Kicking the Defence Habit

As a keen observer of how much money gets flushed down the toilet annually by the United States in its "War on Terror" - for anyone who is interested, the final bill is likely to top US$4 trillion, or about $12,750 for every person living in the USA today - I was intrigued by comments made by Tony Abbott on a recent trip to Washington that Australia was currently spending less on defence than any year since 1938.

When I read the comments, I felt a sudden surge of patriotic pride. If what Tony was saying was correct, then as a nation, we ought to be congratulating ourselves that we were making significant progress towards eradicating what, in the modern world, is a significant but largely redundant government overhead. Of course, as is his wont, Tony didn't frame his remarks in a manner which were complimentary to the government. Instead he was stating what a disgrace it was that Labor had let our US allies down by cutting defence spending to historically low levels and how he would immediately redress this when he took office. Which, by the way, is now looking depressingly likely barring a Lazarus-style comeback by either Julia Gillard, or preferably, Malcolm Turnbull.

Naturally, the fact that Abbott was prepared to invest in a few more popguns and water cannons to put the frighteners on some rogue Afghans would have warmed the cockles of a few crusty old generals in the Pentagon, who surely must be under a bit of pressure from their political masters for blowing so much cash in the achievement of so little. However, apart from gaining a few brownie points from our friends in Washington, you kind of have to ask yourself - what's the point?

A lot of things about conservative politicians puzzle me. How, for instance, they can all be experts in climate change science with no education whatsoever in that area. Or their stubborn insistence in the face of overwhelming economic evidence that the way to generate jobs is to cut government spending to the bone and give tax cuts to the mega rich. The one that really gets me though is that despite being totally hawkish about spending government money on things like education, public health care and providing a safety net for their citizens, when it comes to spending public money on defence, all restraint goes out the window and they wantonly throw cash about in a manner reminiscent of Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop. What sort of message does this send to your constituents? Sorry, Jemaine from Alabama, we're not prepared to pay for your college education, but we're happy to furnish you with an AK-47 free of charge so you can fly to the Middle East to open a can of whoop-ass on the Taliban. But don't even think about applying for welfare when you get back home shell-shocked and unable to work.

It appears though Abbott wants to head down a similar path and bulk up the military, despite the obviously crippling effect that excessive militarism has had on the United States' finances. Undoubtedly, this would probably prove to be a popular measure, for we Australians are a seriously frightened bunch: frightened of a few hundred boat people, frightened of migrants taking our jobs and frightened of non-existent terrorists that might be in our midst. Wouldn't it be good to lie tucked up safe in bed knowing that Uncle Tony has thrown a few more billion on some armaments to ensure that the yellow hordes can be sent back packing from whence they came?

However, before committing to this and the host of other unfunded spending measures he seems to have in mind, Abbott would be well advised to consider the following modern geopolitical realities:

• Australia is not, and hasn't been for the last 60 years, under serious military threat from any other foreign power. Nor is this situation likely to change in the medium to long term given the productive engagement over the past 40 years by Australian leaders with our northern Asian neighbours. Fortunately, unlike Israel and the Arab nations, we live in a part of the world which is relatively politically stable and so should be able to enjoy the luxury of investing public money in more socially beneficial things as opposed to maintaining an outsized defence force.
• Even if we were under threat, do we really think that a defence force the size of ours could repel say the Chinese or the Russians? Of course we couldn't, so in reality the defence force we do have is nothing more than a security blanket which doesn't offer any real protection anyway.
• Say the worst happened and we were the subject of an invasion, do you think that the major powers in the world would stand idly by and let the vast mineral and agricultural wealth of this country fall into hostile foreign hands? Of course not, they would round up a posse and run the offenders out of town quicker than you could say "rack off back to Djakarta".
• Finally, if things really got out of hand and the conflict became global, defence forces would be largely redundant anyway. A few well aimed warheads at New York, Shanghai and a few other places would end things before the first destroyer made its way out of Port Phillip Bay.

Politicians on both sides are probably aware of a lot of this, but regrettably the backlash that would be invoked among the general public by massively reducing the defence forces makes this too much of a political hot potato to touch. It's a shame really because it would be great to have some extra cash to spend on all the urgent nation building priorities in this country instead of blowing a fortune on following the USA into every tin-pot desert country that they decide to invade, or chasing a leaky sieve full of refugees up and down the coast of Western Australia.

Maybe the breakthrough will come when the next generation of Australians who have grown up in a true multi-cultural society and without the spectre of war reach their adulthood. This generation may well look at the example of China, who are gradually coming to dominate world affairs without utilising military force, and compare them to the US and Russia, who will no doubt still be dealing with the financial and social legacies of past conflicts for many generations to come. Maybe this generation will make the connection between peaceful methods and economic prosperity and force their leaders to direct funds away from Defence into more productive areas.

Maybe also they could force the government to send Gina Rinehart, Andrew Bolt, Mark Holden, Alan Jones and John Steffensen into exile on Nauru, however let's deal with one problem at a time.