The tenth article drawn from Davey Jones’ Locker is from the February 1979 edition of the Journal of Australian Naval Institute. The Journal has been a forum, not only for naval officers, but also for academics with an interest in national security policy. This article, Australia – A Changing Role in a Changing World was written by Professor Francis West who gave it as the Keynote Address at the 15th Biennial Congress of the Royal Australian Planning Institute held on 28 August 1978. It makes for interesting reading in 2025. Professor West, an Australian National University don famously wrote in 1970 that the only values a university teacher needs to hold “is the passionless pursuit of passionless truth.”
While most ANI readers would no doubt say we live in tumultuous times, ‘change’ has been a recurring theme among Journal articles. Having said that, contemporary events may even have had Professor West’s head spinning.
Australia – A Changing Role in a Changing World: International Pressures and Domestic Planning Implications
Darling, as Adam said to Eve. We live in an age of change and uncertainty.
I am not sure that anyone has ever lived differently, except that we are never allowed to forget it. We would all have difficulty in thinking of a day when we are not reminded that we live in a world which is rapidly changing – except, perhaps when there is a newspaper, a radio and a television strike, and. then, of course, nothing happens If you listen to the rapid communication of news by any media, it is very easy to conclude that the speed of technological change has outstripped human capacity to understand it, still less to plan for it and far less to control it.
It is very easy to conclude that the situations created by modern technology have escaped the control of the human understanding and capacity which invented the technology itself. I think that this a false conclusion, a counsel of despair, which is the result of being panicked by a myth of the speed of change. The robot or the computer which escapes from the control of its inventor is a common enough theme in literature or drama, but it is important to remember that these are fictions, as much the inventions of the human mind as the technology they fictionalise.
The speed of change, in any case, is primarily that of change in technology, of the method of doing things, not in the aims or objectives we have, not in the things to be done. Those, in my opinion, do not change very rapidly, and that is particularly true of the international pressures upon Australia. We may fly to Europe or Japan or the United States in half the time it took twenty years ago, but the ships on the trade routes are not much quicker than they were. We can get instant replay of a football match or a papal funeral, but negotiations over a wheat, a beef or an iron ore contract, over the purchase of defence equipment, or even a Middle East peace settlement, take just as long as they did before travel was quick and the news instantaneous.
A great deal of this image of rapid change comes from a bad analogy with the speed at which a computer can make calculations. A bad analogy because, to use the jargon of the computer trade, garbage in, garbage out. In short, if we wrongly identify the problems to be solved, if we compound that with bad information, the speed with which answers can be offered is irrelevant The solutions and the answers will still be wrong.
In my opinion, the problems created for Australia by international pressures are being wrongly identified. This is not so much the result of identifying false problems, problems that are not really problems at all, but of looking at particular and immediate difficulties in isolation from each other, and with far too little consideration of the long-term implications. For example, almost everyday there is some news about our export markets. We have troubles with beef or wheat or wool or dairy produce or sugar. We have troubles with iron ore or steel or uranium. And we diagnose these difficulties largely as the result of the protectionist trade policies of those to whom we export.
At the same time we report, at far less length and with much less prominence, the complaints of our Southeast Asian neighbours against our own protective trade policies. What this says to me is that we are considering each trade problem separately, not as part of a total picture. We export to Japan, which has a considerable interest in supplying our domestic market, far more than we import. We import from Britain and the European Economic Community which are hostile to our produce, far more than we export. To anyone’s mind, this is an obvious imbalance in our trading. It is an imbalance which is the more obvious when you consider that from our South East Asian neighbours we import far less than we export. Now, I have no doubt that the Department of Trade’s senior officials look at the general trading pattern when recommending policies to the minister of the day, although their advice is not necessarily taken. But I doubt very much that the trading pattern is considered with foreign policy very much in mind. If it were then I would have expected a much more systematic policy towards Japan and towards the growth economies of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore than has so far been exhibited.
If I am right that our trade policies towards individual countries and areas are not well co-ordinated, and that trade policies are co-ordinated still less with foreign policy, I am even more sure that they are co-ordinated not-at-all with defence policy. And yet the connection is obvious. It would not be unfair to describe the Australian economy as animal, vegetable and mineral: the export of primary produce to distant markets: to Japan, the United States and Europe Export moreover, largely in other people’s ships. We may, unlike the oil rich nations or the banana or coconut republics, export more than one cash crop, but we are essentially in the same position, we dig it out or we grow it and we export it so that we can buy whatever else we need to support an accustomed rising standard of living. That adds up to long lines of trade and communications which are vulnerable. That is the basic and inescapable fact of Australia’s strategic position. In other words, trade and defence policies cannot be considered In isolation from each other. The connection between them seems to me obvious.
