When China won, and Hugh White

This is part of my series on China. 

When the history of China's rise again to global power is written, one of the most significant moments will, in my opinion, be when China started expanding islands and creating islands in the South China Sea - and no-one did anything in response.

The problem wasn't when China started militarising the islands, by that time the opportunity to respond effectively was long gone.

The nations being impacted have navies - true, aimed at coastal issues rather than standing up to global superpowers, but at that stage, there was no clear indication that this was a global superpower.

This is a little like the early stages of Russia's grab of Crimea, when soldiers without identification on their uniforms, the "little green men" were strutting around in the street with their weapons. Everyone informally knew this was Russia, but there was no official claims on it. Instead of dealing with the problem, there was an almost hysterical reaction focused on trying to get Russia to back off from something it hadn't admitted responsibility for - yet.

I think it was War on the Rocks which had an article on the previous times in history when such campaigns had been launched, and it was those that ignored a focus on the perpetrator and dealt with what was before them - including (perhaps especially so) military response.

If there are soldiers in your street acting as invaders, it doesn't matter a damn who sent them there, deal with them - DEFEND YOURSELVES.

It all reminds me of a pacifist friend who, many years ago, argued that nations didn't need to have self defence rights as they could take incidents of being invaded to international courts. It was ludicrous - France in 1940 fell in a few months, the first stages of the USA's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq early this century were over fairly quickly (although the USA continued to lose the peace) - long before a case would have been prepared, let alone scheduled (although on an emergency or expedited basis might have helped - but not enough).

In an international politics sense, progressivism flounders before aggression. 

To be clear: I consider myself a pacifist - working to prevent wars by establishing a genuine, equitable and just peace, defusing tensions, is crucial not just to preventing wars, civil wars, and other conflicts, but to establishing a decent world for all of humanity. (Dealing with the climate crisis is also a key - crucial - part of this.) [Note 1]  

But we're not there yet, and as someone who is also pragmatic, I consider we have to be careful about how we get there.

The city of Taiz, in Yemen, is a case in point.

Initially, the non-violent resistance there worked brilliantly - and there was at least one article about that (on, I think, Political Violence at a Glance [I couldn't find that article, so I may be wrong - but I did find this, this, ]), but now, the city is sadly a place of violent confrontation and struggle.

Non-violent campaigns are, in my opinion, preferred ways of trying to achieve something, but you have the right to self defence. As an example, someone who is being bullied in a school has the right to defend themselves - and, if that school is half way decent, they will have ways to do so non-violently.

A woman being strangled by her partner in a domestic violence incident has the right to defend herself - and there have been self defence classes for well over a century teaching women how to do exactly that.

When someone is on a rampage with a gun, the police are justified in shooting that person. (There are major risks in untrained civilians trying to do the same.)

When  nation is invaded - no matter whether there has been a declaration of war or not, no matter if the invaders are identifying their military forces or not, the invaded nation has the right to defend itself.


This not an all or nothing situation: it is possible to defend oneself, and also to be committed to working towards a situation where self defence is not necessary, where nations respect and use international law.

But to think we can act as if the world is what we want it to be and everything will be OK (a bit like an alternative healer I met many years ago who thought it was OK to casually visualise someone being well for a few seconds, and then everything would be OK - which, as some taught to do massage and something similar to Reiki I considered then and now irresponsible, unprofessional and downright bloody stupid) is beyond naïve - it is stupid to the point of insane.

Someone with that level of flawed thinking could possibly be unfit to stand trial, if it was a legal matter.

Going back to the South China Sea, the nations who claimed their territory was being infringed could, and should, have responded forcefully to the actions of alleged "trawlers" or fishing boats (that is so reminiscent of the Cold War, where Russian trawlers seemed to shadow everything) as was reasonable.

If China then said "hey, they're ours!", the responding nation could reply "well you didn't identify yourself (and it's our territory anyway)".

I've heard a simplistic notion that part of being a nation is the ability to defend your territory. That's not quite true (and the "possession is nine tenths of the law" claim is utter rot), but being willing to do what you can to defend your nation when it is being invaded is important.

