Instant regret on the eve of World War III

The reporting out of big American outlets is that Russia has encircled Ukraine, and Europe is on the eve of yet another invasion. Driving the next war in Europe is the same kind of inept leadership that led to World War I, and it all traces back to Scott Morrison, believe it or not.

Whether at the behest of America, to grandstand on the international stage or (insert your preferred reason here), Scott Morrison decided at the start of the coronavirus crisis that it would be a fantastic idea to lead a call for a WHO investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China. Knowing full well China would never co-operate, knowing full well the looming cost of national lockdowns, knowing full well the inevitably petulant CCP reaction to something it literally has no experience with - handling criticism - and knowing full well how economically enmeshed we were with China (our natural resources were the yin to China's manufacturing yang), Morrison regardless decided to poke the sleeping dragon.

Of course, Australia should have always put principle first and never allowed itself to become so economically interdependent on such an antithetical political entity. But it did, following America into its own form of NAFTA during the Howard years (Labor never did anything to disentangle us either, it must be said). The result is that, after two years of global tectonic slips, calling for an investigation that was never going to happen has led to the horizon of global war becoming visible.

Today AUKUS has in effect committed Australia to war for Taiwan, without explaining why letting it be subsumed into China isn't the smarter play, given the democratic protests China is now forced to confront in Hong Kong. China has shortsightedly started a trade war, and decided to ramp up preparations for a real one concomitantly. As a result, Australian exports are hindered or forbidden by our biggest and closest market - right after the biggest single hit to the Australian economy in history - while China is facing national power outages coming into its harsh winters for the northern half of country, where Beijing is located.

The comparison with Japan in the days leading up to World War II is uncanny. China may indeed be baiting us. It is certainly trying desperately, through aerial incursions, to get Taiwan to make a mistake and fire upon its forces. Then it will move on Taiwan. It will do so before the next US election, in any case, if it's serious about reunification. When it does, we are committed to a global war. Australians need to understand that AUKUS is NATO-lite. If one country gets into a fight, we are all in. If we fight China over Taiwan, China could move on Darwin next. It could have no choice. If it won't buy Australian coal, for whatever reason, it must move to take it, like Japan was motivated to secure oil and other natural resources in south-east Asia almost 100 years ago. No other market can fuel Chinese needs on the requisite scale.

A regional war is win-win for China, counterintuitively. The looming harsh winter may see the CCP pushed to classic foreign adventurism to distract the population from the real root of their suffering - the kind of military diversion that led to the Falklands War. Citizens tend become restive when governments can't provide basic services.

Regarding war-planning more specifically, the great misconception is that if China did move toward Australia, it would come for the cities. China, if it comes - or rather, when it comes this century - is coming for natural resources and land. The proposition, then, of "invading" Australia, is easier than popularly understood.

Let it be said by someone that our entire defence policy is drawn up by an officer corps that is more apparatchik than Australian, which recruits, for example, foreigners over Australians at whim, and as such grand strategy is determined by the a priori concern of not upsetting the neighbours.

If Australia had swapped submarines for aircraft carriers, we could have collaborated on nascent French designs and avoided the stoush that corrupt and politicised military procurement policies lead us into nigh on every time. Australia needs a dedicated marine corps, and at least three light carriers equipped with F-35Bs, to have an effective forward defence.

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Submarines can't defend an internationally abandoned Australia - worst-case scenario - from a Chinese flotilla designed to be sacrificial, i.e. as long as the amount of ships that reach Australia are enough to establish a bridgehead for more troops.

China and Russia will move to neuter Western qualitative advantage by forcing us to fight on multiple fronts on other sides of the world. The plan seems increasingly clear to be to stretch Western forces by moving on both Ukraine and Taiwan at the same time, opportunistic or not. US intelligence also recently concluded that China looks like it is rehearsing an invasion. A restatement of fact in AUKUS, rather than the long-pursued Australian ascension to NATO (due to a loss of support in Europe after the SAS's alleged war crimes in Afghanistan) is all Australia has to protect itself currently in a worst-case scenario where China has just surpassed the US in naval vessels and cutting-edge technology. And so we see how World War I plus World War II is about to become World War III - in a scenario becoming less Tom Clancy and more Four Corners or 60 Minutes by the day.

Both Keating and Dutton are right in the China debate. That's our problem. We need to play it smarter, know our place and we do need to fight - but not like this. Right now we are allied with the US for a pittance, to fight for Taiwan and Japan more than ourselves, and allied with the UK to fight for Ukraine for pretty much access to intelligence.

We are a cheap date, to be sure.