There are people who ignore the connection. One way of doing that is the way of the last Australian Labor Party Government in its Defence White Paper, the Labor Government believed that there was no strategic threat to Australia within the foreseeable future. In the Defence White Paper of November 1976, issued by the Liberal-National Country Party Government, that comfortable belief was not repeated, but the existence of any strategic threat to Australia was in effect discounted, not by saying that there was no such threat but by assuming that, it there ever were such a threat, someone else – a great and good friend like the United States – would help us. There is some informed professional judgment that the United States does not have the capacity to protect its own lines of trade and communication, let alone Australia’s, but even if the Americans could look after their own and give some help lo Australia, it would still be necessary for us to do as much as possible on our own behalf. For if we cannot, then in circumstances far short of actual hostilities against us. We are vulnerable in the sense that a potential threat may significantly limit or coerce Australian policies. If we accept that Australia’s strategic position is vulnerable and that therefore we need to acquire some capacity to deter any threat against it, then the lime for planning is now because the procurement of the right equipment and the training needed to use it take time. When a threat actually materialises, it is too late. The potential threat is there already, if only as a side effect of Russian policies aimed at, on the most optimistic view, simply containing China and, on more pessimistic views, doing something more than just contain. Optimistic or pessimistic, though, common prudence requires that we draw the implications of the distances and the isolation of Australia s position.
Those implications are both short-term and long-term. Looking at the dimensions of providing even partial protection of our trade routes and lines of communication, it would be easy to put the problems into the too-hard basket. The direction of our trade routes – north through the Pacific to Japan, east across the Pacific to the Americas, and west across the Indian Ocean and beyond to Europe – you might conclude that Australia is in defensible, or that a major part of those links is indefensible. The route westwards to Europe, for example, may be indefensible except in close cooperation with South Africa – which would turn some sensitive political stomachs – and Britain which, because of its European commitment and its limited defence capacity, believes that with anything east of Suez the best is like the worst.
You might conclude that the northern route to Japan is only defensible it the Japanese are prepared to rearm with the right equipment and in the right strength and if we had similar defence co-operation with Indonesia and the Philippines. You might conclude that the trans-Pacific routes to the east are only defensible it the United States regards them as vital to its own position not in terms of high political morality but in terms of its own national interest.
All of these assumptions which began with the word if have the obvious political uncertainties that the use of the word implies. Some of these are beyond our influence. The domestic politics of Japan affect any question of Japanese rearmament. The question of the succession to the present leadership in Indonesia and the Philippines may affect their willingness or ability to co-operate with Australia some of the uncertainties are of our own creation. Bad industrial relations, for instance, influence the Japanese to look for alternative sources of supply such as Brazil or China. Our attitudes over Timor or Papua New Guinea make Indonesian co-operation impossible. Our tariff and immigration policies alienate the Philippines. Malaysia and Singapore. These uncertainties of our own creation reinforce the point I made earlier. Our policies are too much framed in isolation from each other, not as part of a total picture of our national interests. That seems to me an effect on four adversary system in parliament and an executive composed of departmental ministers.
Australia’s vulnerable strategic position, in particular its trading routes, seems to me the crucial link between different aspects of policy. To deter any threat to them, and still more to resist any threat, implies that we should not pursue policies which make that aim more difficult to achieve. It certainly implies that our domestic policies should give us some capability to deter, and if necessary to resist, such a strategic threat In the first instance, to do this we need the right equipment, the trained man and woman power to use it, to service it and to repair it, and we need to be able to replace it. Behind this issue of defence procurement, there are major planning decisions which go far beyond defence to the nature of Australian society.
In an isolated situation, with vulnerable lines of communication and comparatively small population, one obvious option is to import a sophisticated technology, a high technology, in the form of the latest and best weapons platforms – air, sea and land – and all of the back up they entail. This is the option which has been taken with, for example, the F111, the Leopard tank and certain naval vessels. Australian industry, although it can supply some components, plays a minor role In effect we are importing high technology and exporting jobs.
This is not the occasion to debate the merits of particular weapons, but the general principle – import the latest and best – is open to serious question. Is this type of equipment in fact the best for Australia? These are some good reasons to believe that a lower level of technology might better meet our defence needs, that more items of less sophisticated equipment may be preferable for our purposes than a few highly sophisticated ones. Much of that less sophisticated equipment could be made – or at least modified – in Australia. This option for greater self-reliance in defence procurement would have significant effects on Australian industry, and upon other policies. We would, for example, be giving some protection to aircraft and ship building industries, to electronics and to those parts of the motor vehicle industry which had defence potential We would incidentally, be creating jobs and not exporting them.
