A criticism of the Greens’ defence policy
The National Defence Strategic Review, released in 2023 by the federal government, notes “only a remote possibility of any power contemplating an invasion” of Australia. This is the federal government’s official position, formulated by, among others, Army Major General Richard Vagg and Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, a former head of the armed forces.
It is astounding, then, that the Greens have launched a policy to develop Australia’s military-industrial base, which would allocate $4 billion to “sovereign manufacturing capabilities” of drones and missiles, purportedly to “defend” Australia. When not even the military can outline a plausible scenario in which a foreign invasion threatens this continent, why are the Greens suddenly positioning themselves as defenders of the realm against an undefined enemy?
Australian governments have a history of lying and fearmongering about national security threats. But they usually at least provide scenarios or statements capable of being critically evaluated, such as, “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction”. The Greens don’t offer even this level of phantom to critique.
Last year’s National Defence Strategy, which outlines the Defence Department’s evaluation of “security risks”, didn’t even mention the possibility of an invasion of Australia. But it did discuss the need for a military “more capable of the impactful projection” of power and for “a sovereign defence industrial base” to manufacture weapons and drones, among other things, to aid this “force projection” (otherwise known as invasion and interference operations in the Pacific and Southeast Asia).
The Greens’ brains trust says its proposed military-industrial base reinvigoration will be used “for strictly defensive purposes only”—presumably unlike the similar-sounding military-industrial base the war hawks at Defence have proposed. Are the Greens really so naïve as to think that increased domestic military production capacity will not be used for force projection—the bread and butter of Australian statecraft since Federation? What will their next policy announcement be? A program to rebuild Australia’s derelict pubs “for purposes strictly related to sobriety”?
“We see this as the first step ... we don’t pretend this is the beginning and the end of the significant reorganisation required for Australia’s defence force”, Greens spokesperson David Shoebridge told ABC defence correspondent Andrew Greene on the weekend. Greene noted that the party has never before released “a formally costed policy to fund new military programs”.
Responding to the announcement, Euan Graham, a director at the hawkish and pro-US Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Sky News that the Greens’ “willingness to talk about increased defence spending and production” is a sign of “positive change” in the party.
Of course, it would be unfair to describe the Greens as a bunch of warmongers. The new policy, announced last Saturday, also calls to “decouple” the Australian armed forces from the US military and comes as the party urges the federal government to withdraw from the AUKUS pact, a military and technology-sharing partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom through which Australia will obtain a suite of nuclear submarines.
The Greens propose funding social programs from the savings gained by scrapping the pact—some $70 billion over ten years. Further, the party’s policies would likely reduce Australia’s military spending by perhaps half a trillion dollars over several decades.
Scrapping AUKUS is a supportable policy. But it is not particularly progressive, nor all that controversial. Even former foreign minister Bob Carr, and former PMs Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull have rubbished the pact. Indeed, sections of the old Labor right were the first to criticise it. Yet the key issue in all this is not the precise locations from which Australia’s military sources its weaponry or the price it pays to obtain its hardware.
The Greens’ shift comes as we enter a period of global rearmament in which two superpowers, China and the United States, are preparing for a confrontation. President Trump demands greater military spending by European members of the Western imperialist alliance and is shifting the US posture towards a range of states.
In many cases, this has given militarism a new colour. Countries that fear losing Washington’s backing bow to Trump’s demands while selling the rearmament programs as some newfound independence. It’s progressive liberalism’s imperial revenge: build the military to resist the far-right ogres in the White House and in the Kremlin.
The Greens have tapped into this sentiment to sell their own policy shift. In this context, they are floating with the tide when every left-wing organisation ought to be swimming against the current.
First, they float along with the liberal conceit that decoupling rearmament programs from “Donald Trump’s military” (as the Greens press release refers to US imperialism) is progressive or “independent”—as though the Australian ruling class is qualitatively different from others around the world.
Second, they float along with the China panic by proposing a significant boost to “defensive” military-industrial capacity when, in reality, Australia’s military force posture and structure are being aggressively reconfigured for a confrontation with China.
The Greens say they oppose military operations that “threaten our neighbours”. But the AUKUS pact, the renewed Quadrilateral Security Dialogue involving Australia, India, Japan and the United States, and Australia joining NATO as an “Indo-Pacific partner” are manifestations, rather than causes, of the underlying dynamic toward war in the western Pacific. While objectionable, these mini pacts are not the main thing. Nor is Donald Trump, the widespread distaste for whom the Greens are leveraging to build support for their military policy.
Australia’s steadfast political alliance with the United States is far more important than its technical and logistical incorporation into US military planning. The alliance is foundational to Australia’s foreign affairs, not simply its defence policy. As such, the Greens’ talk about developing an “independent foreign policy” is risible when the party proposes little more than haggling around military procurement. So is the talk about “not threatening our neighbours”, which is a fantasy when Australia is a strategic base for and an unbending ally of US imperialism. Former Senator Scott Ludlam understood this. It’s not clear that David Shoebridge does—what’s his position on closing Pine Gap?
Without a commitment to breaking the US alliance in all its forms, expelling all US military forces from Australia, and dismantling all US intelligence-gathering installations, “peace”, “non-alignment”, “neighbourly respect” or other feel-good phrases are nothing but foreign policy bromides. Yet the Greens’ position is not to tear up the ANZUS treaty, considered the foundational document of the alliance, but to “renegotiate Australia’s position” within it.
Yet even a commitment to breaking the US alliance is not enough. Given the global dynamic, left-wing parties cannot settle for “detachment”. We have to fight against all manifestations of military aggression, whether they emanate from the new far-right aligned with Donald Trump or from the liberal alternatives. This is particularly true in imperialist countries such as Australia, which has joined criminal invasions or interfered in the domestic affairs of several countries in the region and beyond.
All this is too much for the Greens. Being tolerated as a “reasonable” party capable of forming government means accepting a range of capitalist non-negotiables, such as the state’s need for a competent military. “Self-defence” is the immediate argument to legitimise the new defence policy. But the party is probably also signalling that it should be considered a potential partner in the event of a hung parliament in the upcoming election.
To resist the new militarism and to prevent more war, we have to call bullshit on the rhetoric of “self-defence” used by governments to justify rocketing arms spending. And we have to build an international alliance of working-class and oppressed people—not an alliance of states and their rulers. On this front, the Greens’ new defence policy points in the wrong direction.
