A report by American thinktank The Rand Corporation has spotlighted our unpreparedness to mobilise for war.
The Defence Mobilisation Comparative Study was commissioned by the Australian Government to ascertain the shape of our national defences as Defence starts to implement its new policy objectives, Shape, Deter and Respond. The assessment pinpoints a lack of ‘societal cohesion’ in our predicament.
A comparison was made between four overseas countries with comparable logistics. While Finland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland all demonstrate a level of preparedness, Australia has failed to implement a national defence strategy; a careless decision that’s caught up with us. Of principal concern, is that Defence has no contingency to psychologically ready the Australian people for a regional war.
Australia’s attitude to defence has long dallied. An over-reliance on superpower allies has resulted in complacency. Poor choices in defence spending and planning have rendered us unequal to the task. Australia’s military excels at ground battles but it has no design for larger-scale campaigns. Moreover, its focus has been on expeditionary operations, in support of America. An overhaul of strategy and capabilities, while underway, may prove too little too late.
The findings come as the government prioritises Defence capabilities in our region to answer the threat posed by China. As it directs Defence to “work closely with other arms of government,” it aims to enlarge its “capability to respond to grey-zone activities.” Readjustments aside, even if we fast-tracked military spending tomorrow, the delays in supply would still leave us outmanned, outgunned and mismatched.
While the resources and manpower of those overseas countries are also dwarfed by their nearest threats, their strategy of ‘total defence’ makes practical use of their resources and manpower by maintaining “… an interdependency between resilience and mobilisation.”
Australia has failed to consider the nation’s “psychological resilience.” In short, a common purpose and the will to fight. Likewise, without a manufacturing base, we’ve become dependent on overseas supply for vital resources in a broad and disturbing range of areas; our institutes of scientific research (those engaged in projects for Defence) are often conducted in association with China’s military; key infrastructure such as our ports and power have been sold to China, and we are plagued by ideological division being pushed in the form of a cancel culture; more concerned with locking up the type of patriots desperately needed for national service.
Those overseas countries have military preparedness embedded in their national defence strategy, incorporating variances of national service. Army reservists operate in conjunction with a type of civil militia. Exercises are regularly conducted on a state-territory level and on varying scales to maintain their capabilities. All of these civilian components supplement the military and upon mobilisation can be supplied with weapons etc via dispensaries and kiosks at designated locations. Mobilising this civic structure involves summoning individuals via texts, and coded broadcasts. Penalties apply to those who fail to attend drills. It’s quite a plan.
In a time of crisis, the government can draw on the resources of businesses and workers. Infrastructure is safeguarded, production and supply preserved, while international trade, finance and banking continue. Most important is the people’s resilience. None of this exists in Australia.
At a time when the Department of Defence should be vigorously implementing such, the top brass is preoccupied with ‘gender quotas’ and encouraging our fighting boys to explore their feminine side. National heroes like Ben Roberts Smith face trial by media; their heroism an anathema to the ascending legions of the woke. Instead of mobilising for national security, we’re distracted by agents of discord contesting the legitimacy of the nation; councils politicising Australia Day; exploring white guilt and entertaining preschoolers with drag shows. On that basis, we assume that the chattering classes eagerly await a Chinese invasion.
Moreover, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, you can bet the migrant masses that bolster our rotten system will be clinging to the landing gear of the next plane home. As to the snowflakes, any attempt to defend ourselves will be regarded as colonialist aggression. Students will refuse to fight because we’re living on “stolen land”, and there are no safe spaces on a battlefield. Should America’s military come to our aid, it’s sobering to think that right now it’s being remodelled along woke lines; and we shouldn’t be too surprised when the next carrier they commission is named the USS George Floyd.
Australia’s decadence and the self-interest of our citizens, which governments have enabled, present shabby stock. The diversity that’s enforced will prove an interesting challenge for the government if it follows suit with the likes of Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Singapore and attempts to engage this heterogenous pulp in national service.
Vitally, all of this might change suddenly should a government sympathetic to China, such as Labor, be voted in. Bearing in mind, we’ve come to this place because both major parties have been seduced by Chinese bearing bags of cash, and none can really be trusted.
Meanwhile, the report concludes:
Nations with a strong history of national service, military or civil, have a more natural cohesion/affiliation between Defence, industry, and civil society. There is a culture of societal contribution and clear roles for mobilisation. As is illustrated in the following examples, each has an entrenched culture of military service, and a civil-military relationship defined by the acceptance of the premise that the universal nature of service anchors broader society to its defence force.
Australia is, in relative terms, lacking a comparable means of anchoring the sectors to each other, and of delivering broad-based psychological resilience among the citizenry.
Moreover, the ADF neglects to incorporate, in an explicit sense, concepts of psychological resilience into its national defence approach. As such, it does not have the mechanisms to effectively safeguard societal functions and both draw from and rely on, communities instilled with the strength to withstand and recover from crisis situations.