To recognise the international pressure exerted by Australia’s strategic situation has these kinds of consequences for domestic policies. The low or lower technology option has the advantage of matching some defence needs with some of the present needs of the Australian economy, such as greater employment opportunities. Still, this is a short-term implication of our international situation. The longer term implications of our international position point to another option which is a much more fundamental planning choice.
I earlier described the Australian economy as a primary producing one – animal, vegetable and mineral – chiefly for distant industrial or industrialising markets. Although more than half of our imports come from the same small group of industrial nations, there is no balance in trade between us and any individual one of them, but from them as a group our major imports are machinery and transport equipment, manufactured goods, petroleum products and chemicals.
What this pattern of trade says to me is that Australia could obviously be self-sufficient in food for its population, and it could reduce its strategic vulnerability by trying to shift its agricultural export markets from the distant industrial ones to closer ones of nations which are industrialising or whose economic and population growth outstrips their own food resources. That, in my opinion, is not an impossible prospect. We have already made one such major shift over the last twenty years when the possibility of British entry into the Common Market and adoption of the Community’s agricultural policy first became a likelihood. While it is improbable that there will be another General de Gaulle to give us rather more time to do so than we could reasonably expect, such a shift of our agricultural export markets is a foreseeable prospect.
By itself, however, such an attempt to redirect a significant proportion of our agricultural exports would have only limited benefits for the security of our international position. I think it is also necessary to plan for development which would use much more of our primary produce in manufacturing or consumption within Australia this is a much more formidable task because of the complexity of the factors involved. Obviously it involves a major increase in population, because fourteen million is not an adequate market for consumption nor an adequate base for the greater industrialisation which the development of our own manufacturing capacity entails.
A major population increase, if it was to occur, brings problems with which we are all familiar. In particular, for Australia, it might entail a drop in the standard of living unless we secured water supply. I have heard it argued by competent scientists that until the de-salination of water is a commercial proposition, the population of Australia cannot exceed 15 million without there being a fall in the standard of living. Be that as it may, a policy of population growth, as a necessary component of industrial development, brings problems which need to be tackled both as prerequisites and as co-requisites, I do not underestimate the difficulties, especially since any early population growth can only come from immigration. I think the grappling with such problems is one of the obligations of the domestic planning necessary because of Australia’s international situation.
Industrial growth or the growth of manufacturing industries’ are general terms. I am not suggesting across-the-board development for its own sake. The development needs to be selective, and it follows from what I have said the first principle of selection has to be relevance to Australia’s capacity to deter threats to its security and to reduce or abolish constraints upon independent national decisions. In short, to reduce our dependence upon imports essential to that purpose If anyone doubts that principle, let me say that Australia now imports equipment from Britain, France, Italy. Germany, Norway. Sweden. Switzerland and the United States, and that with the governments of these countries there was sometimes explicit and almost always implicit agreement that they must be consulted before the equipment can be used in any military operation In fact, three governments – France. Sweden and Switzerland – threatened to withhold spare parts for equipment of their country’s manufacture, if it were used in Vietnam. Quite apart from any such direct pressure, the need to import spares and to replace or repair equipment, especially under conditions of frequent or urgent use. is always a severe constraint
At present, we import something of the order of 65% of our defence equipment, at a cost almost equal to our deficit or current account after capital inflow has been discounted. So leaving aside the reduction of international pressures upon Australia through its strategic and trading positions, the growth of a domestic, defence orientated industry has economic advantages in terms of our balance of payments.
If we were to aim at such a programme of industrial development, the key industries for development would be ship-building and repair, aircraft construction and repair, munitions and electronics. Because of their importance, these seem to me to be the industries which should be protected to foster their development, with the incidental advantage of job creation on a significant scale. If we set ourselves a target, for example of 90% Australian production defence equipment (that, incidentally is the Swedish percentage) both capital and necessary services in 1981, at a cost of $2,600 million a year, on estimate. I have seen calculates that some 60,000 jobs would be created. A more precise measure is the revers. When successive governments decided to buy the patrol frigates built in the United States instead of the Australian designed DDL destroyer which could have been built at the Williamstown dockyard 2000 jobs disappeared.
The Williamstown case, however, makes another point. The industrial development which our international situation calls for is not starting from scratch. There are existing skills in all of the industries I have mentioned, underdeveloped though those industries presently are, which provide a base from which to start. They are incidentally skills which are dissipated when they are not used to capacity, so that they are wasting assets. There is, I think, an area in which new skills, building on the small existing base, could relatively quickly develop, as the Israelis have shown. It would be possible, especially with aircraft, to take an existing model and extensively re-design it. Not, that is, to start from scratch, but from an existing technology. The same could be done for ships and tanks.
I have mentioned two spin-off benefits of such industrial development: a contribution to our balance of payments, job creation. Obviously a third is the development of skills, and those skills are exportable, either as technology or through the sale of what they have produced in Australia.
