Who is Australia’s enemy?

In this Anzac week, Australians have been thinking again about what happened at Gallipoli. This has been a useful thing for politicians who have spent the last month talking about defence-related issues.

As the Anzac myth spreads its strange, schizophrenic glow over the country, in which war is not glorified but stone soldiers on plinths are honoured with music and prayers by the religious and secular alike, it’s a good time to consider our enemies, then and now. Because without enemies, war is impossible.

We are urged to remember the dead on Anzac Day, but it’s a selective remembering, and has been since the beginning. The Aboriginal people who died in frontier wars with Europeans are not to be officially remembered at this time, and neither are the Turks, who were likewise defending their homeland against an aggressive invader and died in much larger numbers than the Australians and their allies, in spite of the gross incompetence of the British command.

We were told the Turks were our enemies then, because of their alliance with the Kaiser, but they are not our enemies now, and neither is Germany, or Japan. So who is?

Unmentionable

Labor Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently made a lengthy speech about Australia’s geo-political challenges without specifically naming enemies, but our chief subtextual enemy at the moment is China, our largest trading partner, and a country which already owns large quantities of Australian real estate, mining interests, pastoral industries and our most northerly strategic port, among many other assets.

One wonders why China would bother declaring war on a country which it already owns substantial chunks of, without firing a shot, thanks to the greed and shortsightedness of Australians whose real fealty is to the dollar?

Still, China appears to be the justification for the $368 billion nuclear submarine program touted by Scott Morrison and pushed forward by Anthony Albanese, described by Paul Keating as the ‘worst international decision’ by a Labor government since conscription in WW1.

For his part, Defence Minister Richard Marles has said this is part of an attempt to ‘reshape’ the armed forces to prepare Australia for future conflicts, and project power beyond our shores.

In military terms, we are told that nuclear submarines are necessary to keep our enemies at bay, despite the fact that submarines in the recent past have mostly been used to sneak commandos into enemy ports (nuclear subs are too big for this), and the whole field of submarine warfare is rapidly modernising, with the new underwater arms race all about inexpensive, easily sacrificed drones, which can take out large traditional submarines in much the same way that aerial toys are destroying expensive tanks in Ukraine.

China’s navy is already bigger than that of the United States, and rapidly growing and modernising, with four million soldiers including reserves, so the idea of Australia defending itself against China militarily is laughable.

Is Russia the enemy? Vladimir Putin has accused Australia of joining a global axis which he likened to that faced by his country in WWII, and there is more talk of Russian spies in Australia than at any time since the Petrov Affair.

Australia’s military support of Ukraine has been limited, so far, but our leadership has certainly made it clear which side Australia is on in that conflict.

In practice though, war with Russia is mainly happening on a cyber level, and appears to be more about money and crime than competing national interests.

Junior villains

Is Indonesia the enemy? Apparently not, as our military continues to train their military to kill resistance fighters in West Papua. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were the enemy for a while, but are rarely mentioned now.

North Korea is named as an enemy from time to time, although it can barely feed its own people as it diverts resources to a weapons program in an attempt to make the wider world take it seriously.

What about the UK, are they our enemy now? Ruled by an unstable cabal, with a unique history of detonating atomic weapons in this country and an MO including invading countries all over the world, but no.

Could India be an enemy? The world’s fastest growing country is armed with nuclear weapons, and full of people who believe in different things to Australians, and led by an extreme right wing religious nationalist – but India is a democracy, and part of the Quad, so apart from on the cricket pitch, the subcontinent does not qualify as an enemy of Australia, for now.

With friends like these…

Some people would argue that our closest ally, America, is actually an enemy, having painted an enormous target on our back with Pine Gap and their large military bases in this country, and by encouraging us to join their disastrous conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf and elsewhere.

As their empire fades, our leadership appears determined that we will fade alongside them, with anyone who suggests otherwise, such as Gough Whitlam, being rapidly removed from the scene. No matter the hard reality though, America’s soft power ensures that most Australians will always love America, and cannot consider them as an enemy.

That leaves Australia as its own foe. We are the people who have destroyed much of what we claim to love on this island continent, in the form of soil, living things and fresh water. Despite our small population compared to our land mass, we are in the top five countries for species extinctions.

We are the people who continue to sell off our forests and mineral assets to overseas corporations.

As a nation, despite our unprecedented wealth in historical and individual terms, we are never content. We’re a bit like the bully who steals something from another kid in the playground and is scared the same thing is going to happen to him. Sometimes it seems like our greatest enemies are our own shadows.

Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.

Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.