Mobilisation in the 21st Century: More than Arithmetic

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When then-Prime Minister John Curtin declared “total mobilisation” in 1942, he was starting from a position of relative strength. Rapid industrialisation at the beginning on the 20^th century had enabled Australia to mobilise its national support base previously during the First World War. It also had the questionable advantage of being at war since 1939, with enemy troops literally at the front door. In 2023 the question of mobilisation is a fundamentally different equation. The Government can’t count on the same social, political, and economic levers that it once did: the tap marked ‘national support base’ won’t work if it doesn’t own the tap anymore, nor control what comes out.

Since its earliest settlement by Europeans, Australia has been a marginal proposition at best. We have enjoyed the unearned advantages of geography, good luck, an absurdly rich resource base, and a world more than happy to trade with us. As part of the Anglosphere, we have assumed that our place in the sun is not only assured but preordained. Post-war, things have gone so well for so long that it is difficult to imagine otherwise.

Yet complacency always comes at a cost. An economy driven primarily by resource extraction and rewarded in high commodity prices is easy money. The tough decisions around, say, diversifying the economy and multi-generational investment in national infrastructure, education, workforce, and skills is hard politically, so it can wait for another day. Besides, the good times are sure to last forever. What that means in practical terms is that since WWII we are now significantly poorer in both materiel capacity and human resources: two elements fundamental in a nation’s ability to mobilise.

In contrast, when Curtin announced total mobilisation, it came on the heels of three hard years of war: people clearly understood the stakes. The public were united firmly behind the war effort, and the end-state was clear: defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The process of mobilising the national support base, directing resources towards a common objective, winning the conflict, and then demobilising to a peacetime context was by no means an easy task, but one in which the broad brushstrokes were clear.

His spokesperson articulated exactly what mobilisation meant the day before Darwin was bombed:

“It means that upon the gazettal of the total mobilisation regulations everybody in this country who has anything or is anything can be ordered by the Government to do what the Government demands. All the possessions of all the people are henceforth at the Government’s disposal”.

It is difficult to imagine a similar proclamation today, and harder still thinking about how that would work in practice.

Most obviously, we are not in a state of war. The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) notes the reduction of strategic warning time and a need to increase military preparedness, which is prudent in a competitive and multipolar environment. Yet despite media-baiting rhetoric around the ‘drumbeat of war’, a conflict is not imminent. That the biggest perceived threat to our way of life is also our largest trading partner is an irony not lost on many. Our strategic framing is less Battle of Midway and more Utopia.

Further, the resources that might need to be harnessed and allocated at a national level for widespread mobilisation are no longer controlled by the State, or even by majority Australian ownership. Victoria and South Australia’s electricity network is entirely privatised, although State governments own networks in Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. In New South Wales there is a mix of public/private ownership. In the mining sector the picture is worse: up to 90% of the industry is foreign owned. BHP – the so-called ‘big Australian’, is 94% foreign owned. Both Telstra and Qantas, despite statutory limits on foreign ownership, could well exceed that with Telstra 51% foreign owned, and Qantas 62% foreign owned.

Added to these woes is the fragile nature of any part of our economy that does not rely on exporting natural resources to other countries. Mobilisation is a heroic endeavour that is half Apollo program and half Manhattan Project, but our GDP is about the size of Brazil. We repeat the comforting myth that we are a strong middle power, except the facts speak differently: Australia’s productivity is on par with Iceland; our domestic manufacturing less than Malaysia; our labour market is desperately – and perennially – short of skilled professions, and our research and development budget has fallen to its lowest proportion of GDP since 1978-79.

Mobilisation requires a degree of depth and resilience in our net capacity and capability: in both instances Australia’s cupboard is bare.

Complicating this picture is the increasingly fractured nature of our polity. Post-COVID, trust in the ability of Government to do the right thing for the country has plummeted. Likewise, in a study conducted by the Scanlon Institute in 2022, measures of social cohesion, social inclusion and social justice have fallen to a lower point than before the pandemic. Online radicalisation and conspiracist narratives have translated into actual public policy challenges: witness the entirely confected yet supercharged moral panics around vaccinations, transgender rights, and sex education as recent examples.

Undertaking mobilisation within this febrile environment is fraught with consequences both obvious and unintended. Take the DSR’s recommended expansion of Defence bases as an example. Even at first blush this signals a massive investment in the north and west of Australia in terms of development and infrastructure. Roads and railways will need to be built, seaports established or refurbished, regional and remote airports renovated to accommodate military aircraft.

Expand this mobilisation scenario further to include strategic fuel reserves, logistics hubs, advanced manufacturing and accelerated military preparedness and it will quickly butt up against the Laws of Thermodynamics: who is going to do all of this and where will they come from? States and Territories rightly have their own priorities, so there is a trade-off that will need to be made. This trade-off can (and will) be measured in terms of access to government services, education, healthcare, employment, standard of living, and the fundamental rights of living in a liberal democracy.

There is no magic wand in this scenario – prioritising one thing means doing less of another.

Assuming they can be found (which they can’t) people and skills that could otherwise be generating capital and value will need to be repurposed ‘just in case’ the worst happens. This represents a massive reorientation of our civil society, with engineers, healthcare workers, IT professionals, technical trades, financial services, and public servants asked – or required – to change what they do and where they do it. And if people decide mobilisation isn’t for them? Is the Government proposing to compel Australia’s resources and population in the name of preserving liberty and democratic values?

In such a scenario the fastest growing profession might not be planners or logisticians, but constitutional lawyers.

A lot of this comes down to what strategic role we think we might – or should – play. Are we Fortress Australia punching above our weight and playing a leading role on the main stage? Or are we a minor player trying to keep our head down but still being seen to contribute meaningfully to regional security?

In any case, attempts to transform our economy and society in service of strategic mobilisation poses challenges not seen in generations. Handled badly, it will erode social cohesion and, ironically, damage national resilience and our overall security. It would be perverse, for example, if Defence personnel were pressed into service to fill civilian vacancies in healthcare, air traffic control or transport if attempting to mobilise the national support base resulted in critical shortfalls because the public resisted or simply opted out.

It is the paradox of mobilisation in a country that has assumed a ‘just in time’ mentality in everything from food, transport, fuel, essential services, and even military capability. Long-term planning is required for effective mobilisation, but the imposition is difficult to justify.

Even more galling, what if Australia did in fact mobilise at great social, economic, and political cost but a potential adversary didn’t have the decency to turn up?