The United States is no longer the “only pole of power in the Indo-Pacific region,” which forces Australia to rethink its approaches to ensuring peace and the prospect of a conflict threatening its national security.
This is reportedly stated in the government’s “National Defence” report, the authors of which are former heads of the Australian Defence Ministry Angus Houston and Stephen Smith. In light of this, the authors of the report noted that Canberra must revise “its principles and approaches in order to avoid the highest-level strategic risks, the prospect of a major conflict in the region that directly threatens the nation’s security.”
“After the end of the World War II, Australia has faced various threats to its national security, however, the current geopolitical circumstances are radically different from anything before. The United States is no longer the sole pole of power in the Indo-Pacific region and the strategic competition between major countries has resumed with its intensity becoming a defining feature of the current era.”
According to the report, the Indo-Pacific region has “entered a decisive period, where strategic risks require new approaches towards planning their own defence, careful analysis of deployment locations, size and structure of their armed forces, as well as acquisition of combat and defence assets”.