Reviewed by Norrie Sanders
Most Australians agree that national security is high priority. And most agree that politicians aren’t trustworthy. So why do we entrust our most expensive budget item to a governments who won’t tell us how or why they are spending it? Even the AUKUS deal, which seems to be endlessly discussed, is still basically a military secret.
Enter defence strategist Dr Albert Palazzo to tell us what he knows, what is wrong and how we should fix it. And it is not pretty (the situation, not the book). His objective is “to outline and promote a different and better path for the attainment of Australia’s national defence and security, one in which a policy of dependency on a foreign state is not the central feature” [p5].
The AUKUS submarine purchase – the biggest in Australian military history – has received plenty of criticism on the grounds that the submarines are more part of a projection of American power against China than an effective means of defending Australia (see the QRC’s review of Nuked). Even the capacity of the UK and USA to build the subs, and of Australia to maintain two types of nuclear warships, is uncertain.
Palazzo is similarly critical, but the eye opener in this book is his detailed review of the status of our three defence arms and their current and proposed personnel and weaponry. He argues that many of our services are understaffed, undertrained and their equipment (including expensive planned procurements) is less capable than those of our allies and potential adversaries.
Chapter 1 is about AUKUS, preceded by a short history of our historic defence dependency on Britain and, since the 1950s, the USA. Although they have provided a measure of security, this imperial support cannot always be relied on and the quid pro quo is that we have participated in many wars to overtly support our allies, rather than to materially affect the outcome. And most of these wars – notably Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – have been lost. “The failure to openly acknowledge Australia’s true purpose in going to war has cost our nation more than lives and money. It has also cost honour” [p25].
With the barely-hatched AUKUS now being reviewed in the US, Palazzo is naturally sceptical about a defence policy dependent on one country – particularly one that is rewriting the script: “To Australian leaders it must seem supremely ironic that under the Trump presidency the greatest threat to the global rules-based order could now turn out to be the United States” [p21].
Chapter 2 establishes security risks, the more familiar being China – essentially a military risk – and the less discussed being the societal impacts of climate change, which “has the potential to so destabilise civilisation that it could cause widespread societal collapse, myriad intra- and inter-state wars and the deaths of billions of people” [p53].
Chapter 3 is about “designing Australia’s future defence policy” and Chapter 4 sets out a “foundation for the strategic defensive”. These terms are defined in the book and form a hierarchy, of which the most important, the Grand Strategy, is entirely missing, according to Palazzo. It is the absence of an overarching security strategy that not only leads to the wrong kinds of defence procurement, but ignores non-military threats to our national security.
Chapter 5 explores what needs to be done, making a compelling case that we need a major re-think both strategically and tactically. Palazzo stops short of a recommended program of acquisitions but is not about to mince words about our current position. In relation to naval vessels, he says that: “Australia is spending a lot of money to obtain a very small capability that a potential aggressor will not take seriously – it is delusional thinking” [p115]. The future does not lie with vulnerable large vessels but with unmanned weaponry – missiles and drones. Hence: “The government should cancel all the acquisitions it has recently announced”[p122].
The AUKUS submarine fleet is so far in the future that we have to have a stopgap deal with the USA to supply a few nuclear subs in the next five years. Despite assurances on both sides, there is something of an Emperor’s new clothes about the arrangement: “Worryingly for Australia, when the time comes to sell us the promised submarines there will not be any spare submarines available…” [p113].
This is a timely book. As the only country to the AUKUS deal that is not actively reviewing it, and is shelling out billions to US and British corporations in the hope of enhancing their construction capacity, we clearly have a high stake in the deal. Palazzo argues that the despite a succession of other defence reviews, we remain subordinate to a much larger country with different objectives and, at least on climate change, a different world view. There is a critical need for the government to entirely re-think how we secure Australia.
Albert Palazzo is an adjunct professor at UNSW Canberra in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was formerly the long-serving Director of War Studies for the Australian Army. He completed his PhD in military history at The Ohio State University, and published his dissertation as Seeking Victory on The Western Front: The British Army and Chemical Warfare in World War I. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he migrated to Australia in 1996 and commenced his career in the school of history at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He has written more than twenty books and monographs on the art of war, Australian military history and national security policy.
by Albert Palazzo
(July 2025)
MUP
ISBN: 9780522881363
$29.99 (Paperback); 184pp