In deciding on a massive arms buildup, Kevin Rudd has made one of the worst decisions of any ALP Prime Minister. The reasons are stark, and obvious:
- Stupid strategy. The China-rising argument is fallacious. Thus the whole white paper is deeply flawed. The US, as the paper admits, will remain the dominant military power in the world for at least the next few decades. Essentially, China has no interest in destabilising the region, on which it is reliant for maintaining its economic growth. That’s why the White Paper places so much emphasis on a ‘miscalculation’ and the possibility of the unexpected happening. There is simply no logical argument you can make as to why China, increasingly enmeshed in regional and global markets, would want to plunge itself into an economic collapse by provoking military instability. Of course, the kind of ‘great power’ chatter is much loved in defence circles (for instance, see Lowy’s Interpreter blog) because it sounds oh so serious but when you peel away the facade the intellectual rigour just isn’t there. Joel Fitzgibbon clearly doesn’t have the capacity to see through the drivel, but we might have hoped that Kevin Rudd could do better.
- It is electorally cynical. This decision will re-make some of the basic architecture of Australian politics. It turns the ALP into the party of war hawks, outspending the conservatives on defence. The ALP’s poll-driven strategists no doubt hope that making John Howard look like a dove will help reverse the traditional electoral advantage conservatives have held on defence and national security and make sure that the 2001 (Tampa) election will not be repeated. In its better times the ALP has been the party of international co-operation and peace, now it’s funding a potentially dangerous arms build-up. That’s profoundly sad, in my view.
- It is unaffordable. Here’s the kicker – we don’t have the money. I know that in ‘these troubling economic times’ it has become a bit unfashionable to ask how things will be paid for but there you have it. Some realities are unavoidable. Where precisely is this $100 billion going to come from? Will it mean a smaller increase for pensioners? Fewer hospitals, schools, roads? Higher taxes, slugs on superannuation, higher HECS payments? Probably, all of the above and much more. It will be a dead weight, a constraint, in federal budgetary deliberations for the next decade. Year after, an extra $10 billion will have to be found. And, of course, that’s assuming that the Department of Defence manages the acquisitions effectively. Excuse me while I guffaw. $10 billion each year could quickly become $15 billion and then $20 billion.
