The Australian Greens have recently announced their first military budget. This represented a shift in party policy with the upcoming election, attempting to be seen as a ‘serious player’ in Australian politics. As the Greens embrace political realism and continue to shift to the right, the socialist left in Australia must articulate a response that addresses the political questions this poses. That is, how to understand and relate to the military and the concept of national defence in capitalist states themselves.
With a federal election only weeks away, the Greens embrace of the defence industry reflects an attempt to show the mainstream of Australian politics the party is a serious contender, ready to govern in coalition and no longer directed by idealist principles. Thus the party says they would invest $4 billion in supporting Australian manufacturers to develop drones and missiles for defensive purposes. The Greens claim they would withdraw Australia from the AUKUS pact and use the savings to combat climate change. These policies are coupled with the slogan of an ‘independent’ Australian defence policy. While demands to move Australia away from a military relationship with the United States and United Kingdom are commendable, the proposition of an ‘independent’ and ‘peaceful’ Australian military policy is impossible.
Australia is a capitalist nation. It is substantially influenced by American and British investments, which have the political ramifications of entanglement with foreign political interests. However, the sector of the ruling class that controls the Australian state is cunning enough to selectively support the imperial ambitions of its allies only when they benefit Australian capitalism. Australia is, after all, an imperialist power in its own right, exerting control over and exploiting the resources of its neighbours in the South Pacific.
Unfortunately for advocates of an independent Australian foreign policy, withdrawal from the world market and the breaking of political ties this requires is impossible under capitalism. The perpetual search for valorisation means capital increasingly needs access to cheaper labour power, raw materials and markets at the same time as both economic and ecological crises deepen. No government, even the Greens, are capable of managing this drive. The only solution is the complete overthrow of the system. Despite the wishes of some who see themselves as ‘socialists’ in the Greens, this is not on the party’s cards.
This is because the Greens are a reformist political party. Despite their position on the progressive wing of Australian politics, their policies and programs do not understand or even acknowledge capitalism as a problem. Though they may have something of a base in sectors of the working class, the party’s politics ultimately reflect those of the petit bourgeoisie. Squeezed by the contradictions of capitalism, they seek to reform its ‘bad’ parts. The Greens will defend small, local and ‘ethical’ business, never grasping the totalising nature of the system. It should be to no surprise then that the Greens can only ever vacillate back and forth on the class nature of political questions.
In light of the Greens policy, the question has been raised about how those on the socialist left should relate to an Australian ‘defence’ policy? The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) has proposed a Popular Frontist line that supports the ‘independent Australia’ notion, based on a ‘progressive’ alliance. They have, in turn, hit out at both Socialist Alternatives Redflag newspaper and the Revolutionary Communist Organisation’s Partisan (or at least, a letter to the magazine). Both of these publications have respectively, and correctly, critiqued problems of the Greens defence policy. Green Left Weekly has asked activists in the Greens to ask questions of their leadership and call for further cuts to the military budget.
Unfortunately, Redflag and Green Left only critique surface proposals, presenting the question as one of the policies of particular parties. They do not address the fundamental political questions of how revolutionaries should relate to the capitalist state. This is likely linked to their own electoral ambitions. Both Victorian Socialists and Socialist Alliance propose deeper cuts to military expenditure than the Greens, but neither articulate a revolutionary position in regards to the question of national defence. It’s unlikely most members of either party really agree with the limited demand of cutting military expenditure, but they are also passing up an opportunity to clarify the difference between revolutionary positions and reformist ones.
Anarchists recognise that Australia is an imperialist state. It bears all the markers; export of capital, a monopolised economy, leeching value from its poorer neighbours. The Australian military has rarely been required to act in self defense, but has undertaken numerous wars abroad. Increasingly numerous sectors of the Australian manufacturing industry produce weapons for profit, and the ADF more or less exists to protect the profits of Australian capitalists and their allies.
So if Australian capitalism is built on the exploitation of foreign nations and reinforced by military means, then the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is an enemy of the global working class. Internationalism means more than limiting the ADF to Australian borders, it means assisting anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements to actively defeat our government. Workers in nations oppressed by the ADF cannot be expected to believe the internationalism of Australian workers is sincere if the latter do not support the liberation of the former. This means not only must socialists oppose a defence policy for the Australian state, but advocate for its defeat. This is not just a matter of principles, it is also a strategic question. This is the basis of a working class position on militarism in Australia.
An analysis of the military situation makes several facts clear. The ADF is not a conscript army, it is not ‘popular’ in the sense of containing a large segment of the working class that may be won over to radical positions during crisis and conflict. Though there is a small layer of workers convinced to join the reserves for financial reasons, this is marginal compared to many other nations. As it stands, the ADF is generally based on a small, voluntary, highly trained and well equipped layer of professional soldiers. ADF personnel are ideologically motivated and actively indoctrinated, the liberal veneer of ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘bringing democracy’ to nations like Iraq is sometimes used to impress upon its recruits they are doing the right thing abroad.
We have already stated that the army in capitalist nations is used to defend the interests of its ruling class, be that at home or abroad. Not recognising this, the Greens policy is based on the speculative situation that there is a ‘foreign invasion’ of Australia. Let’s be clear, the talk of national defence by the Australian ruling class, including the Greens, is premised on the idea of China as a threat. Could the ADF ever realistically repel the gigantic, well equipped People’s Liberation Army? Unlikely. Perhaps the USA could, and this speaks to Australian capitalists military alliance with the States. But US involvement would risk an even more totalising conflict. Warfare today is increasingly based on remotely controlled, unmanned technologies such as drones and deadly missile strikes, including nuclear warheads. Nothing can really defend against this, except for workers across borders overthrowing capitalist regimes that would pit them against one another.
The military, even if it is only a handful of soldiers who fly drones and shoot missiles a la the Greens proposal, does not produce the type of person that will build socialism. There is no ‘union of soldiers’ in the ADF who fight for working class interests. This is because of the class nature of the military institution. We can no more advocate for a socialist army than we can a socialist police force. While the composition of the military may change with conscription, that would only require a change in the tactics of how we relate to rank and file soldiers. Either way, working class revolution requires the abolition of the forces of the state.
So while internationalism may be an ‘abstract’ concept, it is very practical when situated in the reality that only the working class can overthrow capitalism and end war itself. A revolution in one territory must be spread, and anarchists do not advocate we stop half way in ‘seizing state power’ or developing ‘independent’ policy. If there is a war to be fought, it is a class war.
No sincere socialist should make peace with the Greens defence policy. In contrast to offering $4 billion to the weapons manufacturing industry and ADF, anarchists propose anti-imperialism, internationalism and class war. In times of international conflict, workers and revolutionaries have a responsibility to advocate anti-militarist positions, the overthrow of their governments, revolution and the fraternisation and solidarity of workers across borders. The spread of international revolution is not only a principle, but the practical means by which workers may put an end to the whole torrid affair. Such is an anarchist defence policy.