One specialised skill in particular is exportable in itself and in its product. That is ‘tropicalisation’, the adaptation of equipment to the conditions in parts of Australia – I make the obvious exception for Melbourne and Victoria – which are much the same as those in the southeast Asian area where potential customers are. Indonesia and the Philippines have, during ASEAN meetings, made clear their interest in such skills and equipment. In developing industry of this type we are not only helping ourselves but our neighbours.
In speaking of our region, in the context of the kind of industrial development I have been discussing, the region means South East Asia. To be more precise, those nations of South East Asia, which are members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to which Australia belongs. The Australian domestic policies and planning I have been arguing tor entail that our association with the region should be closer. The region constitutes a large, close, not distant, potential market for our primary produce and for the manufactures, including a large component of defence equipment and its civil spin-oft equipment, which we can produce with our own potential industrial development to off-set the major international pressures upon us.
It is a region which, apart from our active exploration for oil, can supply us with two essential commodities we lack: oil and rubber. As a region, it has a complementary, not a rivalry of economies which makes more sense as a common market or as a free-trade area than did the economies of western Europe when the treaties of Rome were signed to form the European Economic Community, the Common Market.
The international pressures upon Australia, so I have argued, must shape Australian domestic policy and planning towards a reorientation of our export markets and towards an industrial development orientated towards the defence of our exposed strategic position, with important spinoff benefits for our domestic economy and for our export economy in southeast Asia I have argued that there is. in consequence, a strong case for planning towards a free-trade area of the ASEAN nations. Not a Common Market, for that would imply the free movement of labour. You will notice, however, that I have not included Japan. Indeed the kind of development for which I have been arguing introduces some competition with Japan, both in the South East Asian region and in the Australian domestic market. We would be doing things which the Japanese can also do. But if you remember, I said at the outset that it was our lines of trade and communication with Japan which in part made us strategically vulnerable If they were cut or seriously interrupted, in our present situation we would be severely hurt: and of ourselves we do not have the means to protect them. Asia which are members of the ASEAN to which Australia belongs. The Australian domestic policies and planning I have been arguing for entail that our association with the region should be.
To include Japan in our regional planning would make sense only if the Japanese themselves wanted it sufficiently to enter into what would, in effect, be a military alliance of the ANZUS type. I see no signs that the Japanese want that, nor that a Japanese government politically could undertake the necessary rearmament nor make the necessary military commitment. I think Japan sees, or is likely to see, the future more in terms of a relationship with China. Japan’s own vulnerability points away from involvement with a distant vulnerable Australia and towards a different regional power grouping than the South East Asian one, although the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity sphere, including Australia, remains an option. It, however, it is right that Russian policy is primarily anti-Chinese, with a ring of bases from the Horn of Africa, through Aden. India, Afghanistan, Vietnam, to Vladivostock and Mongolia, then such an option may already be foreclosed. Japan would be an incidental casualty of Russia’s China policy in a way that Australia and a South East Asian regional grouping would not be. if such a grouping, including Australia, had the capacity to deter any threat.
In saying this, I have re-stated the premises from which I began: that Australia is presently vulnerable, that we should, as the main thrust of our domestic policies and planning, seek to reduce this vulnerability, and that there are major incidental benefits from such a policy. You may reject the premises, and believe that there are no such threats to Australia, that we can continue much as we have been doing, in the comfortable belief that the age of peaceful co-existence has really come or at any rate is about to dawn.
I wish I could share that belief which would allow us to plan for a certain future, but I cannot. Indeed, I think we are entering a particularly uncertain period, with an ageing leadership in the Soviet Union and, I would judge, a struggle for the succession after Brehznev in which Russian foreign policy may be an important piece in a domestic chess-game.
That is an immediate prospect, but it is also, in the politics of a totalitarian society one which will recur. It is not the sole reason for our domestic planning to take the direction I have urged: I think the domestic and regional benefits are justification enough. But the particular uncertainties of the near future are a timely occasion to start, and I do not think that the opportunities we presently have in South East Asia will remain open for long.
The Author
Francis West was born in 1927 at Holmpton, Yorkshire and was son of a naval officer. He completed degrees at the University of Leeds (1944-47) and a doctorate at Trinity College, Cambridge (1949-52), becoming the first Research Fellow appointed to the Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS) at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1952. His academic interests broadened from medieval studies to becoming a recognized expert on the south-west Pacific. He was, among other things, the biographer of Australian colonial administrator Hubert Murray and wrote the influential Political Advancement in the South Pacific. Professor West was a notable figure at ANU for many years. He retired to Cambridge where died on 2 February 2025. An excellent tribute on the passing of Professor West by Professor Peter Stanley can be found at:
https://humanities.org.au/our-community/francis-j-west-1927-2025/
