics can deliver AUKUS in a digestible and accessible way.

AUKUS dissent is part of a wider trend of young people’s disengagement from major-party policies. They feel like their voices aren’t being heard. Among voters aged 18-24, 28 percent voted for the Greens in the 2022 federal election, reflecting this trend. Young people move further towards the left each election cycle and prioritise policies on climate action and social equality.

Falling trust in government institutions is a global trend, worsened in Australia by major-party politics that don’t reflect the values of the young population. Fostering inclusivity in the AUKUS discussion is thus more crucial than ever.

By gathering university student insights, the government not only demonstrates a commitment to transparency and inclusivity but also enhances trust between policymakers and younger citizens. Ultimately, this feedback loop serves to promote informed public discourse, ensuring that policies such as AUKUS are effectively communicated and resonate with the values and concerns of the next generation of leaders.

National resilience? Hardly. We’re unprepared for crises

Three landmark reports this year have laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Australia is dangerously unprepared for crises.

Each report brings distinct yet complementary insights:

The Glasser review into disaster governance arrangements found that resilience has no dedicated home at the Commonwealth level. Its seven key recommendations emphasise the need for stronger leadership, including an elevated role for National Cabinet in coordinating resilience initiatives and the introduction of an annual National Resilience Report to Parliament, with clear metrics and a strengthened focus on climate risk.

The Telecommunications Sector Resilience Profile, of which I was the lead author, shows weaknesses at the sector level, with the concept of resilience only at an early stage of integration into federal policies. The report established a framework of seven guiding principles supported by 34 specific capabilities. This framework provides both a roadmap for enhancement and a mechanism to track progress in strengthening telecommunications infrastructure.

And the Colvin review examined disaster funding mechanisms, warning that without immediate, evidence-based investment in risk reduction, Australia faced an unsustainable rise in disaster-related costs. Its 44 recommendations, underpinned by eight design principles, outlined a more focused Commonwealth role, including new accountability measures and annual reporting requirements.

These reports converge on fundamental gaps: we lack a shared vision of success, clear lines of responsibility and ways to measure improvement. Without addressing these basics, Australia’s crisis response will remain fragmented and reactive.

The telecommunications sector perfectly illustrates these challenges. Modern networks are engineering marvels working invisibly in our daily lives, until they fail, as we saw in the Optus outage last year.

The problem runs deeper than individual failures. Our research at ANU revealed severe gaps in how we manage the interplay between markets and government regulation. When crises hit, we discover these gaps the hard way.

For example, the dependency of telecommunications on energy providers is a key vulnerability. Telecommunications providers do not often have prior warning of plans by energy providers to de-energise or re-energise the electricity grid. The Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements recommended improved cooperation between the telecommunications and energy sectors after the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires, however current efforts have not improved the relationship, industry insiders say.

More worrying still is our diminishing ability to learn from these failures. Australia’s cyber intelligence agency has seen a decline in incident reporting. Instead, businesses are putting legal protection over transparency and collective improvement. This creates a dangerous knowledge gap: how can we improve if we don’t know what’s going wrong?

Each disruption offers lessons, yet we lack a systematic way to capture insights, implement changes across sectors and hold government and industry accountable for improvement.

The Glasser review notes differing meanings of resilience. For remote communities, it may mean preserving major employers. For national security planners, it encompasses regional security, supply chain stability, cyber threats, natural disasters and terrorism. In telecommunications, resilience can mean, for example, ensuring businesses’ revenue or students’ access to online learning.

Differing interpretations of resilience can lead to institutional inertia. Various groups can claim their expectations aren’t being met while they wait for others to act. Resilience becomes both everyone’s responsibility and no one’s.

The telecommunications sector demonstrates the difficulty of making achievement of resilience actionable for industry. As each provider defines resilience based on its commercial interests, sector-wide efforts are often at cross-purposes.

The Telecommunications Sector Resilience Profile proposed a principles-based cyber governance framework based on the UN’s Principles for Resilient Infrastructure. This practical application of the UN’s principles could inform their use in other critical infrastructure sectors.

