Ukraine is the wake-up call we need

The events over the past few days have shown more than many want to believe. As we now watch the conventional military might of Russia wage a war upon Ukraine in a manner that many of us thought to be of the past.

Tanks, helicopters, rockets and bombs, Russian paratroopers jumping from the skies, scenes reminiscent of ‘Red Dawn’ previously only seen on the movie screen. The 44 million people of Ukraine are now those in the direct line of peril, while the rest of the world watches and waits to see what will come.

Our Western powers have come together to condemn, sanction and speak strong words against this decisive action…

Our Western powers have come together to condemn, sanction and speak strong words against this decisive action. But the real test has now come for those organisations and treaties that we have long since held. Australia and most of our fellow democratic countries around the world have invested more than can be counted to maintain the likes of the United Nations and NATO. We have done so under the belief that our collective support provides collective strength and deterrence against such violent aggression, our safety-net so to speak. For Australia, without any homegrown ability to repel such aggression from a nuclear superpower, these organisations and alliances are fundamental to our own ideology of sovereignty and national security. Indeed without any nuclear arsenal or otherwise direct ability to combat such a conventional military might, we must and have done so even more in recent times with our formation of the AUKUS and the developments therein.

However what we must now watch and observe is the other parts of the operational plan that have provided strategic strength and superiority to the Russian actions on the ground. Energy wars and the dependency of Europe on the Gas lines flowing from Russian soil, made even more critical by the internal unrest and advocacy against coal and nuclear power facilities within NATO’s otherwise strongest European powers, including Germany and France. While years of proactive Russian diplomacy and influence on the ground has set the conditions for this campaign to be waged astride internal pockets of local support within Ukraine, bordered by some international neighbours who will most likely not intervene, and even more likely be supporting the Kremlin on the ground or behind the scenes and away from the lenses of the media. 

Many have come out slandering the weak ‘woke-ness’ of current western powers, reflecting on episodes under Trump’s US Presidency. While I’m not going to argue that he wasn’t good at his ‘job’ in President business, we have to learn that how you do it, not just what you do, is just as important for the longer term success in modern western ways. Continuing to seesaw between ‘woke’ and right wing ‘extremism’ simply continues to fuel our social instability, which in turn  works to undermine what is needed to actually achieve and maintain national security. Social stability and economic sustainability and strength in security are the fundamental pillars that not only support our own national sovereignty, but can then be expanded to achieve greater influence and dependency on our provision of these within our region, and in turn the projected security this provides. 

Stability, sustainability and strength are key for survival…

Stability, sustainability and strength are key for survival, yet to thrive and ensure that we are able to deter and defeat such a situation, we need to do more than just focus on friendships far away. We need to build this strength in security from our core, and expand this to make others rely on us. Providing our sustainability and security strength to guarantee their own social stability – achieving their dependency on us for survival.

We need to get our house in order

Coming out of COVID our country should be in the best position to achieve exactly this. As an island nation the same size as the continental USA, with the population of Taiwan, we have the potential to be the superpower of our region. Our agricultural capabilities should see us be the food-bowl of the Asia Pacific, let alone the primary provider for our own people. Our geographical profile puts us in prime position to develop large-scale energy, including renewables, and the safest location for modern nuclear technologies here on our own tectonic plate, with the richest uranium reserves in our soil. Our energy capabilities and boundless lands should then combine to provide us with the opportunity to become self-sufficient in our home-made and home-owned manufacturing, or otherwise be susceptible to the same style of strategic vulnerability that the reliance on otherwise importing these provides.

Cost of living is sure to be the primary focus for many leading up the this next federal election, but we have always had the means to make the lives of all Australians better, cheaper and more self sufficient, yet instead we have continuously sought to sell-off and seek offshore for the benefit of our global assurances.

Yet if we focused more on these pillars within our nation first, we would then set the conditions to better guarantee such strength in alliances, through the expansion of our national value, while drawing reliance from those in our region, and perhaps the globe. Within our own Asia-Pacific region we need to only look at the common situation of neighbouring nations fast running out of the vast lands and resources we enjoy, while their populations continue to expand in size and density. Between us and China, which continues to be the reference of our greatest security threat, there are over half a billion people spread throughout the nations of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and more. Countries that stand ready to benefit from the cleaner, more renewable, sustainable and stronger capabilities we could provide, if we already had our house in order and making ready to export. Instead we bicker and fight amongst ourselves, seesawing from left and right wing ideals, pulling ourselves apart over state borders and sovereignty statements that no longer even match our constitutional law. 

I don’t know all the answers, I just know that we are not looking at these issues the correct way…

I don’t know all the answers, I just know that we are not looking at these issues the correct way, or if we are, we are not communicating them effectively enough to the Australian people, and enabling all our society to unite in bringing about what could be our true strategic might.

Takeaway 

If there is anything we must take away from the tragedy now unfolding on screens, it is that we need to wake up, shake off the woke or otherwise extremist ways of our past, and start stepping up to what our sovereignty really needs. Investing in our own strategic strength, with the capabilities we need to thrive, rather than simply survive. Otherwise we stand to bear the consequences we will either face ourselves, or leave as our legacy for our generations to come.