In a typical destabilising move, North Korea launched a missile last Wednesday (despite having previously advised that the launch would be in late December). An unpredictable and defiant North Korea is nothing new—it’s something that we came to expect from Kim Jong-Il, and his successor appears to be no different. North Korean missile and nuclear provocations have direct security implications for neighbouring states and the United States (as a primary target of North Korean aggression). What’s less obvious is that they also indirectly impact Australia’s strategic interests.

Managing North Korea and strategies for bringing it into line has been an important election issue for political candidates in both Japan and South Korea—so this latest missile launch stands to influence the outcome of upcoming elections (16 December for Japan and 19 December for South Korea). North Korea’s latest provocation will only serve to further consolidate votes for conservative candidates; Ms Park in South Korea, and Mr Abe in Japan.

More hard-line conservative governments in Tokyo and Seoul might actually bode well for Australia’s strategic interests. Both countries are strategic partners for Australia as part of the ‘hub and spokes’ alliance arrangements with the United States. While a hostile North Korea continues to develop long-range missile capability, Tokyo and Seoul will have even greater incentive to reach out to like-minded countries like Australia to address common security threats. A stronger drive in Seoul to reinforce military ties with allies in the region stands to improve Australia–South Korea defence cooperation and maximise both country’s middle power status. Similarly, if this latest missile launch precipitates a shift in Japan’s defence policy to allow it the right to collective self-defence and to come to the aid of an ally, this shift would be a welcome development for Australia–Japanese defence cooperation. Read more

When I’m lecturing on strategic policy or Australian force structure issues, I often make a comment about the ‘defence of Australia’ (DOA) doctrine along those lines of ‘of course, the defence of Australia has been of academic interest except for six months in 1942’. It’s a rhetorical device intended to convey the idea that DOA really isn’t very relevant to a contemporary discussion of Australia’s future defence plans.

But, as any mathematician would remind me, a single counter example is enough to completely undo a hypothesis. In 1942, war really did come to Australia’s shores and the ‘air sea approaches’ were used by Japanese ships, aircraft and submarines. The purpose of this book, edited by ANU’s Peter Dean with contributions from a number of historians, is to put those events into context.

Like two volumes of essays on military history that precede this one, there’s a bit of a ‘Mythbusters’ feel to it in places. There are several chapters that examine Japan’s aims towards Australia, including one (the most valuable one in my view) from Japanese scholar Hiroyuki Shindo. He argues convincingly that that the Japanese Army was dragged kicking and screaming by the Navy into the South Pacific, when its own priorities were China and Manchuria. His conclusion is clear; the resources for an invasion weren’t going to be made available and isolation of Australia, rather than conquest, was the Japanese intention.

In this light, the pivotal battle along the Kokoda trail is put into its proper context. It denied the Japanese a base in Port Moresby from which it could strike allied bases in Queensland and interdict allied shipping and allowed the allies to use it for their own air and naval campaigns, rather than ‘saving Australia from invasion’. This conclusion might raise the ire of some, but the story of the struggles of the land forces involved actually loses nothing by being accurately placed in the overall story of the Pacific campaign. Read more