The time taken for nations to figure out a response (actually, I think the USA has the only clearly advertised response with its "rights of navigation" exercises - which sometimes include my nation) was a problem, and I have to ask: was it reasonable to expect that such scenarios should have been expected?

This leads me to Professor Hugh White, who is well known for his writing on defence in Australia for many years now.

His profile refers to him as "bullish", and that certainly fits the mould, based on what I've read in a sample of his most recent book. He also takes an all or nothing approach to international matters, being quite dismissive of the UN Charter, which shows - in my opinion, based on decades of human rights activism which has shown the power of signals, the time that is required to achieve change, and that progress is never a steady upward trending line - a flawed understanding of how the world works.

On the other hand, Professor White's critics also have flaws when they downplay China's rise and methods - and I have to ask: is their reaction influenced by a fear of what could happen?

War with China would be incredibly bad for all involved / affected, but that sort of reaction is the same as the pacifists who won't admit the possibility of violence because they don't want violence to occur.

Most people don't want violence to happen, but sometimes, as with domestic violence, racism and other bigotry (which can always and does sometimes turn violent), and the risks around high levels of gun ownership, discussion is what is needed to best make sure violence does not occur. 

In Australia's case, I would like to make the following points:

• engaging with nations is always better than ignoring them - John Kerry, in his autobiography, makes some relevant comments: "In diplomacy, showing up is half the battle", and he cites Bill Clinton as saying "If I'm working on a problem, at least I know it's not getting worse"; 
• the most sensible comments I've read in recent years about Australia's self defence is that we should be building our ability to develop/build things ourselves - come up with equipment etc that suits us. Sweden did this decades ago when it developed fighters that could land on the roads it has, rather than having to rely on airports.
  Apart from anything else, the advantage I see of that is that you don't have to try to get damaged ships etc through several battlefields if they need repair - which shows the doubts I have about how much of the submarine building, fitting out, maintaining and repairing capability will be transferred to us.
  I also consider that Australia should consider developing light/medium tanks that suit our conditions (Germany in WW2 was more successful with light tanks than heavy) - particularly the fine "bulldust", as it is known, of the outback (and the variations in temperature - and I have quite a few other Jules Verne ideas), foil-borne fast coastal vessels, whatever is needed for defence-in-depth and asymmetrical warfare in the outback, expansion of our reserve forces (which requires rooting out out all misogyny and other discrimination), and highly developed coordination and interaction between our forces;
• the preceding seems to suggest I'm thinking of moving away from forward defence. No, I'm not, I'm taking heed of the USA's experience in the 50s and 60s, when Kennedy found that Eisenhower's move to "cheaper" nuclear weapons-based defence left him with inadequate options for the multitude of non-nuclear conflicts that the USA was facing (and stuffing up, in the case of Viêt Nàm).
  We need a Plan B; 
• in light of the weaknesses created by the USA's POTUS45 in terms of that nation being able to respond to military conflicts (and he has weakened that nation [including demoralising troops], not strengthened it - nor its image), as well as his ineptness making conflict with China more likely, we need to rethink our political engagement - which a few people have been suggesting for some years now.
  The USA is no longer a reliable - or even a sane - ally.

So, that's where I have got to so far after reading a sample of Professor Hugh White's latest book, "How to Defend Australia". I now have to decide whether I want to spend money buying the book, or do I find him too off-putting for that to be wprthwile.

He clearly "knows his stuff", but he also clearly has some problematic biases - and "bullishness" is not one of them.

PS - having just read this, I am inclined towards not buying the book.

Notes 

1. In personal conduct, where you are dealing with one or a few people, determined peacefulness can be successful, which is something Paul K Chappell has written about, Bishop Desmond Tutu demonstrated in South Africa during the apartheid regime, and others such as the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. have also demonstrated. But when talking about massive bureaucracies, militaries and the large groups and political movements that form nations, it is a different situation. Determined peacefulness should, ideally, make a difference, but the interpersonal connection is missing.