The drums of war are growing louder
Michael PEZZULLO
Later this year Australia
and the US will mark the 70th anniversary of our military alliance. We seek to
be militarily self-reliant in all contingencies short of great-power war.
Nonetheless, our national
defence strategy has at its heart the protection afforded to Australia in the
most perilous circumstances by the military might of the US — including by way
of the deterrence effect of its nuclear arsenal — and its willingness and
preparedness to wage war against a major-power adversary.
Of course, before the
striking of the alliance agreement in 1951, Australians and Americans had
already fought side-by-side in two world wars. The ANZUS Treaty gave formal
shape to implied strategic understandings. So, to mark the passing of Anzac Day
this year, I should like to draw attention to remarkable — but too little
remembered — addresses by two US generals of the army, who in terms of
Australian military rank would have been field marshals.
General of the army
Douglas MacArthur gave an address to the US Military Academy at West Point on
May 12, 1962. This general, who had known war over 50 of its bloodiest years,
reminded the cadets of West Point that their mission was to train to fight and,
when called on, to win their nation’s wars. All else was entrusted to others.
MacArthur reminded the cadets that only the dead had seen the end of war and
that for so long as war afflicted the human condition, a nation’s warriors had
but one dedicated purpose, with all else being secondary.
Nor, MacArthur said,
should our warriors be thought of as warmongers. On the contrary, warriors,
above all people, pray for peace — for it is they who must suffer and bear the
deepest wounds, the trauma and too often the death that is the invoice of war.
It is left to the rest of
us to make the wisest possible choices about sending our warriors to war. It is
left to the rest of us to make clear their mission, and to explain why it is
that we ask them to face danger and suffer the scar of war.
It is left to the rest of
us to ensure that our statecraft and diplomacy are effectively pursued. It is
left to the rest of us to ensure that the best military strategies and plans
are in place, that the required machines and war stocks are to hand, that all
scenarios have been explored and tested, and that strategic assumptions have
been challenged and reset, as necessary. It is left to the rest of us to
mobilise the necessary treasure and resources that are required to support the mission
of our warriors.
It is left to the rest of
us to secure the homeland in their absence, including by way of civil defence,
ensuring the continuity of services and producing the machines and stocks of
war. It is left to the rest of us to volunteer our services on the home front,
something that typically fell to women in wars of old as the men went off to do
the fighting, although today we are increasingly likely to send our female
warriors into battle alongside their male comrades.
Most significantly this
year, we recognise that it is finally left to the rest of us to care for the
returned and to honour the dead.
MacArthur knew Australia
well. From 1942 he served as the supreme commander of allied forces, Southwest
Pacific area, with his general headquarters in Melbourne and then Brisbane.
While addressed to cadets of the US Military Academy, his address could be
given today to Australian cadet officers, almost 60 years later, and still
could be relevant to the final punctuation mark.
Another US general who
had known war for more than 50 years was president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who
was also a five-star general of the army.
In a speech delivered on
April 16, 1953, Eisenhower rallied his fellow Americans and the country’s
allies to the danger posed by the amassing of Soviet military power and the new
risk of militaristic aggression. Throughout his presidency Eisenhower instilled
in the free nations the conviction that as long as there persisted tyranny’s
threat to freedom they must remain armed, strong and ready for war, even as
they lamented the curse of war.
Today, free nations
continue to face this sorrowful challenge. In a world of perpetual tension and
dread, the drums of war beat — sometimes faintly and distantly, and at other
times more loudly and ever closer. Free nations pity the burden of arms that
drain the wealth and labour of all — a wasting of strength that thwarts true
abundance and happiness for all people. Eisenhower, the general who had known
war fully unleashed, the president who was the first human in history with the
power to destroy all life, bemoaned the fact every weapon that was made was a
theft from those who hungered, who were poor and who dreamt of a better life.
Every dollar spent on war
machines is a dollar not spent on a school, a hospital, a road or a bridge.
Eisenhower, the military man, the president with his finger on the button of
global destruction, said this was not a way of life at all. Under the threat of
war, it was instead “humanity hanging from a cross of iron”.
Let there not be doubt —
war shakes confidence in a civilisation’s soul. Who could begrudge the sorrow
of Europeans after the horror of World War I? Yet, in their sorrow and their
revulsion at the thought of another terrible bloodbath, they did not heed the drums
of war that beat through the 1930s — until too late they once again took up
arms against Nazism and Fascism.
Today, as free nations
again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues
that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let
us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again,
yet again, for the curse of war. By our resolve and our strength, by our
preparedness of arms, and by our statecraft, let us set about reducing the
likelihood of war — but not at the cost of our precious liberty. War may well
be folly, but the greater folly is to wish away the curse by refusing to give
it thought and attention, as if in so doing war may leave us be, forgetting us
perhaps.
The least we can do for
the host of the dead whom we remember this Anzac week is to be prepared to face
equivalent challenges with the same resolve and sense of duty that they
displayed in years past.
Michael Pezzullo is
secretary of the Department of Home Affairs.
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