Where Is The Enemy ?

One of the biggest ticket items of the Australian economy is " defence " and yet just who we are defending against is not perfectly clear.  The world's biggest military powers are the United States, Russia and China.  We are in alliance with one of these and the government does not believe either of the other two are planning an invasion of this country.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said " there is no country in the region that shows any hostile intent towards Australia, other than North Korea ".   Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop confirmed that view when she told Sky news " we do not see Russia or China as posing a military threat to Australia.

The bogey of " Communism "  seems to have evaporated.  There is no doubt the old Soviet Union intended to force this type of government on the world and did not shrink from doing so with military force, but that regime has faded  into a semi democratic kleptocracy and we have learned to live with a Communist ruled Cuba, Vietnam and Cambodia.

That leaves China as the enigma.  Apart from tidying up their borders in places like Nepal and Tibet the Middle Kingdom seems to have its hands full creating an export economy to keep its huge population from becoming restive.  China's Communist party brooks no form of dissent and Xi Jinping is ever tightening that form of control. The worry is that " Nationalism "  is being enhanced by the central government and should the economy falter that can become a convenient way of placing the blame on a distant enemy.

Perhaps for Australia the risk factor is closer to home.  We have seen the damage that can be done when religions clash.  Much of the fighting in the Middle East is that ongoing shism between Shia and Sunni Islam.  We are seeing genocide is Myanmar when " ethnic cleansing " is forcing a religious minority out of the country.

To our immediate north, Indonesia is the worlds most populous Islamic nation.   It has a secular constitution and until recently religious diversity has been tolerated.  Now a hard line element is introducing religion into politics and that tolerance is vanishing.   There is an evident danger that the next election may see religion play a major part in putting a hard line president in office if the electorate can be manipulated into voting on religious lines.

When Indonesia emerged from Dutch colonial rule its first president  - " Bung " Sukarno - was openly hostile to Australia and claimed that Indonesia would eventually invade and reclaim what he termed its " lost property ".   Indonesia went through a revolution when Sukarno backed a Communist uprising and a firm secular president then held a virtual dictatorship for many years.  It now has an active " Islamic State " element that is proclaiming holy war against western targets. What sort of regime eventually emerges in Indonesia will dictate the relationship we have with that country.

Defence is very reliant on the economic clout of the nation to be defended.  We have a small population by world standards - and therefore a small tax base from which to finance our defence forces.   They are certainly adequate to counter any immediate threat but we would need our alliance with others if a new world war emerged.

Anybody suggesting we should reduce our defence spending to save money is an optimist.   The very fact that we have adequate defences in place is the main reason that we are not facing a threat from our neighbours - and we would be wise to keep it that way !