The Colvin review makes clear we’re still trying to solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s funding models. Complex funding arrangements often fail those who need help most by creating a system in which success depends more on grant-writing expertise than need. While well-resourced organisations can navigate the bureaucratic maze, our most vulnerable communities—those facing language barriers, disability or geographic isolation—are left exposed.

The telecommunications sector perfectly illustrates this brewing crisis. Major carriers cannot justify skyrocketing infrastructure costs to meet growing data demands while revenue streams struggle to keep pace. This isn’t just a business problem; it’s a national security issue. When commercial imperatives clash with resilience requirements, short-term thinking often wins.

The last few years have forced faster crisis decision-making, but speed without strategy has left us lurching between emergencies. These three reports share a common message: breaking this cycle requires more than just response plans.

Effective crisis leadership demands clear objectives that guide priorities, robust systems that ensure dependable action, and shared measures of success. Building true resilience demands more than chasing spot fires—it demands transformative thinking.

Great changes unseen in 100 years—but not the ones Xi is thinking of

In October 2017, Xi Jinping declared that the world is experiencing ‘great changes unseen in a hundred years’. He often uses this signature phrase, the century-ago events being the tumultuous ones at the end of World War I, which saw the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the crumbling of European empires and the emergence of the United States as a great power, manifested through its decisive intervention in the war. In the century that followed, the US dominated the international system, defeating threats to its primacy from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union.

For Xi, world history is currently undergoing a similarly momentous shift. As he sees it, the decline of the United States, its political ‘dysfunction’, the changing structure of world power and the rise of China are all irreversible and intertwined trends that can be explained by the laws of the Marxist theory of history.  His worldview is superbly analysed in Kevin Rudd’s new book, On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist nationalism is shaping China and the world, which should be read by specialists, the public and incoming Trump officials alike.

Xi believes that the tide of history is flowing in China’s direction and that a new world order can be fashioned with China at its centre, due to the ‘rise of the East, and the decline of the West’. This will be a new epoch. This is not to say that China will seek world domination as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. Rather, it will seek to refashion globalisation and multilateralism such that they serve its interests and the interests of those who align themselves with China.

Xi is wrong. His theory of history is flawed. His thesis that the West is in decline is optimistic ideation, not informed analysis.  His ideological and analytical rigidity prevents him from seeing the trap that he is setting for China in relation to the economic underpinnings of its power.

China cannot prevail economically over the aggregate weight of the US, Europe, Japan, India, Britain, Australia, Canada, South Korea and others, if they work together. This will be especially so as they increasingly deflect the ongoing surge of heavily subsidised Chinese exports of manufactured goods, components and materials. Creating manufacturing overcapacity has been a deliberate strategy to concentrate industrial power in China.  It has stunted the development of a services-based economy in China, distorted global trade, hollowed out Western industrial bases and disrupted industrialisation of the Global South.

China’s hold on global manufacturing could be broken if US partners leverage Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs by imposing similar tariffs and other forms of market access restrictions and by countering Chinese subsidies, dumping and predatory pricing strategies. Trump’s tariffs will work best if they are coordinated with friends so China cannot circumvent them by flooding other markets. This will require enhancing supply chain tracking so that China can’t get around these trade shields through third-country workarounds.

Through a concerted strategy of industrial, investment and financial coordination, global trade could be re-balanced such that China could be economically pressured into divesting its overcapacity into the above-named countries. Some would also go to less developed countries, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Argentina, Mexico and Turkey. By sitting on the runway of global manufacturing, China is blocking the development of such countries from taking off. The US could reshore higher value and nationally critical manufacturing while helping to spread lower value manufacturing across more economies.

The US and likeminded countries should also ensure that China does not get easy access to, or steal, the critical new technologies that will boost and sustain higher productivity, such as AI, robotics and quantum computing. US financial power, including the global status of the US dollar and US treasuries, further challenges China.

China’s internal situation is perilous, due to population decline, structural economic problems (such as its massive debt overhang and the stifling of the dynamism of its own private sector) and its dependence on imported energy, resources and food. China will more likely collapse than it will ascend to global primacy.

For the US, seeing off the China challenge, including by way of trade warfare, is a pre-requisite for greatness in the second American century.  If it can pull off such a strategy, it will re-industrialise its economy and reconfigure the structure of global trade so that others also benefit, at China’s expense.  There are great changes underway, unseen in a hundred years—but they are not the ones that Xi Jinping thinks are occurring.

