But the simple fact of China’s military build-up has the defence community determined to contribute to exceeding Beijing’s capabilities to deter the superpower from any aggressive action. This need is based firmly on the defence establishment’s central organising principle – the definition of “threat” is capability to negatively impact Australia’s interests,plus the potential adversary government’s intention toward Australia. But here is the elegant but rationally debased addendum:only capability counts because intention can quickly change.

Accordingly,any country with the potential to negatively impact Australia is a potential adversary that must be countered.

It does not matter that China’s military build-up is off its own coast – the very region that common sense would dictate to any country to deploy its military capabilities. And for China,which presumably also uses the flawed definition of threat,to have the US navy – the world’s most powerful maritime force – routinely exercising off its coast,with bases and supportive allies ringing China’s coastal region,the requirement to develop a military counter seems not only likely,but understandable in the context of Australia’s own military thinking and planning.

And just as Australia,Japan,and the US are not intimidated by China’s military build-up,neither will China be by Australia’s. Australia’s capabilities,designed to conduct a war off China’s coast and strike into its mainland,will only spur China to greater efforts,resulting in the cyclical,never-ending expansion of military capabilities. It is not only a way to pauper nations,it is a recipe for deadly conflict.

In the defence community,these are among the many questions neither raised nor answered about this approach to security. Another obvious one is,what happens if Australia structures the ADF to fight far from home and the West loses? Clearly,there would be massive vulnerabilities in the defence of Australia,as the opportunity cost of unprecedented expenditure on force projection capabilities will have stripped Australia’s continental defence to a minimum.

Combine these risks with the record of failed and unnecessary conflicts including Afghanistan,Iraq and Vietnam,and Defence’s repeated delivery of over-budget and under-performing weapon systems and platforms,and there is little basis to welcome the report,or when it comes,the government’s response. Put in a prospectus,who would invest in an IPO like that?

The expeditionary forces path the ADF seems destined to pursue is not new. It is as old as colonialism. Joseph Conrad captured the sense well at the beginning of his bookHeart of Darkness:

“In the empty immensity of earth,sky,and water,there she[a French warship] was,incomprehensible,firing into a continent. Pop,would go one of the six-inch guns;a small flame would dart and vanish,a little white smoke would disappear,a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding,a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight;and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives – he called them enemies! – hidden out of sight somewhere.”

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