Guidance for critical minerals policy from ASPI’s Darwin Dialogue 2024

Critical minerals are a focal point of international contention in an increasingly fracturing international system. These minerals underlie competition across civil and defence sectors and promise economic opportunity throughout their supply chain. Furthermore, they are vital to the clean energy transition, with minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and even wind turbines. Yet, their supply chains face extensive challenges.

Since ASPI’s inaugural Darwin Dialogue in 2023, Australian and foreign governments have begun implementing industrial policies to support domestic growth in critical minerals and downstream industries.

The Darwin Dialogue 2024 brought together high-level government representatives of Australia, the US, Japan and South Korea and senior representatives of other nations, academia and think tanks, held over two days in April 2024. It assessed the rise of industrial policies and discussed the next policy steps to achieve diversified supply chains, unlock investment in industry, protect industry from geopolitical risks, and deepen market environmental, social and governance considerations.

Australia’s critical mineral policy is principally shaped by the Critical Minerals Strategy, released in December 2023, and the Albanese government’s flagship industrial policy, Future Made in Australia, announced ahead of the Federal Budget 2024-25. It is further backed by close collaboration with state governments.

Implementing Future Made in Australia comes with significant costs, but industrial policies help navigate our geopolitical environment—especially in highly exposed sectors such as critical minerals.

In many respects, the rise in industrial policies is a targeted response to China’s dominance across supply chains. But it is also an attempt to stay competitive against policies implemented by allies—principally the United States’ dryly named Inflation Reduction Act (2022).

However, concerns remain around the strategic planning behind a Future Made in Australia. The government must stick to a clear, results-oriented strategy, making targeted investments to build a viable interconnected sector in collaboration with states and territories. Currently, there is a risk that investments could be process-oriented and perhaps disconnected.

Industrial policy is a double-edged sword: it protects and promotes domestic industry while also picking winners and potentially further fracturing the international trade order. It must be handled with caution. We must be careful about where we compete, where we cooperate and, importantly, with whom we do either.

Governments naturally focus on domestic industries and opportunities and selectively engage partners, but no single nation can build the necessary mineral supply chains alone. At the Darwin Dialogue 2024, there was broad consensus that national and transnational government interventions are unavoidable in the critical minerals sector—but they must be implemented carefully.

Overly focusing on domestic concerns instead of working internationally obscures pressing, near-existential challenges for the critical mineral sector. Current supply chains are insecure, and projected demand is likely to far outstrip supply of many critical minerals. This could constrain energy transition and building defence capabilities.

Rapid expansion of critical minerals production is needed. To achieve that, Australia and its allies must harmonise policies and build shared supply chains, rather than build domestic competitors that may cannibalise one another. Some competition is needed and unavoidable, but it must be proportionate.

Australia’s policy framework must work to attract new domestic and international investment sources, particularly since the Foreign Investment Review Board is rightly blocking Chinese investment into critical minerals on national security grounds. Policy options include unlocking superannuation fund investment, maximising use of free trade agreements and increasing demand by building joint stockpiles. We must also protect industry from politically driven price risks, noting that political risks are remarkably difficult to project or hedge against as they are external to the market.

Notably, unlocking new investment and developing new supply chains is not about bifurcating global trade or alienating any one nation from the supply chain. Doing so would be neither effective nor realistic. Rather, Australia and its allies must strive towards diversifying supply chains away from any singular, concentrated source or destination.

Furthermore, in developing these supply chains, Australia and its allies must maintain and extend high standards of environmental, social and governance performance. This means limiting harmful impacts of energy transition and building business models that are resilient to geopolitical or domestic social-licence risks over the medium to long term.

ASPI’s report from this year’s event, Darwin Dialogue 2024: Triumph through Teamwork, offers 11 key policy recommendations for government and industry to evolve Australia’s critical mineral policy framework.

It identifies ways to deepen minilateral cooperation with the US, Japan and South Korea across government and industry, secure new streams of funding for Australian industry, increase the number of graduates from Australian universities in fields related to critical minerals mining and processing, and improve market environmental, social and governance considerations.